okay, i’m going to make a psa. i don’t know about vann, but i want to clarify:
i am not here to validate your toxic, abusive, and parasitic behaviour, whether it’s related to antisocial personality disorder or not.
i am not here to further support and encourage the idea that being abusive and having antisocial personality disorder are automatically the same thing.
i am not going to pretend that i am some saint, that i’ve never engaged in toxic, abusive, and parasitic behaviour. i think that is where a lot of my perspective comes from, and that must be understood. i was a drug addict, and involved in various criminal/illegal activities for many years. i was awful to people, and i engaged in terrible behaviour.
did my antisocial personality disorder contribute? did it affect how i acted? yes, it absolutely did. it was distinct from other drug addicts i knew. my symptoms were assets for that kind of environment. i’ve been in recovery for two years. completely unrelated to drugs, i will admit, i struggle with behaviour that is not good. just because it’s related to my disorders doesn’t automatically make it okay.
i will not encourage or support or validate that kind of thing. it’s not about saying symptoms are inherently abusive. it’s not about “social justice” or trying to “appear good”. it’s about saying “hey, i think this is fucked up, and i want to point that out to you/explain that to you”.
i realize some people may not understand where i’m coming from. but learning and understanding my symptoms, what abusive/toxic/parasitic behaviour was (and if i engaged in it), detrimental behaviour (to myself and others), as well as how to re-direct that behaviour is something that is important to me. it took, and still takes, a lot of introspection, as well as work. it took many years for me to get to this point - i am almost 27 years old.
and that is what i want to encourage. that is what i want to support. so no, i’m not going to tell you all your behaviour is Okay just because it may or may not have to do with your disorder.