Are people with autism borderline sociopaths?

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I'm wondering if English isn't the first language of some people here. At no point did I write 'functioning sociopath'.

Oh, my. What a mess.

I feel like an important distinction might help clear things up in here.

"Manipulation" is not the same as "persuasion." Yes, all people who live with other people try to persuade each other. That does not mean they are trying to manipulate each other.

Persuasion is presenting possibilities to another person so they can make a better informed decision. You present advice and appeal to reason, but ultimately let the other person decide for themselves. One can put on an "act of normalcy" or "act of self confidence" without harming the other person's judgement. In fact, presenting persuasive advice from behind a "mask of self confidence" is less emotionally damaging to the recipient.

(Emotional) Manipulation is presenting false information to a person to confound another person's decision, or abuse them emotionally to disorient them, so that they make a "wrong" decision that you will benefit from. Presenting lies behind a "mask of truth" or eroding their mental state from behind a "mask of sympathy" or support, is manipulative (sociopathic).

Let's look at some examples. Take a hypothetical argument wherein a romantic couple is considering dissolution of their partnership. A wants to break up. B does not.

Okay, I don't know what you mean by "functionally sociopathic." Yes, I used the wrong word, it happens.

"The Socialized Psychopath is perhaps the most quietly terrifying creature on earth. Often seen as a charming Ted Bundy who aspires, and studies, to sit, ultimately, on the Judicial Bench while conducting a one man holocaust in his leisure time.

The greater reality of the Socialized Psychopath is far subtler than that. Every so often a voice is raised to put forward the hypothesis that most, if not all of our national leaders and captains of industry are, in reality, Socialized Psychopaths. In real terms this is unlikely to be the case.

No matter how cold blooded, ruthless and intelligent, the Socialized Psychopath simply screws up far too often to achieve true greatness. A lack of empathy disables more than kindness, and he has has too many intuitive blind spots. Apart from which the Psychopath lacks "emotional intelligence" he is too easily sidetracked by the pursuit of instant gratification. He lacks the determination and drive that produces sustained effort. He greatest and most pressing need is to avoid boredom, so that perhaps unconsciously he orchestrates his own obstacles and crises.

Regardless, forever handicapped by his blindness to the deeper meanings and motives of others, the Socialized Psychopath is usually driven to seek or create an environment that is under his control. The more totalitarian the control, the more comfortable he is.

Though on a far smaller scale than the nightmare scenario of a world under covert, totalitarian, psychopathic control, the microcosmic controlled environment of the Socialized Psychopath can become a devastating organism with far reaching effects.

In one of it's worst form the Controlled Environment takes on many of the characteristics of a cult.

Generally even a Psychopath of quite average intelligence has the ability to home in on the vulnerabilities of an individual or group that appears almost supernatural. It isn't. It is rather focus without empathetic distraction. Once having established those vulnerabilities he exploits them. At first there is no specific agenda beyond usurping existing control mechanisms, rather as you would rock an heavy object to destabilize it before attempting to push it.

He will spot anxieties and covertly maximize them. For instance if there is a local burglary he might show every sympathy for even the most neurotic fear of recurrence while amplifying it and insuring it becomes contagious. He will pinpoint and utilize the dysfunctional and morally flexible as "adjutants" in his endeavor to impose control, playing their fears and inadequacies towards his own agenda, almost always at one remove.

A Socialized Psychopath is very hard to oppose. Those strong and healthy enough to oppose him for the right reasons, are hopelessly handicapped by their own morality. The Psychopath is completely unconcerned by the damage his actions may do to others even quite incidentally, more than unconcerned, he is oblivious. Healthy people are as concerned with the secondary effects of their actions on others as they are with the primary effects. Healthy people are intrinsically incapable of being sufficiently unscrupulous to "beat him at his own game" which often uses other people as weapons or threats. As Psychopath sees taking an innocent hostage (in whatever sense) as either an expedient move, or not. Other people would find the notion of taking an innocent hostage somewhere between "only in extremis" and abhorrent. Even if they could overcome that the Psychopath would remain unmoved and immune.

On the other hand, there are those who would oppose him for the wrong reasons. Perhaps because he is threatening their own aspirations to abusive control. Those he can often find a way to "buy", not with money, but by furnishing their needs, and ultimately gaining control of them by rendering them dependent upon him.

The reality is that once a Socialized Psychopath builds his Controlled Environment within a community it can become impossible to challenge until the Psychopath either trips himself up or becomes bored and moves on.

As for the ongoing devastation. Imagine real people being used and abused, without conscience, as though they were no more than toy soldiers, to accord with the whims of one person.

On one dramatic occasion 600 or so "toy soldiers" had kool-aid laced with cyanide, instead of lunch, in a remote camp in Guyana. That, of course is extreme. More usually the Controlled Environment of the Psychopath is an hermetically sealed world where the guilty and abusive are supported and upheld, while the innocent and victims are blamed and condemned. Not as a crisis, but as an whole way of life to which the community becomes anaesthetized and inured, regarding it as "normal", even blindly defending it against their own obvious best interests. "

Why are you in a relationship with a sociopath?

To the above poster where the hell did you pull that BS from? Sounds like someone pretty much just made it all up.

Haha that's a funny question...or is the wording funny? It seems to assume that I entered the relationship knowing what I know now, which is not the case. Or that I have the freedom to get out, now that I know, which is also not exactly true. I could leave him. If he'd allow that. He doesn't, though.
Edit: that last sentence is true and untrue. I could still leave him, but I also lack the desire to leave or stay. I don't "desire" much anymore or seem to know what I want or did I just lose the ability to decide for myself? In any case leaving this relationship would feel like chewing my own leg off to get out of a trap, do I want to suffer ? No. I've survived until now and am not about to bring more pain upon myself.
Well it was actually a good question. But to answer it I have to put myself in a mindset that has become totally foreign to me, this mindset being "you are the one who decides what happens in your life".

Last edited by ediself on 20 Nov 2011, 10:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

I guess I was wondering whether you wanted to continue the relationship or not. And if not, why you wouldn't leave.

EDIT: I read some of your older posts. What are you going to do about him then?

EDIT (again): Fair enough. I feel that way sometimes.. I don't have any particular desire to do anything at all. Though obviously the circumstances are different.

Last edited by The_Perfect_Storm on 20 Nov 2011, 10:25 am, edited 3 times in total.

Sorry i edited the answer above , i saw I was unclear.

Why?



Yeah...seconded...what on earth do that to yourself for?

Zaraeph, you make it sound like psychopaths are the problem. I think the problem is people who let themselves be manipulated. Also, you don't win by 'outplaying' them; you win by unplaying, i.e, by being friendly and honest. Love beats crazy.

I was with a sociopath for a long time as well, edie. It's hard to get out even if you want to. Took me 3 years of actively fighting to get out and constantly losing, so I understand the preference to stay.

Really, is being a sociopath any "worse" than having AS, bipolar or OCD? Does a sociopath choose to be that way? I think not.

I used to worry about a friend that worked with a severe sociopath, and she was fine with it. She was emotionally strong, and knew not to let him take control of anything, ever (she was his boss so that helped). She would drive him to the job site, decide what they were doing next, etc. They got along just fine, and nothing bad ever happened to the lady.

Surely both are quite separate and distinct problems in their own right? Unfortunately the vampire/psychopath analogy only goes so far...the psychopath does not have to wait to be invited in, he can, and frequently does, impose himself upon the unwary and unwilling.

He who thinks nothing can harm you without your consent is hopelessly optimistic and naive I am afraid.

On the other side of the coin, I agree, there are too many people who allow themselves to be manipulated, whether consciously or unconsciously, most usually because to be a puppet is to abnegate responsibility.



Good luck with that...but I think I'll pass...

Besides, surely to give apparent friendship and honesty to a known predator *IS* just a variation on trying to outplay them at the end of the day.

Personally I prefer to avoid them completely if circumstances permit, and if they do not I protect myself as best I can by insuring that the psychopath has no power over me or anything important enough to me to be held over me in any sense.



Does it? I wonder...but even if it did, a psychopath is not remotely crazy (unless as a separate condition). He is as sane, or not as anyone else, and, because of reduced affect, considerably less susceptible to traumatic mental and emotional damage or injury than others might be.

To a psychopath your love is a serendipitious tool handed to him for use against you.

You are quite right, psychopathy is not a question of "blame", that would be preposterous. It is not an elective state of mind. If this makes any sense at all, how can you possibly judge the morality of someone who is born without a moral compass?

But it *IS* a matter of self preservation not to sacrifice yourself, or, of course, anybody else to them.

Psychopaths are completely, 100% insane. They have no connection to the real world, because they can't feel it. They don't have neuroses so they look saner than NTs. It's a messed up place where NTs are mostly so crazy that I prefer the calm emptyness of psychopaths.

You can't use love against someone. Control can often pass for love, maybe you're confusing them.

You are going to have to provide your definition of "sane", because, in terms of any definition I know a psychopath is most definately not insane...and I have never heard sanity defined as "an emotional connection to the real world" in my life, and doubt such a defintion could be accurate, as reality is such a subjective thing.



No, not even slightly confusing them (the two are very different, distinct things to me). If you love someone, they most certainly can use your love as a weapon against you...one of the fundamentals of conscience is an internal barrier against trying is all. Without a conscience a psychopath will use your own love to string you up and torture you without a second thought. Less than that, he will not even notice anything extraordinary about doing it.

From what I read, sociopaths and psychopaths are *extremely* dangerous to aspies, but not necessarily for the reason most NT'ers would suspect.

Psychopaths and sociopaths are finely tuned to emotions. We (aspies) throw off so many conflicting and random signals, we confuse and frustrate the hell out of them, and often cause them to trip up and make mistakes. They interpret this as overt hostility, and put us at the top of their "revenge" list.

Making matters worse, aspies have a really bad (in the sense of self-preservation) tendency to "out" sociopaths and psychopaths by exposing their lies and logical fallacies to others (possibly, by something as innocent as thinking we were confused about an explanation about their past, and attempting to clarify how they could have done A, B, and C if they also did D and E in a way that would have made B physically impossible). At best, we let on to them that we know they're full of $hit and faking the whole thing. In practical terms, we might as well pull out a fake light saber and shout "En Garde!"

As far as "functionally sociopathic" goes, I have to vehemently disagree. You can quote the textbook definition of 'functionally' and 'sociopathic' until you're blue in the face, and claim that it's purely a neutral clinical term. And you'd be wrong. The fact is, 'sociopathic' is an emotionally loaded term, like 'fascism'. It carries so much baggage above and beyond the dry textbook definition of the words, no qualifying adjective can ever rescue it and make it acceptable. You're free to privately believe it's a nice, scientific term, but you'll find that pretty much everyone is going to take exception, and anybody to whom you try and apply the term is going to get upset and take it badly.

Get this through your head and let it sink in well: a sociopath isn't bothered by the fact that he's a sociopath. A psychopath will think it makes him cool and superior. An aspie will go into emotional meltdown if you call him one, because aspies don't set out to hurt friends and innocent bystanders, or view harm as a morally-acceptable strategy for getting what we want. We might do it by accident, or cause wholesale injury to others by virtue of careless inattentiveness, and might not even realize we've done it, but once it sinks in, we feel bad about it. The "sink in" part is important, because with a sociopath or psycopath, it either can't sink in, or would sink in and fall right through the other side without a second thought.

Lots of aspies trip across threads like this one, then spend a tormented week reassuring themselves that they aren't sociopaths -- agonized every step of the way and tormented with guilt about the mere possibility. A real sociopath, if he cared at all, would eventually say "fsck it, I guess I'm a sociopath. Sux to be U."

Aspies, unlike sociopaths and psychopaths, have a conscience. It might have ADD, get distracted a lot, and fail to notice things that are in retrospect fairly obvious... but it does work, eventually (often, obsessively).