Almost complete lack of empathy.

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"Psychopathy", at the time, meant something else, more like "psychopathology", if I understand correctly.

Ehh, funny, but thankfully not related to actually being a psychopath. Back then, mental disorders were organized into "neurosis" and "psychosis", and autism got stuck into the psychosis category because of how closely they still thought it was related to schizophrenia.

I too find it troubling that you don't care about other people. Research antisocial personality disorder; that might be part of your problem, except that you are too smart to do nasty things to other people, and find that there is no benefit in doing so; so you do not. People who have antisocial personality disorder but are smart and/or perceptive will often become quite functional in society because they know that being kind to others is "good strategy"--it is part of an implicit social contract that says if I help others, then others will help me. Though, if you want to be technical, people like this will no longer be diagnosable with antisocial personality disorder because they are no longer actively hurting other people--they know better, and realize that their lives are better if they are kind to people than if they are not.

Also look into schizoid personality disorder--that's less anti-social, more a-social. SPD is like extreme introversion: A tendency to simply find other people irrelevant and boring, to want to be alone, to care very little about others' opinions. It is also associated with not having a strong sex drive and not having strong interests or engaging hobbies.

But with all this talk about psychological labels, I need to caution you against labeling yourself too much. Labels are guides, and every person is unique. Very few problems actually fit into labels perfectly. They do have the benefit of letting you find other cases that are similar to yours and studying them. But you are still yourself; don't fall into the trap of thinking of yourself as simply an example of some category or another. You're more than that; you're human and humans are too complex for that.

Again, not saying you're wrong, but one of my problems is that I fantasize about torturing/killing people. It always starts with someone doing anything from looking at me the wrong way to someone trying to hurt me. The fantasies are vivid and drawn out. My favorite ones are similar to the ending of Audition (very creepy if you enjoy those types of movies) and the Saw movies (making the victim torture themselves). I get caught in what my doctor calls a "strange loop" where my fantasize play in my head over and over again and I can't break out of them until I can occupy myself with something, like playing music or video games. While I do tend to get tense and angry, my face usually in an uncontrollable sneer, my doctor also thinks that I take satisfaction in these thoughts.

Is Asp-Z the person's user name? I wonder if I can get him/her to look at this topic and give their opinion on the matter.

No, not lack of (all) emotion(s), different emotions or a different way of experiencing emotions. You know, if something bad's happening it's real and deep-looking misery emotionally for the person, once the stimulus causing that misery is removed, the person's right back to feeling fine or even great again.



The roots of Psychopathie are Greek and the words in it (it's a composition of two words) mean "mind" (or "soul") and "suffering" or "pain". It distantly reminds me of today's "mental disorder".

Anyway, that is how Psychopathie was used in 1944 when they were talking about autistische Psychopathie.

The only person that I let diagnose me are my doctors. I do, however, show them the things that I've found on my own. Neither of them think I have ASPD. They think I'm bipolar. I don't see a connection between being bipolar and my thoughts, but my mood tends to go from flat to angry quite often. Sometimes I have short lived feelings of contentment, even if they're for a few days. I'm a product of years of abuse from my peers and being ostracized for being different. I do like labels because it's like putting things in a neat little filing cabinet. This symptom goes here and this one goes there.

But you're right about why I don't do these bad things. It doesn't benefit me in the long run and it would take away things the have more importance to me.

Ever since I was diagnosed with bipolar, I've been trying to find a link between that and homicidal ideation. I've found that suicidal ideation is common (which I sometimes have), but nothing about thoughts of torturing or killing people.

What's even more confusing for me is why I can think about hurting people and it doesn't bother me, but if I think about one of two people I care about getting hurt or someone hurting an animal, it makes me angry and upset. Is there something aside from ASPD that could describe my thoughts? Like I said, one of my doctors thinks I show signs of complex PTSD, but there still isn't anything I've found describing my thoughts.

Also, is there a reason why my doctor may be persistent in sticking with a diagnosis of bipolar over a personality disorder? I mean, instead of a diagnosis code for ASD, he's been using the code for generalized anxiety disorder. I have both, but he says that it's to help with insurance and some other stuff in my favor. I don't know how a different diagnosis would change that. Maybe someone could explain that to me.

May be you will get free meds. What you mention in your first paragraph above has sometimes been associated with bipolar disorder.