Are people with autism borderline sociopaths?

Post Reply New Topic

> Okay, but can you and/or Tambourine Man understand that as strangers on the internet, I don't care how you feel.
> Your emotional reactions are your own problem and no one else's.

(... fast forward ...)

> I'm narcissistic, it's different.

Bingo.

Tambourine Guy & I are aspies with ADD. You're (AFAIK) an aspie who's narcissistic. The last few pages do a great job of illustrating the boundary lines between the two subsets and making them more obvious.

I wasn't posting to make you care about me or my issues. I was posting to help reassure other aspies who read it that they aren't sociopaths, and spare them the week of anguish I went through after reading another thread about aspergers-sociopathy. It might not be universal among aspies, but I'll say with a high degree of confidence that aspies with comorbid ADD (and probably most aspies in general) are going to be traumatized by even the slightest suggestion that they might be sociopaths.

"Sociopath" isn't an adjective that just kind of drifts by in cloudy oblivion. It's a word that hits us on the face like a board, gets our instant attention, and sends many of us straight into horrified meltdown. The horror isn't an act, even if the public expression of that horror is tempered by restraint. It's direct, visceral, and absolutely genuine.

I think what fraac is missing is that:
1. Aspies do have strong emotional reactions to some triggers even if it is irrational.
2. Reacting strongly to being called a sociopath isn't even neccessarily irrational because said person calling you that knows how to interact with people better in many cases. This leads to people being convinced you are something you are not.
3. Hiding some emotions is not necessarily a bad thing. It is protecting yourself from an even worse meltdown, protecting others from dealing with the aftermath of it (which can be large), and in general choosing not to hurt people. Denying emotions or making up ones to prey on others is different than trying not to hurt people.

4. It is NOT the victim's fault. It doesn't matter if we need to protect ourselves better it is stipp not our fault and blaming the victim is still not acceptable.

If you had been directing a small portion of what you had been saying to tamborine-man at me you wpuld have had me unable to eat, sobbing, and in physical pain. Your words do hurt. We are not emotionless robots because of being autistic.

This thread is now open for posting.

Lol what did I miss?

if i lack empathy, why do i bring sick and wounded feral cats to the vet, and pay for it with money i can't afford, and feed feral cats? i'm not getting anything out of it and my neighbors want to kill me for it. why do i worry so much about my nieces? they call me a mother hen...
wanting to be alone and inability to deal with people doesn't mean you don't care if someone's in pain or in trouble. my brother i believe is an aspie too. he'll take his shirt off and give it to you, but he won't talk while doing it... while some people sweet talk you and need constant company, but when you're in trouble, they run away.

I think I am closer to being the total opposite of a sociopath.

Just about all Autists and all Aspies have some of the more benign traits of psychopathy.