Can somebody "grow out" of psychopathic behavior?

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As ashamed as I am to admit this, I have done some things in my childhood and teen years that I am not very proud of. Things that most people claim are signs that a child will grow up to become psychopath. I have done everything from torturing and killing animals, setting things on fire, lying for no reason, etc. I do blame it on the fact that I had a pretty rough childhood. My mother was emotionally and sometimes physically abusive to me and my sibilings, I was molested by a cousin of mine and nobody believed me when I tried to talk about it, and a lot of my family members have had problems with drugs and breaking the law so I never had a lot of good influences in my life.

Yet despite all the bad stuff I did and was subjected to, at some point in my life I actually started feeling bad about it and chose to stop doing it. I'm really not the horrible person I was as a kid anymore, I love all animals including my pets and I never break the law.

Is it possible that I was being led down the path of being an evil psychopath, yet out of sheer luck I just grew out of that mentality and started regretting my actions before it was too late and I ended up doing something I'd regret? Or is it possible that there was just something else wrong with me at the time?

My official diagnoses is Aspergers and I believe that is what I truely have, but it scares me to think about some of the other traits I had as a kid that were very close to what I read about Psychopaths. However I'm really not an expert on psychology so maybe somebody who is can give me some insight into how I was able to grow out of that phase in my life?

If you feel different then you must have 'grown out' of it. Ultimately, it's a question of free will, and since we feel like we are able to make our own choices, that is normally what defines us.

I don't think psychopathy is a singular condition, a linear train of chemistry. So, whereas you might have felt angry as a child and took it out on animals, you have now calmed down, and you must feel good about that.

The subject of empathy is interesting... I think it's at the root of many problems (lack of). Even with the aid of chemistry, though, we can feel more alive 'through' others.

People in Pain do painful things.

I like the quote, "People with AS are just like you and me, except more extreme"

I have AS and was humilated and abused by both my adopted parents as a child.

I acted out my pain and anguish in ways that were concidered v strange at the time.

Psycholigists would say that i split-off dissassociated from my pain.

I have spent 20 years being reunited with parts of myself that i had buried away.

Each and time i make contact with a lost memory, i cry, i grieve, i scream.........and in so doing i not only feel more intigrated, but in feeling my suffering and having deep compassion for myself, i am able to forgive those who hurt me........i had as a child no empathic pathways, but they were created through being able to move beyond the intelectualization of feeling and into the feeling of feeling.

I do not believe this is about luck. Your early upbringing caused the 'deviant' behavior, but you could not
possibly become a psychopath if you don't encompass certain traits.
The fact that you began to feel bad about having done some of the antisocial things you did is what separates
you from psychopaths. A psychopath would never feel bad about anything he did. At least this is how the
official definition goes.
If you were a psychopath you would also not have found any reason to change your behavior - except perhaps
if you had no way of doing it without getting caught. But getting caught would be your worry, not feeling bad.

I was very antisocial in my youth also, and I know for a fact that it was a result of how I was treated.

I've been wanting to ask aspies about some things that address issues like what you bring up here, but I haven't
been quite sure of how to go about it. So I'm glad you brought it up. Now I think I can go ahead with some of
my questions.

Maybe I should add that psychopathy is not a mentality. It's a condition like Asperger's, but very different in
crucial aspects. Where the two have some likeness is in being so called 'Empathy Challenged'. Like psychopaths
we do often not have the same range of emotions that neurotypicals do, empathy being one of the feelings
that seem to come slightly less easy to aspies than to normal folk.

Thank you for posting this!

I don't think it is only about choice. You cannot choose to feel bad about something. There must be an
emotional experience or connection - however you will describe it - that triggers the ability to feel bad
about something.

I'm not saying this only so as to argue or create debate. I have in the past done things that I know
intellectually I should feel bad about because they go against morals and pro-social behavior. As an
adult I reject those actions, but I do so out of logic and intellectual choice. I don't feel bad about any
of it.

Some would argue that this means I'm a psychopath, but there are too many other aspects of me that
defies such a conclusion (and I'm a diagnosed Aspie, after all). I don't know how to describe it better
than I have a cognitive understanding now that I didn't have as a child and a teenager. But it makes
all the difference nevertheless.

*********

I absolutely agree that the topic of Empathy is very interesting. I hope to explore in more depth, and it's
good to find others are interested as well.

I used to be very defensive whenever somebody asked about aspies and empathy (if you google my nick
and WrongPlanet you'll see some of the silly responses I made). When I learned that our condition's
founder, Hans Asperger, described us as Autistic Psychopaths I became eager to try and disprove the
misconception that Asperger's is a form of psychopathy - a sad, but not uncommon view where I grew up.

But I eventually became more interested in finding out how it actually is with empathy and Asperger's, and
where - if at all - we have anything in common with psychopaths. And so far this one aspect seems to be
the one thing that fits both conditions.
I still need to learn more, though, and I've attempted to get debates started in a couple of aspie fora, but
with unhappy results. Like I did in the beginning, I found aspies tend to become offended when you bring up
certain questions. We don't want to be seen as psychopathic, and for good reasons. But our fear of being
misunderstood (again) sometimes block our own willingness to explore areas of our characteristics that
could turn out to be controversial and result in accordingly controversial answers.

However, I think I will give it a shot.

"People with AS are just like you and me, except more extreme"

This is how I always have seen it too.
However, I have found that we do differ in some ways. But it always sits wrong with me when I see us described as
feeling less than neurotypicals. I've always been convinced most of my feelings are much stronger and more extreme
than are those of normal people.

I do no longer dispute that there are certain emotions I do not share, but on the other hand I claim to have emotions
most others do not have. This is never mentioned. All we hear is that we have fewer emotions, that we are unemotional
or cold.

You know I too was confused when I learned that one of the main traits of Aspergers is that we supposedly lack empathy. I've always thought of myself as emotional, I do feel sad, angry, fear, and joy. However I notice that when it comes to me I am not always good at expressing these emotions, or even realizing when I am feeling them until after these emotions have passed. Do other Aspies feel that way too? Maybe that is what they mean about us "lacking empathy"? I don't think Aspies lack empathy in quite the same way Psychopaths and Sociopaths do because unlike them we are not usually prone to criminal behavior.

Now there are times when I don't feel emotions when I think I should, but I think even Neurotypicals do that too. Nobody feels completely sad about every living being that dies or every bad thing they do, it all depends on the situation. Maybe because Aspies tend to connect to less people in their life then NTs do it comes across that we are completely unemotional, but speaking for myself the three people in my life I am absolutely attached to are my Mom (yeah the same one who abused me as a kid), my little sister, and my best friend. If anything bad or good happens to them my emotional reactions always intesify more than they do for other people. I've always kind of assumed other Aspies feel that way too? I know that people with Aspergers always at least have one person in their life they attach themselves to emotionally.

I am sure what you describe about your feelings (noticing afterward, etc.) is very common.
But it is not what is meant by empathy.

Empathy is about feeling emotionally connected with people around you, sometimes even
with strangers. It is typical to be compelled to feel the same way as someone or somebody
else do and be moved, or saddened, or delighted, because of what you feel that they feel.

It's a kind of mystical inter-species bond. Not mystical in that it cannot be explained scientifi-
cally, it's just a manner of speaking.




This is correct.
Also, it seems as if we're unemotional because many of us tend to exhibit less expressive
behavior. F.x, I remember when I first saw myself in a mirror while I thought I was smiling,
if not a big smile, but a small, vague, yet observable smile, and I saw just a still face with
no particular expression. After that I cultivated a more clear, deliberately expressive smile.

^ I've noticed the same thing too. There are times when I feel as if I'm smiling, but when I see my reflection in the mirror or look at a picture somebody has taken of me I don't really look like I'm trying to smile that much. That's probably why everybody says I look angry all the time even when I don't feel angry.

Yes, what you described is common. You seem to have met the criteria for conduct disorder as a child. But not everyone who has conduct disorder as a child goes on to become a "psychopath" (official diagnosis is called Antisocial Personality Disorder) as an adult. However, every adult who has Antisocial Personality Disorder MUST have qualified for a conduct disorder diagnosis before the age of 18. So, some conduct disorder people such as yourself grow out of the troublesome behaviors, whereas others never do and go on to be adults with Antisocial Personality Disorder.

Oh OK, I guess that does make sense now that you explained it. Thank you.