Do we get mistaken for psychopaths??

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I went through a period of multiple years trying to fit in with the rest of society and got pretty fed up with everyone

I also wasn't prone to much self doubt in this way, and I did find myself thinking up schemes of various sorts that I didn't put into action because it seemed like a lot of work and so on, but I did know how to play the games at a conscious level

so you could almost say that it was a simulated sociopathy I guess, although it was fairly incomplete

note that psychopathy and sociopathy are distinct disorders, one of which is recognized by it's violence typically and the other by it's more " subtle" approach

one can argue about clinical definitions back and forth and all this but that's generally the working differentiation between the two, one's psyche, the other's social, or something I dunno


oh and I was under total and utter denial of my autistic traits at the time, or ignorance of them (I managed to get success dealing with it to a degree and never even knew about what it was, so the symptoms kinda went away and I thought it was just something everyone went through)

being frustrated without knowing that there's a decent explanation for it does wonders to one's desire to imagine everything being broken, shredded and burned in sight, torn apart, smashed, crushed, impales, etc...

or just listen to calming music, I had an emergency assessment and quick diagnosis of schizoid personality disorder and had been looking up sociopathy at the time as well

both of which looked partly like they could explain a few *bits* of myself, but accepting being on the autistic spectrum explains everything, and predictability does wonders to calm a mind down that wants to just make everything that bothers it just go away...

it's really bizarre trying to read into things that describe you, but you keep noticing problems with that idea, but it's all you've got as a framework... and because I had fixed my symptoms, I disregarded my earlier symptoms and categorization of differences

I did notice however that I wasn't out for blood, just that I didn't care and I'd rather be left alone, and that my tendency to imagine concepts was not along hallucinatory lines, but rather remembering concepts that I've seen earlier

ugh.

It seems like every time I see a proposed distinction between the two, it's a different proposed distinction. I'm inclined to believe they both describe the same thing and it just has a bit more variety to presentation.

I guess I should write a short answer....lololol

in general people expect flattery and praise and all that BS, we're called "brutally honest" for a reason, the concept of "brutal" honesty itself is a construct of the attitude that "nothing should ever say that I'm less than perfect" or something like that


people either mistake or pretend to mistake a lack of flattery as an insult, or honest assessment of errors as an unnecessary insult

this is what's equated to psychopathy of all things, also while psychopaths can be violent, they're really nasty that way, like leading people onto roofs to push them off

a sociopath will play social "games" in the game theory sense of the word, merely to exert power and harm others' and to get away with it


the difference between the two is someone bulldozing through a crowd to get somewhere because they're late, and one running into the middle of one, whipping a knife out and slashing people - spending just enough time to do as much as possible and still get to work in time (and using the crowd's panic to get away unnoticed - note the knowledge of taking a huge risk in this case as well)

I've always wondered if I'm a psychopath, because of the way I get horribly jealous of my NT peers a lot. I don't know if it's from psychopathy (wanting them to be as unhappy as me so they can be on my level to make me feel less isolated), or if it just comes from having the feeling that people (even those that are younger than me) have moved on before me, and the more I try to better things, the more I sink into the mud.

I don't think anyone who spends any time with be would mistake me for a psychopath/sociopath. I think of myself as sort of the opposite of a sociopath. Sociopaths generally know what's going on socially and they know how people feel, how to appear supportive, etc.... they just don't actually care about those feelings and will harm someone without a second thought. On the other hand, I have no idea what's going on socially, don't usually know how people feel, and even when I do know how they feel I don't know how to react to it. BUT I do care about others and when I will help others and avoid harming them whenever I am aware of ways to do that.

During certain meltdowns I could possibly be mistaken as psychotic, bipolar, borderline, or other something else though.

I think that a lot of us with Aspergers feel some temptation to engage in mildly psychopathic behaviour to relieve our frustrations somewhat, but we resist the temptation to do so, because there are already so many unintentional manifestations of negative behaviour on our part, that we can ill-afford to engage in any intentional ones.

Just objectively speaking that's all...

Yes. I don't know why. Maybe because people don't understand the difference. We have a whole array of emotions, we just can't express them properly. We like people. We just don't know what to do with them. A psychopath has no conscience. They use people for their own personal gain. Some of us aspies can't make eye contact but psycho make very direct eye contact - some scare the mess out of you!