A friend told me she had outgrown the disorder she was diagnosed with, the same disorder I have. Antisocial Personality Disorder, probably known to you as psychopathy. Here is what I said to her:
You didn't outgrow it, you're like me, that's why I feel the connection to you, that's why you understand me, you're clinical, just like me. You just don't want to admit it because you don't want the labels that come with it. Sociopath. Psychopath. I know. They're terrible labels with disturbing connotations, perpetuated by the misinformed and the ignorant. They call us snakes, they call us evil, unbalanced, crazy even. And maybe some are. But I'm not. And neither are you. Depression and ASPD are co-morbid, you know. We grow to hate ourselves because we can't care about who we hurt or what we do. We punish ourselves because our masks are so perfect that people remain surprised when we hurt them, and then they accuse us. We are left alone, branded forever as aromantic, amoral liars with a sadistic lust for destruction. But we have talents. We can seduce, we can move a crowd, convince a rabble. We can lie through our teeth and they'd believe every word. We can probe at just the right spots for a torrent of information and emotion to come pouring out, and we can learn. We can learn how to please them, and we can learn how to model them, and we can learn how to live beside them and not hate every step we take.
These are words written from my heart, cold and unrelenting as it may be, and I hope it reaches someone out there. Someone who may be strugging with this disorder. Or perhaps someone who is misinformed and needs to be educated. Whatever. It matters not, so long as you believe.
