by No Single Name

Created on: April 18, 2009

To have antisocial personality disorder is to be a sociopath: plain and simple. It is a cruel personality disorder, one which wrenches from the victim nearly all empathy and replaces it with an empty hole of contempt and arrogance. It is not something one may escape from; pills will not help, usually not even therapy. People with antisocial personality disorder are known to be snakes, to happily decimate the lives of others in order to make themselves more comfortable; history looks back on examples like the charming Ted Bundy, brutal serial killer and law student, when it brings up the ghastly term, and even today we are warned away from them by books such as Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door, which portrays the selection of the population with the disorder as a clan of heartless monsters.

But what if you're the one with the disorder?

What if you don't feel empathy for others? What if you find yourself unable to relate, feel people to be "below" you, suffer from a lack of remorse?

Living with antisocial personality disorder is unique in that many sufferers do not express a particular desire to change themselves or suppress their impulses; many do not even know they are afflicted. They simply grow up without a working understanding of the emotions or needs of others, without an understanding of respect, without comprehension of the guilt that so many others feel. And for many people, this is perfectly okay: they keep quiet about their differences and fit in perfectly, camouflaged.

But for those who recognize their problem and do want to change, it can be difficult: the brain of a sociopath is literally different in function from the brain of another person. According to researchers using brain scanning, sociopaths show decreased function in areas which generate empathy (thus keeping predator and killer instincts smothered) and regulate impulsivity.

To live a standard life with antisocial personality disorder, a person must remind themselves that everyone else around them is also a person, and these people deserve life, happiness, and rewards for working hard. A simple, "If this happened to me, how would I respond?" may help in circumventing deeds which bring harm to others; it may be difficult to do at first, but conscious thought and legitimate attempts may help in a sort of self-training when it comes to the feelings of others. Even artificial empathy is still empathy.

Controlling impulsivity, which can cause anything from shoplifting to murder, is a key step in suppressing sociopathic traits. When the urge, whatever it may be, comes, it is important to take a step back and look at it in the grand scheme of things; potential negative ramifications towards oneself are most important for a sociopath to consider. This is less a training method and more a suppression method, similar to methods used with people suffering from anger issues; it is something that may have to go on for an entire lifespan, but if it will keep a sociopath from becoming a murderer, it is a technique worth practicing.

Just those two steps help to form a sort of artificial thought process for someone suffering from antisocial personality disorder, helping to keep them from making harmful or cruel decisions. But it is important to remember that it is not something that can be curedantisocial personality disorder is something to cope with for a whole lifetime. And just as not every sufferer is a madman, not every sufferer seeks a cure; after all, that is the self-serving mentality of a sociopath.

It is often guilt which drives us to find cures for ailments which harm others; but to a sociopath, guilt is a waste of emotion.

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