引血成河，积血成海

I don’t get why I should care about someone's feelings when mine are rarely considered.

Relationships are exhausting. The effort, the expectations, the unspoken rules I never fully understand or care to follow. It’s either too much or never enough. People say they want honesty, but they flinch when I give it to them. They say they value independence, but resent it when I don’t need them.

updating a pinned post!

❤️‍🩹🌿

ASPD: The Desire for and Run from Intimacy

This post will only contain my personal opinion and experience. It may not be applicable to all other people with ASPD and may likewise be relatable to people who do not have it.

I am only going to be talking about emotional intimacy, but this post is definitely also applicable to the other type of intimacy!

I'll make myself pretty vulnerable in this post, by discussing my personal experience, so you better not make me regret that!

Abbreviations:

ASPD = Antisocial Personality Disorder

ASPD is a disability caused by prolonged childhood trauma (with many possible variations), that develops in order to protect the brain from said trauma, or rather to help the brain deal with it in some way!

While the consequences of this in the context of intimacy, look different for every person with ASPD, many do report: a difficulty with developing bonds, having problems trusting people & giving away control, losing feelings for people quickly and abruptly/getting "bored" of people, responding extremely to arguments, having problems dealing with peoples emotions/ problems with being close to people etc.

This may be due to a variety of factors, but does often tie back to having no or few positive experiences with intimacy, having not learned how to exist in relationships properly/a lack of being socialized, not having the necessary prosocial emotions and mechanisms to deal with it and other similar things.

While this causes some people with ASPD to develop a brain, that does not have a need for emotional intimacy at all, others develop a brain, that craves the emotional intimacy it has been denied, but which will also fight said intimacy at every turn.

Thats as much generalized info as I can give you, as the exact representation of this is highly individual, but I will offer my personal experience on the following slides!

What you need to know is that I was accidentally neglected for huge parts of my childhood and teens and did not get my emotional and social needs met most of the time, while also knowing that my parents were theoretically capable of that, as they were giving everything I lacked to my sibling.

This caused me to grow up with a burning desire for intimacy, while being disappointed by people time and time again, failing to actually develop the things needed to experience this intimacy and partially growing to resent it and viewing it as "weak" and "bad".

Ever since then I have been stuck in what I like to call the "ASPD stages of running". Theres different points in getting close to people (in any nature of a relationship), that'll send me running and feeling like I am "weak" for wanting it, or as if being close to people is the worst thing that could happen.

The stages (simply put) are:

1. Desiring/Daydreaming about my dream relationship

2. Looking at peoples relationships/Looking at people with the intent of getting closer to them

3. Talking to people (online or irl)

4. Getting closer / being friends with people

5. Being friends with people for longer

Optionally:

6. Getting so close that a romantic relationship may happen

7. The moment of getting in the relationship / the days after

8. Being in the relationship for a bit

At any of those stages, I'll very likely have one or multiple moments where my ASPD will try to get the better of me and will try to convince me to just run away, drop contact and never talk about it again. Even just admitting to this and talking about it is hard as fuck, because it is so deeply ingrained in my brain to see emotional intimacy as a weak and dangerous thing.

What this will look like exactly really depends on the person and situation, but things that have happened in the past were:

• blocking the person and everyone I am friends with and pretending I am no longer alive

• my brain fixating on their faults in order to give me a good reason to hate them so I don't get closer to them and can hold them at arms length

• responding less often/more dryly or ignoring messages entirely

• not replicating the energy of the conversation/relationship

• staging an incident so I ruin the relationship

• running at the first signs of a disagreement

• avoiding people when they are emotional

• feeling uncomfortable around people as a whole => isolating

• beating myself up about letting it happen again

• impulsively bumping the relationship to another stage, just to immediately regret it (in a "fuck that has consequences" way)

• shutting off all my emotions, dissociate or otherwise make sure to stop the feelings (or just lose them automatically)

To put it in a shorter and more simple way, I'll usually either get the fuck outta there, or make sure to change the relationship/my personal position in the relationship to a more comfortable and less vulnerable and intimate level. This may also just look like me shutting off, becoming distant, or seeming mad, when all I am is overwhelmed by the intimacy and grossed out that I actually need and desire that.

As you can possibly imagine, that is not the most useful thing, as it causes issues in relationships, cuts friendships short and makes dealing with people a lot harder!

The most frustrating thing about this for me though is, that even if the most perfect friend or partner came along and even if the relationship would work at first, I am very very likely to crash it against the wall, simply because my brain cannot handle having the things, that it needs and desires.

It desires a hug and runs from the one who offers it.

It needs help and bites the hand that does.

It needs love and gets grossed out by whoever offers it.

It wants attention and can't handle it when it gets it.

It wants gifts, but doesnt know what to do when it gets them.

Whatever it wants, it can't have, so it keeps wanting, keeps yearning, keeps desiring and has to watch itself be unable to accept any of it.

And if that sounds painful, thats because it is.

Its a vicious kind of pain when you have to watch yourself ruin yet another thing, because your brain can't handle it, while you scream at it in frustration to get its act together, because it also is everything you desperately need.

ASPD sucks when it comes to intimacy and it especially sucks when it comes to talking about it, or being honest about these problems. It developed to protect me from being too "weak" to deal with the trauma and now its practically preventing me from showing any "weakness" or seeking out what previously hurt me. Which wouldn't be this bad, if I didn't still have this kid in me that just wants to be loved and daydreams about all the things, the ASPD hates.

When your shell disagrees with your core and you're not strong enough yet to break your shell, what does that really leave you with, other than curling up into a spiky ball and letting the shell do its job? I know I still need the protection, but I wish it wasn't actively preventing me from learning to live without it.

First posted on my instagram (same @)

mr. prosecutie

Imagine the time I was six. I spent half an hour constructing my perfect fortress out of wooden blocks, carefully placing each piece. Every detail mattered, this wasn’t just playing, this was creating something. I looked at it, proud, knowing it was my work, my effort.

Then, some little shit walks by. I watch as his eyes narrow, and for a moment, he considers the easiest way to destroy what I’d just built. With one careless motion, he topples everything, scattering the blocks like they were nothing.

I don’t cry. I don’t scream for help. Instead, I get up, walk over, and grab him by the shoulder. A hard shove, and then I make sure he knows exactly what he’s done. He’s on the ground before he can even process it, his face swelling where I hit it. I don’t care about the blood or the broken tooth. All I care about is the fact that he destroyed something I created for no reason other than his amusement.

The teacher drags me away, gasping: "Look what you did! It’s just blocks, he’s a person!".

But it wasn’t just blocks. It was my time, my effort, and he threw it all away like it meant nothing. And he’s a person? Fine. So am I. And in that moment, his face wasn’t worth respecting.

Looking back at it as an adult, sure, maybe it was an overreaction. Maybe I was too harsh. But that moment wasn’t about rationality. It was about the principle of it. Yeah, I could’ve handled it differently. But I was a kid. That’s what kids do.. act on impulse.

No one cared about the fact that someone else’s selfish act destroyed what I valued. My retaliation was branded as aggression, while his provocation was dismissed as childish mischief. No one asked why I struck back. No one acknowledged that he’d destroyed something I built simply because he wanted to. I was the one who got punished.

At that time, the teacher’s failure was a clear lesson in injustice, that authority will side with the visible victim over the invisible violation, and proof that fairness is conditional, since his pain was 'real', while mine was 'just toys'.