I am a Child Psychopath

{No Empathy, No Conscience}

Basically I’ve always known I was different, like I’ve always felt it around other people. It’s never bothered me, but I’ve just never understood what/why exactly this was? A couple of days ago I was on my laptop and I randomly got onto some article about psychopathy. I read it and certain things caught my eye so I looked up more about it, and the more I read about psychopathy, the more I recognised a large part of me in it – checklist after checklist. I’m only 13 so there’s not many online tests made for children but I grew more interested and took a bunch anyways. (I know self-tests are pretty much invalid) On this self-test Hare thing I tested positive for psychopathy and ASPD on psymed, just a bunch of high numbers repeatedly. (I tried levenson as many people recommended it, it let me take it but my results would not load) especially seeing as I was not even qualified to answer a large amount of questions because they were for adults with a lot more life experience.

Now to go back and build up from the start. From around age 2, I was a terribly behaved child. I’d scream and throw the worst tantrums through the age of 8. These weren’t average child tantrums, they were everyday over everything and my parents were really worried. My parents still continue to be worried about me because of how I behave a lot. I don’t throw fits anymore but I still lash out when I don’t get my way. In fact, that’s really the only time I ever cry – out of anger / frustration when somethings not going my way. So I guess this is the bad childhood behaviour. I read a lot about animal abuse being a factor of psychopathy but for me it’s been the opposite. I prefer animals to people, they’re easier to understand and control and are never a problem or obstacle for me. I don’t have to fake anything in front of an animal, it’s easier. I spend more time at home in my room with my dog than with my family. I don’t see any reason to want to hurt an animal.

My favourite part of the Internet is the easy fun in using fake identities, and hurting/manipulating/lying to gullible others. When I’m using a fake identity it’s usually one where I know I’ll attract a lot of attention. I’ve got an account where I pretend to be a small (but loved by a bunch of girls my age ) actor. I like having the upper hand, it’s hilarious fooling these dumb girls into thinking I’m actually him cos then I can insult or get fake angry with one of them and their sad desperate reactions are really entertaining. I also do the same thing to boys, I’ll use a model’s picture and they trip over themselves to message me and send me pictures which I can use to mortify them.

People on the Internet are really stupid and it’s a fun place when I’m bored. It’s not too bad having fake identities in real life too. I’ve always had a lot of school trouble (school’s extremely boring and I choose not to pay attention. Like I know I could do better, I just don’t want to.i don’t need schooling.) I’m in my 7th school now and pretty much every school I make a new identity for myself. A new background story about my life, why I switched schools, and my family. Kids in my year will find it interesting, feed into it and fall all over me.

I hate liars but I love lying. Probably cos everybody else is a shit liar but I’m always the best. I can catch when anybody’s being fake about something or when they’re lying but nobody can catch me. I do enjoy pretending to believe other people’s lies for a bit, and I make sure to have solid proof against them all. (People tend to lie a lot to me, I play gullible. I’ve found they got cocky when they think I believe them, so they spread these lies to everybody else which only makes it more easy to hurt them.) Once I’m bored of somebody I’ll expose and mortify them. I love watching them scramble. It’s the best form of entertainment for me. I’m also Great at spotting people’s weaknesses and desires so that makes it easier for me to gain power over others. I play a bunch of other manipulating games, whether in my head (like fake plotting against people I imagine ) or in real life. So this is the manipulating, not caring about others part.

Now to the topic of emotions as I know that’s a major part. I’ve always been able to read what somebody is feeling and sort of identify it, but I just can’t understand/feel it myself. Like I know I’ve got basic feelings, sadness, anger, happiness, humour and boredom but that’s pretty much it. I’m great at pretending other emotions though, acting how I should. I think I learnt that from my mother, like I began with pretending to be guilty or remorseful because I knew I wouldn’t get in as much trouble when I did something bad. It’s become almost natural, subconscious. I’ll laugh at a joke if other people find it funny, I’ll be grossed out if others are, I’ll smile, even cry, anything. I reflect it on the outside as an instinct but on the inside I feel none of it, like empty. I just don’t.

I’ve had friends come and go, I’ve just never actually cared about them. They occupy me when I’m bored. But they don’t mean something to me. The only people I’ve ever cared for/trusted are my family. I love them. While, I think I do. Like As much as I can. Like i read about actual love and it doesn’t make sense to me. It’s like I have my own version of love which is caring for them, and I’ll help them for no reason if they ask because they’re my family. But really the only thing that could happen to them where I’d cry and feel truly sad is death. Anything else doesn’t effect me inside really.

Regret wise, I only feel regret if I did something that’s now going to negatively effect me. But usually I’ll blame somebody else for it because more often people are stupid and make mistakes that might effect me. Plus it’s easy to blame others. I don’t do things that would hurt me only because of that – they would hurt ME. For example, I wouldn’t smash my father’s favourite mug if he annoyed me because I know I’d face serious punishment. But if somebody else smashed it I wouldn’t give a shit. I don’t think I’ve ever felt guilty, and I don’t see the point in why people are guilty for something.

I also don’t understand empathy. Like I don’t even have anything to say about it because none of it really makes sense to me, although as far as I know I guess I’ve done an ok job faking it. I’ve also got an incredibly short fuse anger wise, like little things can set me off. I mean really, before i read more about psychopathy, emotional reactions like these, to benefit others…well i don’t know quite how to put it into words, but I never thought to really realise that I don’t genuinely feel it, that everybody’s reacting like this because they feel it, I am because I have to.

Humour wise, only one person shares my same sense of humour. Because of this I almost created another one, I’ll make jokes i don’t find funny but I know people around me would. Besides my family, other people don’t matter much. Like they either benefit me, or they don’t. If they’re not helping me they just sit there and exist. I don’t care what happens to them, I don’t care about their lives, their rights, their feelings. If I ever needed to eliminate somebody (I don’t mean kill) to get something I wanted I would. I also read about relationships. For me it’s always been that I can’t ever see myself in a long-term relationship, like I don’t get it. You get what you want from somebody in a short amount of time, why stay together still?

Future wise, I guess I fit into what people would say is ‘unrealistic’ as so many people have told me I am but to me it’s really not. I want to go into the film, tv, chef or journalism industry. I know I have the skills I need already for all of those. I won’t need good grades, I have natural talent. Like other people have to work harder because they aren’t actually good at these things, they don’t have what I have. Like I know I’ll make it.

A bunch of other things. (I’m not sure if all of these have to do with psychopathy, I don’t know much about this however I would like to learn. I’m just mentioning everything I can think of that might give more info.) Another thing to mention is that I am aware I’m superior/feel superior to others. Like I’m not bothered by anything anybody says, or anybody’s opinions or anything. Mostly it’s because like it feels like everybody’s just beneath me, just less intelligent and wasteful and I just don’t care and never have. Everybody else is so sensitive and concerned with all these different things that I’ve never cared about, they’re weaker and I know I’m better than almost everybody I meet, no matter how old they are. Another thing I’m aware of that I do is I fake care about things for attention, especially from my parents. Like my parents a lot of the time think I’m sensitive because I’ve made it so that I cry at things like dead rats and stuff. I’m not sure why, I just like the attention I get from it, and it makes it easier to get things I want.

At the same time there are a lot of things where I feel I fit in normally naturally. (Again I don’t know much about psychopathy so I don’t know if psychopaths feel these things or enjoy certain things normally as well) For one, I could never see myself as a criminal, and I’d never want to be one. I’d never commit a serious crime. I’m not saying I wouldn’t hurt people, but I wouldn’t do something that would land me in jail for a long time. I really enjoy acting and have always participated in school drama clubs.

The specific careers I’m interested in are acting, directing, producing, cooking, or also ive been getting into forensics recently. I also love films, tv, and music although I’m extremely picky with music I listen to and tv shows I’ll watch. The only tv shows I’ve followed and enjoyed are pretty little liars, gossip girl, friends (friends is actually pretty much the only tv program I’ve ever seen that I find genuinely funny, I laugh pretty much every time I watch it) and wicked city.

With music it’s hard for me to find songs I genuinely like, but once I do I can’t stop listening. I went through a huge one direction obsession around the same time all the girls in my grade were, and I mean huge although it’s died down now haha. Film wise I love horror films best (while, based on the few horror films I like which are the conjuring and the insidious films, most of the rest of them are crap.) none of the gore has ever bothered me in any way, I’m not sure why it bothers others (my brother cant even look at blood without feeling sick) but I enjoy pretty much any film as long as it’s not predictable. I can tolerate a lot of gory stuff, and I’ve also got an extremely high pain tolerance, my mother always says if something can hurt me then she knows it’s got to hurt a hell of a lot.

Although I don’t have any true bonds or friendships, I still enjoy like going out with girls from school , I’m invited out a lot and occasionally I’ll hang out with people who I can tolerate and have a few decent conversations. although I only really have fun with my older sister. She shares my sense of humour and we relate a lot to each other, she’s the only person I can truly be ‘myself’ with so if I’m with somebody, it’s usually going to be her. I mean I’m not a people person in general.

I also forgot to mention that I do have a nice home, and although my mother has definite verbal issues when speaking to us (I mean she swears a lot, it’s pretty bad. It’s never really affected me, but my brother is always brought to tears from it) I have never been physically abused.

In the end, I’m just curious to know what all of this means. I know there are many psychologists and psychopaths who use Quora, and reading through answers have been very helpful to me. I’m content with life, and like I said, none of this truly bothers me. I just want to know what all of this sounds like to people. Maybe it sounds like something totally different than I thought? ( I definitely don’t want to talk about this with a therapist, or my parents as a lot of negative things could come from that, it wouldn’t help me at all also I’m too young for a diagnosis anyway.) I know this was really long, I just had a lot to write so I could give people a good sense of everything.

Excerpted and only partially edited for readability from Quora.com “Based on the details in the link below, am I a psychopath?“

Photo courtesy Theo K

Read Amazon books Handbook of Child and Adolescent Psychopathy

Search tem: Are there psychopathic children?

For more information about psychopathy:  TED-Ed Lesson “What is a psychopath?“

 

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