“Other people are either useful or useless to me, and I don’t bother with people that are useless.”

Symptoms of Conduct and Intermittent Explosive disorders, for me, started as early as I can remember, with my first younger sibling being born when I was two. I was very angry at him for simply existing. I blamed him for making my parents unhappy. I had violent tantrums (hitting/biting, I think I headbutting a doctor too), especially around my brother. I don’t remember them really. 

I started acting out a lot more as I got older and my three other siblings were born. There was pressure on me to care take for my siblings. I was expected to grow up faster, to bury my emotions. We were under strict standards and my father was a physical punisher, which didn’t work much on me, since I was born with a medical condition, Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with anhidrosis, but it scared me and my siblings. 

I still had this burning anger in me towards my siblings. I had urges to scare them, and I knew how to do since I’d witnessed it. We were homeschooled for a while, so I was left alone with them, and I would smash my fingers with hammers or the door to scare them. I couldn’t feel it, I couldn’t understand why they were scared but they were, and it made me feel like I actually had control. It was easy to hide my injuries, and even when I didn’t, it was hardly noticed and I told my siblings to keep it a secret or I’d do it to them.

The hunger for that feeling of power got stronger into adolescence, but my siblings were grown enough to understand that they could report me for bad behaviour, so I targeted our family cat. I love cats now, really, they are the most relatable furries, but I didn’t have an outlet for my anger, and a cat can’t talk. Eventually, our cat didn’t come home, and though there was no way to prove I was the reason, my parents knew it was me.

Looking back, there wasn’t a hint of remorse for anything I did. I knew, on some level, that all of it was wrong, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. After all, it was nothing but an animal, not even aware of its existence. I have to stop myself when I think of other people in the same way, less than me, less aware, uncomplicated and two-dimensional. That’s how I see a lot of people.

I was sent to a military boarding school at 12, and though I was used to a strict environment, something about not being ‘top dog’ or even close to it, triggered severe insecurity in me. I bullied and harassed other students, and had no ability to control my words around authority which got me into a lot of trouble. 

I was in specific classes for higher learning, two grades above, so I was hardly around kids my own age. I also had private lessons for the ‘socially inept’, which is where I believe my social obsessions developed. I was embarrassed to be one of the only students that couldn’t comprehend basic social cues the same way children years older than me could.

I memorised the skills we were taught and became a very socially intelligent person, but I couldn’t understand on an interpersonal level why they were important, especially the ones where I had to base my words on other’s emotions or add infliction to my own voice. Emotions are personal, and meant to be kept inside, that’s what I was raised with.

Embarrassment fuelled a lot of my anger outbursts, and still does. Insecurity digs deep into my chest and primal feelings of dethronement lead to irrationality. I’m a critical thinker, but irrational thoughts will overwhelm the logic when I’m threatened. The problem is, threats towards me can sometimes be completely delusional. 

We were served alcohol with our dinner most nights. I’ve loved it from the first time I drank. I would sneak into the cafe at night, paying absolutely no mind to my safety, and would drink whatever I could get. It’s the only way I slept at night most of the time, without it I went days without sleep, and had nightmares that woke me up puking.

I had one roommate and I had an affection and care for him that I have only been able to have for him, never before and never again. He was someone I immediately could tell was gullible, and he had a good reputation so he covered for me a lot. At the same time I knew I was using him (and he knew too), we both knew it gave him a sense of purpose that he was looking for. I did try my best to not take too much from him, and to give back enough that he wouldn’t leave (which was still fulfilling my own needs but I didn’t understand that then.)

This is still true, in our relationship as adults, he is the only person I can genuinely reach that feeling for. Other people are either useful or useless to me, and I don’t bother with people that are useless. Where others leave a distaste in my mouth, leave my head hurting, and drain my energy, he gratifies me. Though I try hard to have the same feeling for my girlfriend, no one makes my heart ache like him.

I hit 16, and one night something was pulling me away from everyone else, so I snuck out and walked to the city. A 35 mile walk didn’t bother me, I had alcohol and was trying to imagine what a city looked like. Seeing the lights, being on the streets, and looking at people going about their lives, it’s as if everything stopped. Suddenly, so much seemed so clear to me. I thought, I have so much more to do in this world, that I am capable of so much more than anyone told me, and I can achieve happiness, and I wanted it as fast as possible. 

I left school, and lived as well as I could in the city until I could get enough money to travel to the US, by the time I’d saved enough I turned 18. It all seemed very surreal to me for a really long time but I felt like a happier and more free man. The people I was living with in America ran a business, which may not have been legitimate, and I was paid to be security.

Unfortunately, my temper got harder to control and the smallest things started to set me off, from chewing noises to the clicking of a light switch. I was reckless with my drinking and public fighting, and I ended up getting into an altercation with someone that pressed charges against me. The ‘family’ I’d made while I lived there had completely abandoned me, and it was a struggle in itself to not be deported, but maybe some extraterrestrial was on my side because my legal representation fought hard. I pled guilty, and was imprisoned for second degree assault.

It was there that I was assessed and put into cognitive therapy. I told the psychologist everything I said here, and it took her over a year to actually diagnose me with ASPD, NPD and psychopathy. Through trauma therapy, I began rebuilding my mind from the ground up, reframing my childhood from an adult’s perspective. I had not a single clue that mental disorders even existed before I started seeing her. In group therapy, I listened to other men talk about their experiences with anger, impulses, grandiosity, and an insatiable appetite for control. 

Coming to terms with being one of many that have similar struggles made me feel less alone. I got interested in psychology, asking and learning from my psychologist and whatever I could find in the library. I practiced evaluating and psychoanalysis to understand the core value of people’s social reactions. This is the only way I’ve learned how to genuinely socialise. I’m now minoring in child psychology.

I’m on antidepressants and antipsychotics currently, as well as anticonvulsants (for epileptic seizures), antidepressants have helped with severe existential dread and the drops I get after the highs I get. Usually my mood is a straight line, or it’s extremely high and I feel unstoppable, but only temporarily until it drops, hard, at the slightest hint of insecurity. Antipsychotics help to ease the delusions I get during my highs. I can manage to shut down the irrationality before it causes problems.

I met my current girlfriend (she/they) in the US, she was part of the same household at the time. For a really long time she was like a comfort person to me. They had a very shallow identity, and a lot of emptiness that, for some reason, made me more attracted to her. I considered her my pet in an endearing way, I’d show her compassion when no one else did, braiding her hair and comforting them after nightmares or panic attacks. I akin my early love for her to a younger sister, but I see them more as a woman now.

Honestly, the more strong and sure of herself that she got, the less I felt for them. She doesn’t fill the craving in me to connect to another person on a multifaceted and authentic way, they can’t give me anything and they no longer need me to guide them.

I’ve fathered three children, two to my current girlfriend and one to an ex, and I adopted a family child that lost his parents. My kids and the connection I have to them are unique, they have nothing to give me and need everything from me. It’s the first relationship I’ve had that isn’t transactional, which is how it is being a parent, but it’s still very new to me. Giving unconditional love is difficult

Everything about who I am now is questionable, I’m not a complete person yet, I’m fragmented. My mind will follow multiple thought processes, and contradict myself. It used to be simple, all about me, but now I doubt myself because I can see the symptoms show in everything I do.

I’m living a brand new life with brand new eyes. The idea of being a family man, married, kids, making money and living in a good house, feels like what I’m supposed to do. It feels like the safe and reasonable option for me. I love my family, completely and wholly, and I also, on some levels, hate them with everything in me because I’m not free anymore. Masking my symptoms around them is the hardest part, but I hope one day I can be my true self without scaring them.