Antisocial Personality Disorder In Real Life

Today I want to discuss Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) or what’s commonly called sociopathy. This particular personality disorder falls into what is called the Cluster B disorders in the DSM-V. Other Cluster B Personality Disorders include Borderline PD, Narcissistic PD, and Histrionic PD. Cluster B personality disorders are characterized by problems with impulse control, interpersonal relationships and emotion regulation.

It’s a Pattern

To be diagnosed with any of the personality disorders, one has to have an ongoing, pervasive pattern of the behaviors. Simply having the occasional off day does not make someone personality disordered.

Antisocial vs Prosocial

The name Antisocial PD is a little bit confusing. It sounds like the person with this personality disorder is kind of a recluse, is not social, and likes to be alone. This is not what anti-social means in this context. Antisocial in this context is the opposite of Pro-Social. Being pro-social means that you respect societal norms, follow laws, don’t violate the rights of others. So in this case, being anti-social means having a disregard for societal norms, no care about violating the rights of others and not following laws.

Diagnostic Criteria

Let’s take a look at the specific criteria for ASPD. To be officially diagnosed with ASPD a person has to have 3 or more of the following criteria occurring since age 15.

1. Criminal Behavior:  Failure to confirm to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors, as indicated by repeatedly performing behaviors that are grounds for arrest.
2. Pathological Lying:  Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure.
3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead.
4. Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults.
5. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others.
6. Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations.
7. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another person.

Translating Diagnostic Criteria to Real Life

The man I married, I’ll call him Birdie, meets each of these criteria so makes a great example of what this looks like in real life.

1. Criminal Behavior. Over 20 years before I met him, When Birdie was 25 he was stopped for reckless driving and speeding. He had 2 separate driver’s licenses at the time and was found with 14 empty hypodermic needles and told the police officer he was a medic. He was not a medic. He was arrested. When Birdie was 38 he went into a chat room and began a sexual conversation with someone who told him she was 13. They talked for an hour and a half and he agreed to meet her. When he arrived at the designated location, the girl was the local sheriff. He served 27 months in federal prison. He is currently on the sex offender registry of the state he lives in. When he was 45 he was arrested for domestic assault. He was on probation for 2 years.
2. Pathological lying. Birdie’s biggest lie was his 20+ year fraud posing as a Navy SEAL and veteran. He became Commander of the local American Legion. All of this came crashing down when I uncovered his fraud after two years of marriage to him. Birdie also had those 2 driver’s licenses with 2 identities he had when he was arrested for speeding and posing as a medic. Birdie lied to me about his sex offender case and told me that he thought it was a woman who had been stalking him. He said he went to meet her to put an end to her stalking once and for all. Birdie also told me he had cancer which was in remission. He told me he had PTSD. He told me that he grew up in one state but in reality grew up in a completely different state. Basically everything Birdie ever told me was a lie. I could make hours and hours of podcast episodes dedicated to just recounting his lies. Pretty much if his lips were moving he was lying.
3. Impulsivity:  You can see elements of his impulsivity in criteria 1 and 2, particularly his impulsiveness got him into trouble in the sex offender case. Whether he impulsively decided to talk to an under age girl or whether he thought he was talking to the woman who was supposedly stalking him, his impulsive behavior is clear. One of the reasons I believed his story about confronting the stalker was because I could picture him acting in that way…taking things into his own hands…particularly because he told me on our first meeting that this woman had been stalking him and that he had gone to the police but he couldn’t get a restraining order. It’s probably safe to say that this whole story was a lie, but I didn’t know that then.
4. Irritability or aggressiveness:  Well there is the assault charge as an example of this. He told me that she was the aggressor not him. I didn’t find out until much later after I came across the police report in some paperwork he had in our office that he was the aggressor. So again, the lies. As if that wasn’t enough, he often jokingly threatened to “shoot” tourists or people moving in from out of state who were, in his mind, corrupting the state we lived in. He came home from snow mobile riding trip telling me how he and his friends had come to blows with some other riders for blocking the trail. It was ridiculous.
5. Disregard for his own personal safety and the safety of others. He would work on live electrical wiring. He would speed and drive recklessly. He was in 3 accidents in the 5 years we were together. It got so bad that towards the end I refused to ride anywhere when he was driving. He would take risks while we were out riding in the ATV. Looking back I am stunned at how many close calls we had and it chills me to the bone.
6. Consistent irresponsibility. When I first read about this criteria I thought that this was one he didn’t display. When we were together he held a good paying job and paid his bills. I am suing him for a civil annulment based on fraud and the court gave a temporary order that both of us needed to keep up with the bills. He stopped meeting his financial obligations in full this past month. He now lives in the house I own and bought prior to meeting him and he refuses to pay for anything other than his utilities and will not move out until the court kicks him out. Meanwhile he makes 3x what I make.
7. He has no remorse for his treatment of me or anyone else he has used and abused. This is clear by his behavior. After I found out about his Navy SEAL fraud, he never apologized. The closest thing I got to an apology was “I’m sorry this year sucks. I hope next year is better.” He constantly plays the victim. He even subscribes to and participates in a popular Youtube channel for men who have divorced narcissistic wives who have tried to alienate their children from their fathers. He claims his first wife is a narcissist and for the longest time I believed him…until I spoke with her about 3 months ago and found out he was lying about her also.

Connecting the Dots

When I first learned about Antisocial PD when I was working in a community mental health center, I didn’t connect it to Birdie’s behavior. Even after I’d read a considerable amount about sociopathy and ASPD, I resisted connecting the dots. Who wants to believe your husband is a sociopath?

What helped me a lot to come to terms with this was actually writing out the diagnostic criteria and spelling out details of my experience with him that met each criteria similar to what I’ve done in this episode. And I have to say, even if your person doesn’t meet every single criteria (they only need to meet 3 for the diagnosis), it doesn’t mean he isn’t toxic or that you should just put up with this abusive behavior. Problematic behavior is problematic regardless of whether or not someone can be officially diagnosed. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck. It’s probably a duck.

Reach Out

If you feel stuck and don’t know where to turn or what your options are, feel free to message me on Facebook or Instagram. Nobody should have to go through life putting up with the abuse these people spew. Take care of yourself. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Even if you can’t see it just yet.