I think I might have a semi-serious problem

[Earth Girl]

I recently found out that staring a lot/not blinking much can be a sign of anti-social personality disorder and I've heard a few people say that I stare at people. I don't think this is the only reason why I might have this disorder especially since my Auntie who is really sweet use to stare a lot and get distracted when talking to people easily (her mental health wasn't good), but also because I also recently read that a lot of the things I use to do could be considered anti-social such as often playing victim and snitching and dobbing on people (which I feel really bad about now). I didn't realize that doing those things were as bad as they are.

The reason why I say I think I might have a semi-serious problem instead of a serious problem is because I use to think that anti-social people did extremely bad things such as going around unaliving innocent people all the time and really insane things like that. I would never try to unalive someone so I know my problem isn't as extreme as it could be. But I am still worried about it. I try to be a good person and do the right thing. 

I don't know how to get help with this particular thing plus, a lot of people who specialize in this field seem to talk really meanly about people with this problem instead of focusing on ways to help them that are honest but not mean. 

My current psychologist has helped me a lot with my vulnerable narcissism problem, and she doesn't even know that I have it (she says that I seem really lovely), but I don't know how to get help with possible ASD as well? Are narcissism and ASD sort of similar?

While I am worried that I might have this problem, I am glad that it is not as bad as it could be because I know that I have some empathy at least and I don't want to physically harm anyone, especially people who haven't even done anything to me. I also definitely can experience genuine happiness, in fact, I often experience it and very easily (even if I just see a nice plant or animal or remember something nice or funny that happened, it makes me happy) and I've heard that some people with ASD don't experience happiness like that? 

[Earth Girl]

Another thing about me is that sometimes it takes me a while to react to things with the right emotion straight away. E.g. when my cat passed away, I had moments where I was really happy because I was thinking about all the good times, he gave me and felt thankful for it. After he passed away, the vet asked if I wanted some time alone which sort of made me realize more what just happened (my cat going through a hard time). I asked if I could have some time alone, so she went to the other room. I felt really strange and sad then, but not to the point where I was crying still. (I mostly only cried when we were home, and I sometimes have dreams about him being here or feeling the ghost of him and wake up crying). I also feel bad that he was in pain for a long time. I didn't know that we were supposed to put him down sooner (once he got really old) because this was the first time I've experienced a cat passing away. 

When she was in the other room, I heard her laugh and say to the other vet "I think I would have been worser off" which made it even harder. That was not something I wanted to hear. People told me that she probably didn't mean it in a negative way and that they felt uncomfortable with death. On the other hand, I recently read that not being uncomfortable with death can be a sign of lower empathy levels?

When my sister found out that my cat passed away, she was extremely sad and asked if he wasn't in pain for a long time and I told her that we put him down fairly soon afterwards because I didn't want her to know that he had to go through that for a while because it would have made her even more upset.

My cat was one of the best things in my life so I don't know why I wasn't as upset as most people would have been even if I was thinking more about how lucky I was to have him and how good he was. If this happened when I was 9, I would have been extremely upset like I was when my Mum's dog died when I was this age. 

I made a lot of bad mistakes on a forum I use to use and if I knew I would mess up that much, I wouldn't have used that site. At the time, I thought I only made minor mistakes. 

[TrueSeeker]

Hello Earth Girl

It's completely ok not to be perfect. Nobody's perfect, we all have our faults and some people say that what makes our personality - the imperfections. We all grief differently and at different times and that's ok too. As long as we feel bad when bad things happen and feel good when good things, that's all it needs.

If there's something that you would like to change about yourself, it's only up to you to decide whether it's worth it, you are your own judge and please be kind to yourself. It does take some time to change and it takes patience.

I can see that you really want to be a kind person, all it needs is trying to be one. Nobody is constantly caring about others, we all need to take care of ourselves too. We all can get sometimes pushed too far and might do things that we're not proud of as long as we know that it's wrong and try our best not to do it again
or fix it if we can.

I hope that it cleared it up a little bit, please be nice to yourself too 

[Earth Girl]

Hello TrueSeeker, Thanks so much. 🙂

It's good to know that nobody is constantly caring about others because while I definitely try to care about others most of the time (probably wasn't being so caring when I made a lot of the mistakes that I made though), I sometimes felt like there might have been something wrong with me when I wasn't thinking about other people's problems a lot of the time and instead sometimes just doing my own thing and enjoying fun times or even just relaxing during moments when someone else who I know or someone I don't even know that well may have been going through a bit of a rough patch. So, I'll try to relax more, while still being kind, but not in a worrying a lot kind of way. (Unless someone's in danger or something like that). 

I definitely have a much better idea of how wrong I was now so I'm glad I have that at least and I think it will also make it a lot easier to get better as well as continuing to see my psychologist and maybe see if I can see her twice a month instead of once a month too. I'll also try not to dob or snitch on someone again because it's not nice plus it doesn't end up helping anyone at all. I'll try to only "tell on someone" if it is my business and they are hurting me or if someone else needs me to for whatever reason and I'll only tell someone who actually needs to know about it. I once told my school counselor in college that a boy was bullying me really badly and making bad rumors about me (which a lot of people just believed) and he ended up getting expelled and probably in big trouble as well. A lot of people (other students) think I was in the wrong for this even though he was so awful to me just because when he and his friends had a crush on me, I didn't feel the same way. He and his friends wanted to hurt me even more than they actually did and most of them still continue to try to hurt me online and by spreading the rumors still among people in our city to isolate me further and make me look bad and feel even worse. The main boy who did this doesn't do it as much anymore, but I know it's only because the counselor scared him so much. I was super shy back then so the fact that I felt the need to "tell on him" to get him to stop and face some consequences shows a lot. Shy people don't usually stand up for themselves except for when REALLY necessary.

I'll also try to remind myself that nobody is perfect (not even close) because I have moments when I feel like I am one of the few people in the world who make really bad mistakes and everyone else only makes extremely minor ones, but of course, I am also going to continue to try to take more accountability for the mistakes that I make, especially the bigger ones.  

Very helpful and kind advice you gave as always. 🙂