Anti-Social Girl

Season 2 Finale!

Episode 13: Victory is my destiny!

Nilly (around age 20) finally finished school. Confident to reach the peak of academic success, she applies to university. Her dream: To become a researcher, discovering new things, and being largely independent.

However, most people tell her that her goals are rather unrealistic. With only slightly average grades, no academic background, and severe disorders, it is unlikely she would make it far. After a rejection latter from the university, her parents encourage her to start working instead.

More or less forced, she accepts a job for a year, and already begin to slack off at the halftime. While pwASPD are notorious for not keeping a job, and blamed for a lack of responsibility, in this episode we explores the perspective of someone with ASPD. The lack of appreciation for others, themselves, or a future, makes it hard to value a steady job in the first place.

In the end, her application in the following year is approved and she begins her academic career. With that, ending the second season and her teenage-age-arc.

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Inability to keep a stable job is part of the evaluated diagnostic criteria for ASPD and also part of the larger PCL-R assessment in order to investigate the person's responsibility. A lack of responsibility is part of the emotional deficits and behavioral issues across affected people.

Additionally, many pwASPD show struggles to follow through realistic long-term plans. They may have visions about theri future and describe dreams and aspirations, but they rarely to never have any concrete planning. It is more of a wish, an expression of an immedaite desire, rather than a step-by-step plan how to handle something. This fits with the generally observable inability to put themselves in future situations, almost as if only the imemdiate imagination exists.

For the significance her academic success holds, one would have expected Nilly to perform better at school. She also believes that ultimately she will g to university, stating that it is "fate" or "innate to her being" that she eventually gets what she wants, a sign of grandiosity, more alligning with NPD but as such part of the broader psychopathy construct.

Impulsive and quick anger are also characteristical, even in a clear no-go place, pwASPD are still prone to fall out of their role and lose their calmness.

Sources:

DSM-5

Season 2 Episode 12: Revenge of the Bullies!

Nilly (age 16-17) is not the only one who asserts dominance. We remember a group of bullies Nilly pushed back? A school year later, they try to give it another shot. This time interupting Nilly's attempts to get closer to June, the Girl with Pink Hair.

This time, we see a reactionary way of aggression. We observed instrumental aggression in previous episodes. Instrumental aggresions are intentional and a means for an end, while reactive aggressions are an end in themselves.

This time, the bullies overstepped and immediately regret this. At least the one Nilly caught in the act. Impulsive as she is, and oblivious to threats and dangers, she chases a guy, at least two heads taller than her nonetheless, across the schoolyard to fight him.

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Because of their impulsivity, people with ASPD do not only bring the security of others at risk, but also their own. People with high scores in psychopathy have shown to be oblivious to threats and thus often appear fearless and put themselves in danger. While most people assess whether a fight is worth it, once Nilly decided to punish her opponent, she willingly risks getting knocked out in order to avenge herself.

Furthermore, her bully already surrendered, yet she remains unaffected by such gesture, which has been repeatedly observed among people suffering from high scores in psychopathy. Studies show that psychopathic people are less receptive to affective expressions, fearful expressions in particular. Surrendering usually triggers an emapthetic response which lowers the aggression in the aggressor, but the psychological mechanism does not register in many people with ASPD.

Sources:

Hastings ME, Tangney JP, Stuewig J. Psychopathy and Identification of Facial Expressions of Emotion. Pers Individ Dif. 2008 May;44(7):1474-1483.

Newman JP, Curtin JJ, Bertsch JD, Baskin-Sommers AR. Attention moderates the fearlessness of psychopathic offenders. Biol Psychiatry. 2010 Jan 1;67(1):66-70.

Season 2 Episode 11: The bag won't come back!

Nilly chills at the school yard. A few peers play football, others engage in smalltalk. She kept her bottle on the ground, but keeping enough space from the action, until some random dude decides to kick her bottle over. The rest of their peers is alarmed, they know what Nilly could do if she feels challanged.

She does not actually care about the bottle. her attention is already somewhere else. But she knows that the alarm of her peers is a sign of respect, and if she lets this slide, it will be interpreted as a sign of weakness or willingness to give up her place in the social hierarchy.

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Author's comment and scientific notes:

I do not know if this sort of hierarchical thinking is common on the schoolyard or not, but for Nilly, it is clear that she needs to earn respect among her peers, with either social gratification or physical power. Respect means safetly. Maybe it is a trauma response, but thinking in terms of social dominance is common among teenagers with Conduct Disorder with Callous Unemotional traits (CU traits).

An offense towards her possessions or people she cares about, will not be tolerated, as she will view this directly as an attack on herself. Even though she does not care about the bottle, she cares about no disrespect against her being left unpunished. We already saw the instrumental nature of her aggressions in previous episodes, however, in a situation like this, getting physical would rather damage her reputation than doing good, so she gets creative.

Season 2 Episode 10: Traveling to new worlds

TW: Suicide ideation TW: Religious imagery

We all know that Nilly (around 17) had a rough time recently. Abandoned by her mother and incarcerated as a child, she suffered domestic violance at her new home, failed to form meaningful connections with her peers at school. Grades suffer, dissatisfaction boils over, and life feels like an endless circle of suffering.

When her last few hopes shatter at a school trip, where she learns about what feels like an unrequited friendship, stuck in the past, and no pleasure whatover in an activity which is supposed to be exciting, she decides to ride home. And yes, she does not have a ticket if she does not go with the class - luckily for her, or the ticket insepctor, no one checked on this day - since the calss travled via class ticket. However, during her train ride, she thinks about what happens next, and realizes where is not muhc to luck forward.

Upon that realization, she considers taking one last major decision and to take leaving that suffering behind by ending her life.

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Scientific note:

Suicidal ideation is not talked enough about people with ASPD or Conduct Disorder, albeit there is a higher risk of suicide for them than control groups. Cleckly once wrote that people with psychopathic or anti-social traits would be less likely to commit suicide, but newer findings contradict him.

Not only is Conduct Disorder increasing the risk of suicide during adulthood, but these kids themselves are already at a much higher risk to end their lives prematurely.

Since pwASPD are more likely to be treated in forensic settings than in therapeutic settings, and people seem to care less about the survival of inmates, studies on suicide prevention is less known than compared to other personality disorders.

Reasons for suicide can vary. One which often pops up is taht suicide might be seen as an opportunity to escape once felt trapped. In the case of our Anti-Social-Girl, it is a combination of lack of perspective, ahedonia, and entrapment in sameness, likely to stem from her inability to gain happiness from everyday interactions and social bonds compared to her peers.

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Sources and further reading:

McClelland, H., Cleare, S. & O’Connor, R.C. Suicide Risk in Personality Disorders: A Systematic Review. Curr Psychiatry Rep 25, 405–417 (2023)

Verona, E., Patrick, C. J., & Joiner, T. E. (2001). Psychopathy, antisocial personality, and suicide risk. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 110(3), 462–470.

https://childhealthpolicy.ca/mental-disorders-suicide-risk/#:~:text=The%20researchers%20found%20that%20when,than%20those%20without%20these%20problems.

Wei HT, Lan WH, Hsu JW, Bai YM, Huang KL, Su TP, Li CT, Lin WC, Chen TJ, Chen MH. Risk of Suicide Attempt among Adolescents with Conduct Disorder: A Longitudinal Follow-up Study. J Pediatr. 2016

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Spoilers:

Season 2 Episode 9: Making New Friends

After her friend Rob moved away, Anti-Social-Girl Nilly (age 15-17) befriended another guy. They shared some interests and overall he appeared to be strong and confident. Smart move to get someone like him on your side is it not?

Well, turns out it is not best for your school performance and when confronted with bad grades, she realizes that at some point in your school career, it is not about power on the school yard, but about the prospect of academic success.

Conduct Disorder is associated with impeded school performance and the social environment may play into this. Luckily, the up-coming discussion of her grades remind her that her future plans and actual future may diverge if she does not chance something. She also gets kinda annoyed by her friend. So, it is time for new friends, which fit her newly gained ambitions!

She looks around and spots a student who looks more to her liking. A bit of a loner, but above average grade and generally kind. The perfect new friend. Now, the question remains: how to get rid of your old friend, get the teacher to give you a better grade, and get to your newly targeted friend?

Easy! Throw your old friend under the bus, so you get off lightly. Blame him for your poor performance, teachers loooove self-reflection and social awareness, as well as being right about their judgement about another student. Who cares about your old friends, especially if they are not listening, right?

Next, you tell your teacher that in order to help you, you need to sit next to the targeted friend. That they barely know you, does not matter, they will make your acquaintance soon! And once you are placed next to them, you act as if it was all the teacher's plan. Neither old nor new friend knows you ever had anything to do with it!

And then, you work with your new friend together to become a good student and check out their notes, homework, and other stuff to copy.

As such, we see how Nilly drops an old friend in exchange for a new one. Ironically, unbeknown to her, she will actually develop some sort of emotional bonding with them, or better an imbalanced desire to be actually liked and admired. This is how she came to meet the "pink haired student" with glasses we saw already in earlier episodes.

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Author's note:

I could not find an explicit scientific source about it, but the idea that people with Conduct Disorder and ASPD, especially if combined with CU traits, are willing to throw their own friends under the bus, if they can save their own, is pretty much common knowledge. It does not always have to be dramatic. It can also be subtle.

I found this surprising when I once watched an interview with a psychopathic gang member, who admitted that he would switch the sides on a gang, if the other side has something better to offer. Because when I checked the comments, a lot of people who felt like they would be psychopathic due to a lack of emotional consideration for others, they felt repulsed by the idea to betray the close circle. To me, it appears that the lack of empathy for the common people is reserved for out-groups, while empathy and loyalty is considered as given, if there is the safety of an inner circle.

The fact that a psychopath may throw this all away seems to be... perplexing to say the least. Also that you may befriend people you may not even like, seems to be unusual. I would not say I am like this today, because at some point, I wanted stable relationships and I had to work hard to get to that point. Also I think that most of my social circle right now is in their social aspect themselves beneficial to me in a way I could not have imagined when I was younger. So thanks to these people for that!

Further reading:

Vitaro F, Tremblay RE, Bukowski WM. Friends, friendships and conduct disorders. In: Hill J, Maughan B, eds. Conduct Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence.

Keen DV. Conduct disorders and us: from heart sink to heart warming? Arch Dis Child. 2007 Oct;92(10):838-41.

Miron CD, Satlof-Bedrick E, Waller R. Longitudinal association between callous-unemotional traits and friendship quality among adjudicated adolescents. J Adolesc. 2020 Jun;81:19-26

Season 2 Episode 8: Demon Hunting

Nilly (age 19) decides with her friend Rob (age 18) to explore a graveyard at night. She hopes to find some demons she learned about from her cultural folklore to get famous.

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Scientific note: Sadly, I could not find anything substantial about Conduct Disorder / ASPD and religiousity. So, all I can do is to piece together fragments from available information.

One thing in this episode is surely characteristical for people with conduct disorder. Children with conduct disorder are notorious for exploring an abandoned basement, dark woods, or a graveyard at night.

At her age, even though graveyards may estill voke a feeling of unease, visiting such places are a common test of courage. The concept of monsters and demons also appears to be interpreted differently. Within a religious context God is supposed to inspire awe, admiration, and a sense of moral goodness. The Devil is meant to evoke a sense of moral repulsion, demons are supposed to scare people. All these concepts appeal to the emotional interactions between a social group. It teaches a social group what is good, what is evil, what is permissable, and what is appalling.

Nilly, however, is utterly oblivious to the emotional load of the religious terminology. A demon is not a morally depraved being or a creature to fear. Instead, she treatens the demons of her culture like rare animals, which can be explored, understood, and captured, if they turn out to be real. The graveyard itself, perhaps still a morbid place to be for many, does not even register as a place filled with heavy emotions, but is merely a potential habitat of something she perceives as yet another animal.

Sources:

Season 2 Episode 7: Fakes and forgeries

Nilly, our little anti-social-girl, around age of 16-19 by now, gets an order from her father: She is instructed to make some forgeries of important documents. Turning her time on the computer into something useful.

Once she accompanies her father to deliver the document, she quickly finds out, she will be the one to be blamed if anything goes wrong. Now she has to make sure everything goes smoothly at the office.

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Scientific Sidenote:

This episode is less about our ASPD-girl Nilly, but about another person manifesting anti-social personality disorder: her father.

While this blog aims at the humanization of pwASPD, showig the conditions, under which a lot of pwASPD may have grown up, is also a great chance to explore untreated and unaware psychopathy.

The emotional deficiency is considered moderately heritable. This means that a disposition for psychopathic emotional affect is more likely to appear when your parents already displayed psychopathic behavior. At the same time, it is not a sufficient condition and warm parenting can counter the disposition.

People who show a psychopathic affective manifestion of ASPD also display pro-social emotional deficits, such as lack of remorse, care for the safety of others, and manipulation. This can result in an instrumental usage of family members. Combined with impulsivity, as it is typical for pwASPD/psychopathy, the children may need to compensate for the parent's mistakes.

As a result a child of psychopathic parents may learn early on that their value as a person depends on utility and efficiency, rather than an inherent value as a person. This then leads to a devaluation of interpersonal emotions on their part.

This is not to say that bad parenting is predetermined. In the end, it is the individual who can learn to work around their symptoms and to live with their disorder or not. If unreflected and untreated, it is less likely that the relationship will be anything but toxic though.

Further readings:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0306624X211013517

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34152500/

Season 2 Episode 6: Prosecution and apologetics

After a while abroad, Nilly comes home. Her parents often try to call her for all sorts of trivial things, but rarely inform her about letters. This is dire, because important letters often have a strict deadline.

This time, she receives a letter from the prosecutor. Suffering from a pathological inability to mentally time-travel, she does not weight the situation properly on an emotional level, although she feels betrayed by her parents.

Rationally, she can understand that she is in danger. However, until the very moment of the appointment, she is unable to process the peril she is in, and the potential threat of yet another incarceration ahead.

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Scientific note:

A failure to plan ahead is one of the diagnostic criteria for ASPD. Psychopaths, people with a severe form of ASPD, are notorious for an inability for mental time travel; the ability to put your emotions into a past or future state of mind.

Psychopaths can imagine past and future rationally. They can logically state what has happened and what will happen under sepcific circumstances. However, they usually fail to do so emotionally. As a result, a psychopath may understand that they should not perform certain actions, because they may end up in prison, but cannot process the implications emotionally. Such knowledge becomes a purely semantic knowledge without any mental value. Consequently, their ability to consider the consequences of their actions and planning out their navigations through life work only poorly.

They might be able to focus on a short-term goal, which bring quick immediate rewards, but they fail to integrate their actions into the social context of a realistic future plan. As such, it seems that a lot of their actions eventually turn against their own interest, sabotaging themselves or self-defeat.

Because of their inability to mental time travel, it seems that psychopaths do not understand their actions to the fullest. Because of that reason, some scientists and moral philosophers have argued that the actions of psychopaths do not carry the same severity, when compared to healthy control groups.

This is not to say that psychopaths are proposed to bear no moral or legal responsibility at all. Psychopaths do understand what an action is right or wrong, they can still choose to commit an action. However, it seems they can understand only the immediate action, not the context, consequence, or implications of said action. Due to their impaired understanding – including the consequences for themselves and others – it has been proposed that their punishment should be adjusted to their mental capacities.

Further readings:

Vierra, Andrew. (2016). Psychopathy, Mental Time Travel, and Legal Responsibility. Neuroethics. 9.

Season 2 Episode 5: Different degrees of Insanity

In this slice of life episode, Nilly (now 17-19 years old) meets her friend Rob. Everything goes fine and it seems like a pretty normal day until a weird guy shows up at the door.

Rob is probably not an ordinary person either, but he handles a potential threat much more energetic than our anti-social teenage girl. After the incident, she does her best to comfort him, which then leads to discussing their relationship status.

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Scientific Side note:

Psychopathic people with ASPD are said to be able to remain calm in situations others find stressful. There are various theories to why that is. Some suggest this is due to low physiological arousal, others because of an attention deficit in threat detection, yet others, assert it is because of high pain tolerance.

This allows them to find effective long-term solutions even when confronted with a threat or danger. Another theory states that a high dopamine boost, people with ASPD would often experience, would let them focus on the goal - such as avoiding harm or protecting something - rather than engaging with the potential threat, often resolving the conflict more smoothly.

Season 2 Episode 4: Bully the bullies

Nilly, also known as Anti-Soc.-Girl, on her way to school in a winter morning. Depressed and tired, she enjoys the empty school corridors after arriving far too late, which has become a habit at the age of 15-17.

Teachers began to ignore her tardiness, as she would not improve anyways. And since she appears to school eventually, teachers see little reason to cause her anymore trouble than necessary.

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Scientific note:

Kids and teens with conduct disorder are notorious for bullying behavior. Yet, bullying is by far not limited to them. Bullying is usually done by in-group peers to presure out-group individuals and it is quite possible that kids and teens with conduct disorder end up in the receiving end.

How could someone with conduct disorder react to being bullied? This episode is about Nilly reacting when bullies force her to play "Keep away" Even if the odd kids with conduct disorder might become subject to bullying, they often put an end to this by themselves. This in turn may cause more trouble. As social animals, humans naturally value peace in the community.

The escalation of the situation or fueling oil to the fire to end a situation for the individual's favor might be perceived as undue, over the top, or concerning for both people in authority as well as peers.

Truancy is considered a core symptoms of conduct disorder. Although Nilly displays some willingness to go to school eventually, her tardiness is sometimes considered part of the characteristical symptom for a lack of responsibility, defiance or breaking of rules. Further readings:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8521530/#Sec13

Season 2: Episode 3: Violettes

TRIGGER WARNING: Domestic abuse, blood. ----------------------------------------------------------- Story:

Nilly, also known as Anti-Social-Girl, after leaving her institutionalization - initiated by her mother - behind, begins her new life with a new family. These events occur around age 11-17.

While, as we have seen in the previous episode, her new family is deeply concerned about her behavior , they fear her potential re-institutionalization. Overwhelmed with treating a child suffering from the symptoms of condut disorder, conventional parenting methods hardly work.

Stricter and harsher puishments do not work on children and teens with conduct disorder. They are notoriously bad at learning from punishment cues. Eventually, her upbringing results in domestic abuse, which in turn, worsens her condition. Failing as a good older sister, as a good daughter, and yet another family, and no support or emotional trust and stability in sight, she feels more lonely than ever before.

----------------------------------------------------------- Science and Sources: Even though Callous Unemotional traits (CU traits) can have an early childhood-onset, not more than half will develop ASPD or psychopathy.

A common misconception is that CU traits, such as an unemotional disregard for the emotions of others, are a predictor for psychopathy. In truth, ASPD and psychopathy (a severe form of ASPD) do not develop without traumatic experiences.

Whereas emotional neglect furthers mostly factor 1 traits (the affective, manipulative, and emotional component; matching with NPD), unstable family relationships and domestic violance, as well as poverty increase factor 2 traits (impulsivity, lack of planning; matching with ASPD). In case of psychopathy, these two factors increase another over time. The emotional component leads to impulsive behavior, which in turn gets you into trouble, and leads to an increase in factor 1 traits.

This vicious circle can be interrupted at anytime by a healthy, trusting, and loving environment. This is hard to swallow due to the implication that ASPD and psychopathy are indeed made. For the affected person, it is hard because they realize, under different circumstanes, they could have been healthy. For the people around them (and society as a whole), they cannot blame mother nature, but must admit their own educational failures.

In other terms, psychopathy and ASPD cannot develop without abuse. Because of that, I decided to publish this episode. At first, I wanted to keep my episodes mostly cartoonish and treat symptoms mostly as little but of dark-humor. And I tried my best to do so in this episode, but I think I simply cannot comply to this expectation.

Alternatively, I could skip that curcial part of ASPD, but then I would fail to do the educational purpose I still comit to on my webseries. As a result, our poor little girl has to go through several stages of abuse, both emotionally, verbally, and physically.

Season 2: Episode 2: Punishment Executed

Anti-Soc.-Girl at school after her transfer to her father's family. Now around 14 years old, she gets verbally attacked by a guy at school.

What does a decent girl at that age do if she gets harassed? Telling teachers? Insulting back? Go into a corner and cry? Of course not! She straightup fights that guy to force him to shut up!

This episode is a great example for highlighting the difference between "reactive aggression" and "instrumental aggression". While what most people think of aggression is usually "reactive aggression", pwASPD, especially among those with Callous Unemotional traits, often rather exhibit "instrumental aggression".

The former is a typical violent outburst, caused by external stimulation, such as perceived threats, provocation, or frustration. It is uncontrolled and unplanned, a spontaneous reaction and caused through an erroneous perception of hostility among others.

The latter is characterized by utility. It does not mean that no emotions are involved, but the aggression serves an outcome. It is often much calmer and less noisy, as it does not focus on warding off a threat or to intimidate others, but on achieving a desired goal; the harm on others being a means to achieve it.

The scientific definition is that in "reactive aggression", the aggression itself is the goal. In "instrumental aggresion", the goal is something else and aggression a tool to achieve it. You can always asked yourself: Did you act like this because of something or to achieve something? _____________________________________ Spoilers:

Anti-Sociol-Girl, in this case, exhibits instrumental aggression. If she had attacked the guy directly upon the insult, it would be considered reactive. Since she came back at him, after the situation was dissolved, and decided to hurt him for the purpose of restoring her status and punishing the guy for humiliating her, her attacks serve a purpose. She planned attacking him in order to achieve something.

ASPD-Girl's CDiary SEASON 1 (part 3):

This is the entire (third part) of the 1st season of the CDiary, an animation about a girl with Conduct Disorder (CD) and later Anti-Social-Personality-Disorder (ASPD).

The first season introduces us to ASPD-Girl, her overall personality, and her relationship with her teachers, parents, friends, and peers, whereby exposing the overall attitude and anti-social behaviour of someone with conduct disorder. While exploring her overall relationship with other important figures and her little delinquencies, the season mainly focuses on her incarceration arc.

Another season is in the making and while exploring more shenanigans it will focus more about on her emotional state and provide insights into the mind of our anti-social protagonist, the author of this diary. So stay tuned and follow my blog for more ASPD-related awareness content in the future!

ASPD-Girl's CDiary SEASON 1 (part 2):

This is the entire 1st season of the CDiary, an animation about a girl with Conduct Disorder (CD) and later Anti-Social-Personality-Disorder (ASPD).

The first season introduces us to ASPD-Girl, her overall personality, and her relationship with her teachers, parents, friends, and peers, whereby exposing the overall attitude and anti-social behaviour of someone with conduct disorder. While exploring her overall relationship with other important figures and her little delinquencies, the season mainly focuses on her incarceration arc.

Another season is in the making and while exploring more shenanigans it will focus more about on her emotional state and provide insights into the mind of our anti-social protagonist, the author of this diary. So stay tuned and follow my blog for more ASPD-related awareness content in the future!

ASPD-Girl's CDiary SEASON 1:

This is the first part of the 1st season of the CDiary, an animation about a girl with Conduct Disorder (CD) and later Anti-Social-Personality-Disorder (ASPD).

The first season introduces us to ASPD-Girl, her overall personality, and her relationship with her teachers, parents, friends, and peers, whereby exposing the overall attitude and anti-social behaviour of someone with conduct disorder. While exploring her overall relationship with other important figures and her little delinquencies, the season mainly focuses on her incarceration arc.