i wanted to ask this bc i was reminded of it (tangentially) from your 'why would a sociopath admit to being one' post. it's barely related, and a half-vent so i apologize
i once trained/onboarded a guy at my last retail job. shift 3 of me working with him: things were conversational and he seemed like a genuinely decent dude who wanted to work with our tiny team (rebuilding after higher-ups purged any 'weak-performers' for sales :/). when the store is finally empty of customers, he turns to me with a big grin on his face, saying he's incredibly antisocial, diagnosed sociopath, and a narcissist.
i was like. um ok? that's fine, u seem nice enough and u work with customers well, that's basically all u need to do here. the rest of the team is some flavor of ND, queer, or disabled so we have a lot of diversity! and he goes 'cool, glad to hear it' and then he dropped the subject to finish his job training.
we spent a good amount of time, chatting during slow hours, but all he was interested in talking about was his ex-wife that left him for his 'mental issues'. i'm kind of a pushover so i just let him vent if he needed to, but since i didn't have any qualifications i let him know i couldn't help him through it as a coworker, and he should probably talk with a therapist if he needed help. i thought he received it well bc he didn't ask me for advice after that
our schedules made it so everyone had at least one shift with each other every week, so everyone had the opportunity to meet him and we all got generally positive vibes from him and it seemed like things were going well. he was getting praise from the higher-ups for being good with sales as well!! i like sharing whatever rare positive things they say bc it's just nice to hear after all the annoying stats. he seemed proud of it!
couple weeks later I get a text from our boss, asking me to come in and take his shift that day bc he called out last minute. i agreed bc sure, money is nice, not a huge deal (not the important part)
guy never came back, and blocked everyone's contact info and the store's number. we kinda just went 'oh well, nothing we can do' and started trying to find someone else to hire bc we still needed help
like a month later, our boss got a huge, all-caps text from him, cussing all of us out for being pieces of shit, among other things. unsure if slurs were involved but bc we're all aforementioned queer/disabled/ND, it was a possibility đŹ i was shocked -same with my boss- bc we both thought we were getting along with him great :(
tbh i dont even know if this is even related to mental health or if he was just an asshole đ sometimes i rethink about what i could have done or said instead bc i have incredibly bad obsessive-compulsive tendencies but otherwise it's water under the bridge.
he is still alive though, bc i randomly found his facebook profile while browsing and he was still posting. it was kind of a relief bc my boss and i were worried smth happened to him after that rant text.
anyway sorry if this is a weird message to get. i didnt mean for it to get so long đ
I donât know if this is meant to be a question or not or just talking, but itâs interesting anyway. âIs it related to mental health or was he just an asshole?â I do think he was clearly going through something and lonely and like suddenly had an impulsive moment where he wanted to cut everyone and everything off.