friend convinced psychopath- i am not convinced

apologies- this is long.

My best friend is convinced (by his ex girlfriend) that he is a psychopath, and has since confided in me. i keep explaining that yes, to some degree he does fit the criteria, but so does every one (to some degree) but to be a psychopath, the "fit" of the criteria has to be taken to much, MUCH more of an extreme.
to my knowledge, he doesnt harm animals.

this is what he basically tells me that is his "evidence":
He is aggressive and manipulative, (his example of manipulative: he cons his friends into placing bets on video games that he knows he will win), he always got citations in highschool, was constantly getting in trouble while we were abroad together (ex: once because he was dared to do something that put his life in danger), aka impulsive, says he never feels guilty about manipulating people to get his way, he drinks every day to cope with the thought of this. he also says he doesnt seem to care about anyone and doesnt feel bad manipulating them. i told him he clearly cares about me, as he has helped me through a lot in the past, and he said i was such a nice person that he could never manipulate me in the way he does others and that it is hard not to care about me because of that. i told him that that was a sign right there that he wasnt, but he isnt taking no for an answer. he is CONVINCED. this evidence seems a bit weak when i type it out...in context there is more of a correlation, i will admit. however, i do not think he is a psychopath. i think he just is making himself fit via the "medical student's disease". im sure if his ex had said he was bipolar, he would be stressing about that. its not like he does dangerous things on a weekly basis, he is in college, and i dont see that he acts psychopathically different than most other college students. i think that there could possibly be some type of underlying disorder, but he cant fix it unless he gets help !


i see a psychiatrist for my own stuff, which is why i think he felt comfortable talking to me about this. i told him to go see one too, but he is so stubborn i cant get him to consider it. i know that in order for someone to really be helped they have to want it, but i really feel like he trusts me enough that i can convince him, especially with my educational background in neuroscience and my own experiences.


i guess i need advice on how to handle this, maybe some things i could say to help bring him to the side of getting help.

Mr.Panda
Let me tell you a story.
My brother has Aspergers. He is extremely intelegent, artistic, and creative. He lacks knowledge of basic social behavior, dislikes being touched, and has a negative outlook on almost everything. He is my older brother and he was eleventh grade when he ran into some problems with our private highschool.

The problems started in tenth grade when he grew attached to this girl and came off creepy when he reached out to her. He said nothing threatening, did nothing sexual, and went out of his way to do nice things for her. Looking back I suppose the overall effort of the things he did to make her happy would be what made his attempt to reach out socially taken in such a wrong way. The girl, although she didn't cause the problems, stood back as her extremely overbearing mother tried to cause as much damage to my brother as possible. She wanted him out of the school.

Later, in eleventh grade, he made a worse decision. He logged into someone else's account on some site and posted something outrageously immature and sent it to tons of people. It was stupid but something obviously done for group acceptance. I don't think he was bullied into it, I think he believed doing something like this would make some of the kids grow attached to him. He definitely didn't do it as a show of power or intimidation, but what he as a practical joke played by some friends together. Since he lacks basic social understanding, in this post he made a joke about rape. Not the best decision, although the joke was funny, sending something with multiple edgy jokes, one of which conserning rape, to ton of people runs the chance of someone along the line perhaps being offended.

Now the mother of the girl did her damage to my brother's image. They were trying to get him out of the school as fast as they could. They suspended him and had him seeing psychiatrists and social groups all over the place. But what tipped me off to what exactly what was going on was the psychopath test they had him take. They said that passing this test would basically end the problems, but once he passed it they only thought the test was taken wrong. Then it occurred to me that the school psychiatrist was the one making almost all the problems. They thought my brother was a psychopath.
(To be fair he draws pictures of animals with guns, mostly cats, but that's because he likes videogames and drawing cats. In reality he loves animals. He's a vegetarian for gods sake.)
Here's where I enter the story. You see, I'm an almost straight A's student in all honors classes. I'm loved by the teachers and the students unnanimously. I am considered one of the nicest kids in the entire school and one fourth of all the girls, and I mean that literally, one fourth of all the girls in my entire grade openly have a crush on me.

I scheduled a meeting with the school psychiatrist over a lunch period to settle the problems that had been running their toll on my family. My mom was extremely stressed, and my brother was getting behind in all of his classes. So the meeting started out friendly and half way through I asked him why he thought my Brother was a sociopath.
This took his by surprise and he said:
"Well sociopath is a loaded word and a serious accusation. That said your brother has displayed some characteristics of someone with in such a position. Now, this doesn't mean he's a bad person, this just means that this school might not be the right place for him."
Then I asked: "do you believe he is a sociopath?"
He said: "we are looking into all possibilities, but I strongly believe that to be the case, yes."
So I settled the problem:"well you see, if you're trying to out the psychopaths in the school you got the wrong kid. My brother here, he will not harm a hair on your head nor the image of your school. You see this kid, this kid has Aspergers. He's lost socially. He doesn't understand the consequences of his actions like you. The problem is, I do, and as it's become dreadfully obvious you've never dealt with a psychopath, so let's get this straight. First, my brother will not leave this school, he might be a liability, but I'm a loose end, and any damage he could potentially do to the school I will do tenfold. Second, this meeting never happened. No one will believe you, I will deny it to the gates of hell, and if you utter a word of it I will hurt you. And third, if we have any more problems with you, you will have problems with me, and you don't want to have problems with me. Do you understand?"
He was mad and called in another head of school. I denied everything perfectly and made the psychiatrist look like a corrupt idiot.

The purpose of this story is to show that while someone might seem to fit the criteria of a Sociopath or psychopath, until you have truly dealt with a real psychopath, the thought might sound reasonable or plausible, even when it's not.

The other moral is that sometimes labels mean nothing. Had my brother not passed the psychopath test he would have been considered a psychopath, but his personality would have been the same. Even if your friend somehow has AsPD, what would that change? He doesn't seem to need help, but the fact that he might have AsPD seems to make you feel like he needs some help. Let me remind you that he has lead his entire life so far and nothing has changed in him but the recognition of how exactly he might be different.

I wouldn't worry, he doesn't sound dangerous nor does he sound like a sociopath, but that said, what would it really matter. What would it change? And what, if he sought a psychiatrist, would be the desired outcome.

You post was interesting, I hope you the best.

If he IS bipolar he cannot be a sociopath. Also the bipolar would explain some of his risky and manipulative behavior if this happened in a manic or hypo-manic episode. If he feels ANYTHING (pretty much) he is not a sociopath. If he feels empathy, guilt, remorse, or anything similar at any time he CAN'T be a sociopath. If he is nice to you and cares about you, he's not a sociopath. Sociopath's don't have friends. They have pawns and prized possessions. People aren't people to them....

The reason sociopath's do dangerous things is because 1 they do not care about safety AT ALL. Nothing really bothers them. They get into risky behavior because in order to FEEL highs at all they need to get a rush. They only happen with this we would consider an extreme high.

wait a minute. are you telling me that they do not care about consequences in the least, even if it affects them directly?? That doesn't seem right to me. Would a sociopath put himself directly in harms way if the chances of dying were highly probable rather than just highly likely? That doesn't seem right to me...there's a difference between playing with fire and jumping into it...which are you saying they don't care about?

Part of ASPD is varying degrees of narcissism. Since there isn't any one thing that defines ASPD sometimes the lines between some disorders blur. If everyone with this disorder really didn't care about their safety AT ALL, honestly, they'd all be dead. And if they didn't care about their safety at all they'd also be lacking that narcissism component. There's a difference between being fearless and being an idiot.

Depends on the person. Eric Harris was a sociopath. He shot up his school. and killed himself. He was NOT depressed or anything of the like. Was not afraid of death. Some don't want to die. Some will risky things and don't care

Remember. The person has a disorder, but the disorder is not the person.

I realized I repeated myself lol I was incredulous, sorry and ocd lol

thank you very much, i invest in my friends a lot so i worry about them quite a bit. i guess i am just more worried about the fact that he is worried and refuses to do anything- besides tell me he drinks to forget about the thought of it. which, i think, is probably more of the issue that needs to be dealt with...

Is it really the troubles that cause him to drink or the drinking that is causing his troubles? He sounds like my alcoholic father who could never see that all the problems that he blamed for his drinking were really caused by the drinking.

That's true...
though.

hmm. Personality disorders- such as ASPD, are a bit more entangled.
Sometimes it's not as easy to discern the "person" from the "disorder".

..which some will take offense to.
But it is a valid point.

As valid as saying autism is not easily separated from the individual.
They are vastly different issues, but often just as deeply entrenched in a person's notion of the self.

I'm going to be perfectly honest and perhaps a bit blunt. If someone is concerned that he is a sociopath, he is probably not a sociopath. I have known someone who was a sociopath. She took pride in the idea that she was.

OSFED|MDD/PPD|GAD|gender dysphoria|AvPD

1. not all physcopaths harm aniamls, a great many love and respect them and wouldn't hurt one ever even if they would hurt a person.
2.He could be anti-social rather than a physcopath.
3. He might not have any disorder- does he use drugs?
4. I forget if you said his age- maybe he is immature/aggressive/impulsive as a result of his age, through our teen years we grow some thingy over our brains they call this milineation and it has to do with our maturity.If you want proper spelling and proper/full info on that google it.
5. Is his behaviour always in line with times he has high stress?
6. He could have some other disorder but only a trained professional can actually diagnose anything not just some girl who wants to say things about him.