I’m going to be complaining a bunch in this post, so if you don’t want to hear the moaning of a labor aristocrat who should really not be complaining about his situation, feel free to skip this post.

I don’t feel like a human being. I’m unable to feel empathy. I’m unable to feel any sort of human bond, even with friends and family I’ve known my whole life. I’ve been in therapy and on meds for years but they don’t help. This leads to a life of no joy or meaning. I’m also not moved by the suffering of others when I know I should be. I’ve watched videos of some of the Ukranian war crimes and read a post another user made that went into graphic detail about the Thai sex trade and felt… nothing. As far as I’m concerned, I’m an evil psychopath. But I don’t want to be this way. But I don’t know how to change. Because of this, the only emotions I know are anger and self loathing. I genuinely despise myself.

Because I’m a fucking monster, I lash out at people sometimes and say terrible things. Hell, there was a post a few weeks ago here highlighting some evil unhinged shit that got my lemmy account banned. In fact, if the mods are worried I’m going to say some unhinged shit that’s basically fed bait, I would fully understand if you banned me. I’m not even sure people like me should be allowed near communities.

Because I have, I can’t think of another way to put this, no soul, I barely do anything in life. The only reason I’m able to keep up with my job is that it’s a barely monitored remote code monkey gig. I barely move and don’t monitor what I eat. I spend an unhealthy amount of time on the internet, and often I’ll go days at a time without sleeping. I don’t have the guts to put a bullet in my brain, but I’m basically already doing a slow motion suicide.

I’m posting this here because this community seems to understand what’s going on in the world, is full of compassionate people, and has users who are experienced with dealing with mental illness.

How the fuck do I become a human being? How do I stop being a psychopath?

  • @panic
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    1 year ago

    As an “ASPD” myself, you can stop performing anti-social behaviours that harm other humans and change the way you understand yourself and the rest of people. You have to decide what you want to do and accept that the way you behave will have to change.

    I don’t believe developing empathy is necessary to improve these traits and you will end up hurting yourself if that’s the goal you have.

    You have to stop feeling bad about yourself and take real life steps to improve the image you show.

    Edit: I know I haven’t said “how” because I would have to create a plan about a person I know nothing about. If you DM me I will share my own experience so you can take notes from that.

    • @panic
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      171 year ago

      I will note that I’m still very much an antisocial mess but I function better in society and actually feel human

  • @lxvi
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    171 year ago

    Such is life, friend. So it goes.

    Nobody has a soul anymore. We are a souless nation. We are social animals and can only be alive when properly integrated into a healthy community. You can’t feel empathy, well you live in a society thoroughly stripped of empathy. How could you properly be expected to feel empathy?

    You understand your condition rationally and you understand current historical events rationally. It’s difficult to feel empathetic towards events happening far away to people you have no relation to.

    You feel the need to lash-out and say dangerous things. That’s the natural response to absolute powerlessness and your miserable state.

    If you want your soul back then go and search for it. If you want it back then go and take it.

    I’m in Washington State if you’re around and want to talk. Otherwise if you’ve reached your whit’s end leave the country. You said yourself that your unhealthy both physically and emotionally. You’re of no use to anyone while in your current state and will find no place in the world while like it. Work on your physical health. Make it your obsession. Discipline your mind. Focus on very few things. In six months time when you’re physically healthy go on a pilgrimage to the South. Go to Nicaragua or Venezuela. Learn to be human there. You likely won’t learn it here.

  • @Ottar
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    1 year ago

    deleted by creator

  • I’m not qualified to give any advice whatsoever, so take this all with a mountain of salt.

    The most important thing is that you should absolutely make sure that you sleep every day. Even if you don’t feel tired, we can’t function properly if we stay awake for too long. If you have trouble falling asleep, try some natural sleeping aids or, if necessary, some non-addictive sleeping pills.

    I will point out that you’re a communist (at least I assume so since you’re here), which is pretty cool. You’re also aware of your issues, which is a good start. It’s good that you have a remote job (I do as well, and it takes a lot of pressure off my mind). If you want to post something negative about some user, even if they’ve expressed some really horrible views (like the person you replied to in the comment which got your other account banned), I’d say it’d be better to just not post it, to be safe (especially if it’s wishing them harm in some way).

    Regarding your partial lack of empathy: I have this problem as well, mostly w.r.t. people I don’t personally know. I am mostly detached from the suffering of Ukrainian civilians during this war (although I haven’t been actively looking for videos showing their perspective). I did feel a brief wave of disgust by the post you mentioned about Thailand, but it passed quickly. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to fix this way of thinking.

    You can message me if you want to talk about something. I have no idea if I can help, but I can try.

    • @panic
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      141 year ago

      The clear lack of empathy people can show makes me pull back from thinking my own as pathological. I believe constantly exposing yourself to human tragedy when you’re only an spectator eats away at the reaction you would have had the first time.

      The way I treat this is that human suffering doesn’t exist for me to gawk at. It’s completely selfish for me to watch people living through war and expect to feel what they do. As long as I can recognize suffering I know how I want to react: avoid experiencing it myself and causing it to others.

  • Don’t be harsh on yourself, you’re not a monster you’re not going around hurting people and it doesn’t make you any less human if a bee dying doesn’t make you cry.

    I used to be in a similar situation but I’m not comfortable sharing (I’ve almost killed a person close to me), but I’ve only felt human after being treated like one, including how I treat myself.

    Surround yourself with people you like talking to, get to know them get them to know you, you will learn to control how you talk to not hurt them, you will see other people as humans they will see you as one and when people see you as a human you’ll see yourself as one. You’ve isolated yourself and didn’t experience humans to understand them and act like them so you feel you’re not one of them.

    I wish I could help more but I don’t know a lot about you, I wish you the best I hope you find a way

  • ⚧️TheConquestOfBed♀️
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    1 year ago

    Everyone else has more heartfelt answers so ima quotemine some theory:

    The central problem is this: How can the oppressed, as divided, unauthentic beings, participate in developing the pedagogy of their liberation? Only as they discover themselves to be “hosts” of the oppressor can they contribute to the midwifery of their liberating pedagogy. As long as they live in the duality in which to be is to be like, and to be like is to be like the oppressor, this contribution is impossible. The pedagogy of the oppressed is an instrument for their critical discovery that both they and their oppressors are manifestations of dehumanization.

    Liberation is thus a childbirth, and a painful one. The man or woman who emerges is a new person, viable only as the oppressor-oppressed contradiction is superseded by the humanization of all people. Or to put it another way, the solution of this contradiction is born in the labor which brings into the world this new being: no longer oppressor nor longer oppressed, but human in the process of achieving freedom.

    This solution cannot be achieved in idealistic terms. In order for the oppressed to be able to wage the struggle for their liberation, they must perceive the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform. This perception is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for liberation; it must become the motivating force for liberating action. Nor does the discovery by the oppressed that they exist in dialectical relationship to the oppressor, as his antithesis—that without them the oppressor could not exist—in itself constitute liberation. The oppressed can overcome the contradiction in which they are caught only when this perception enlists them in the struggle to free themselves.

    The same is true with respect to the individual oppressor as a person. Discovering himself to be an oppressor may cause considerable anguish, but it does not necessarily lead to solidarity with the oppressed. Rationalizing his guilt through paternalistic treatment of the oppressed, all the while holding them fast in a position of dependence, will not do. Solidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those with whom one is solidary; it is a radical posture. If what characterizes the oppressed is their subordination to the consciousness of the master, as Hegel affirms, true solidarity with the oppressed means fighting at their side to transform the objective reality which has made them these ”beings for another.” The oppressor is solidary with the oppressed only when he stops regarding the oppressed as an abstract category and sees them as persons who have been unjustly dealt with, deprived of their voice, cheated in the sale of their labor—when he stops making pious, sentimental, and individualistic gestures and risks an act of love. True solidarity is found only in the plenitude of this act of love, in its existentiality, in its praxis. To affirm that men and women are persons and as persons should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce.

    Since it is a concrete situation that the oppressor-oppressed contradiction is established, the resolution of this contradiction must be objectively verifiable. Hence, the radical requirement—both for the individual who discovers himself or herself to be an oppressor and for the oppressed—that the concrete situation which begets oppression must be transformed.

    From Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere

  • @CannotSleep420OP
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    61 year ago

    Thank you to everyone who commented. I’m glad I was right that this community would be supportive and understanding.

    Looking back at my OP, I realize that I’m treating this “soulessness” as if it were some sort of unchanging metaphysical essence. I’m not the best read on theory, but I think I’ve read enough to know that existence precedes essence, not the other way around. I didn’t pop into existence this way: I am a product of society. Considering my privilege, that I meet multiple intersections of oppressor, I wouldn’t be surprised if my current state is at least partially because of the ruling class trying to turn people like me into cudgels to be used against the most oppressed and downtrodden.

    I think I have at least a broad idea of what I must do: eat well, exercise, read, and when I’m not falling apart at the seams anymore, organize.

    • @panic
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      41 year ago

      You need to interact with other people in a healthy way. I don’t know how isolated you are but you can start with small steps at any point. I have an agoraphobia and social phobia diagnosis diagnosis so I’m not talking BS assuming it’s easy.

      A problem with feeling disconnected from other humans is that you end up causing it yourself by consciously avoiding human contact.

      AND avoid calling yourself a psychopath (unless you are ASPD and have gotten comfortable with your diagnosis). You’re beating yourself down for no reason. It’s not a nice label and the weight of it will stop you from improving yourself.

      • @CannotSleep420OP
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        41 year ago

        Thanks. I think the main drivers of my lack of sleep are painful acid reflux and too much time in front of screens. I’ve already noticeably improved on the first front.

        • I’ve heard that not eating for quite a while before sleeping can help with acid reflux, if you haven’t already tried that. For monitor use, apparently there are glasses that block some type of light that may be harmful to some extent, although I’ve never tried them personally

  • @333o
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    1 year ago

    This hurt to read. I’m so sorry to hear this. I’ma approach it from my honest angle, which I can forsee some people having a problem with, but please bare in mind that this is written with love and good intention:

    The challenges that this world has you facing are immense, and not something that I have ever heard anyone come so-clean about.

    Challenges such as this are personally tailored for each individual, and they are why we were chosen to exist (this, i guess, is where i lose a lot of people here)

    You are clearly very distraught about your situation, which is huge (it’s a form of empathy)

    My suggestion for you is spiritual reading. Specifically, Muslim and Jewish thinkers from the Golden Age.

    Thinkers like Harambam (Moshe Ben Mimon, Mimonidis), Haramban (not the same guy), Omar Kayam, Al-Farabbi

    I wish I could have been offering more names now. I hope to remember and to find the time to compile a bit longer a list

    I think that as a person who struggles to connect to their soul, learning the secrets of what a soul is and what mechanisms interacts within and with it may be helpful and powerful for you

    Even if you are not religious, these thinkers will probably be interesting to you, as their logical rigour and philosophical unwaverness is unmatches by anything that came afterwards (imo)

    I hope you hold on and keep trying

    You sound like a magical person for being able to deal with such an immense burden that you are so clearly aware of and bothered by

    Stay healthy and safe 💜

  • @electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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    31 year ago

    You say you don’t feel human, or that you have a soul. How then could you feel such anguish? Your pain is proof of your humanity. I wish I had specific advice for your troubles, but all I can say is that it is okay to love yourself.