I’m twitching like a cockroach in its death throes.  Every time that I think I make progress, I take two steps back.  Impulsivity will eventually ruin me, but not today.  Maybe I’ll be a parasite to a host that fights back.  Maybe my lack of foresight and goals will catch up with me.  It’s quite possible that I’ll put off the wrong person with my supreme megalomania.  There are so many facets of this condition that could eventually burn me.  I’m a small child, putting my hand on the stove – over and over again – not caring if it is hot or not.  My outwardly antisocial behavior may be on the way out, but the secondary traits of the condition may prove more fatal, even if I do not end up in a jail cell.  However, that day is not today.

Psychopathy is such a strange condition in many ways.  It’s much more full-featured than vanilla Antisocial Personality Disorder. Many of its traits are not directly linked to antisocial behavior, and the neurology of the condition suggests distinct differences in the brain when compared to the population as a whole or even our ASPD cousins.  People think of axe-murderers when they think of psychopathy, but in reality, the condition is much more subtle on many fronts.  Inward antisocial behavior is as marked as outward antisocial behavior.

The only constant in my life these days is the effort I put into changing minds regarding those that are successful psychopaths.  Everything else is secondary.  It isn’t secondary because it is less important but because I simply am unable to chart a path and sight the stars in a fashion that makes the rest of my life fall into place.  The damnable “lack of long-term and realistic goals” is embedded deep within me.  Combine that with the psychopath’s eternal need for stimulation, and I drift from activity to activity, always wanting more, never being satisfied, and not knowing where my path will take me next.

These less antisocial facets of the condition are often “boring” to the layperson, but I would argue that they are ultimately the most destructive for the psychopath.  A shallow affect and extreme megalomania separates us from the rest of the human race.  We seem cold and grandiose, odd and eccentric.  We are unable to “touch” those around us, no matter how hard they may try to get inside our heads with any form of emotional bond.  We make up for this with our sexual promiscuity and our tendency to bounce from relationship to relationship in quick fashion, but all of this feels like eating with a child’s spoon as an adult: these are quick and savory morsels, but never enough to satisfy.  We turn to more and more extreme measures including drug use, recklessness, and other adrenaline-boosting behaviors as a means of adding some spice to our lives.  For many, they snuff themselves out in the process.  Maybe I will one day, but that day is not today.

It’s frustrating because the same techniques that I use to snuff my antisocial behavior – including criminality, parasitism, manipulative tendencies, pathological lying, and so forth – should work on these less tangible facets of the disorder.  “Don’t do it, it could make things worse” should be a sound strategy for reining in impulsivity, creating goals, and self-grandiosity for instance.  It never quite resonates, however.

I keep telling myself that none of this will catch up with me “today,” but eventually that day will come.  The reckoning day will be without warning and it will bring total destruction.  I can’t stop making these seemingly bad decisions.  Compulsion is trumping my intellect and self-awareness.  It’s not a jail cell that I’ll eventually find, but possibly the streets or death.  Impulsivity and a lack of goals, combined with my proclivity for self-grandiosity and a burning compulsion to destroy those relationships that I find, will be my down fall.  Just not today.