AntiSocial Personality Disorder

He colored his truth to suit the person to whom he was talking. He persistently lied to me about finding a job to pay the rent. He repeatedly stole money from a live-in family member who had no source of income other than what he could find. Instead of asking, he took. When he was finally caught, he said 'I was planning on paying you back.' He just didn't understand that the principle of the problem was not paying us back, but simply asking. He would make plans to cook dinner for his 'friends' in my house using food I paid for, and he, of course, never had plans to repay me for that food. Money became a major issue. He would make long-distance phone calls constantly which would only last for one minute. No significant conversations could have occurred in those single minutes. Eventually, it became evident he needed to leave. After having returned his clothing to him, we went to where he was working, (he finally got a job), and requested the keys to my house. He and a friend of his attacked us, causing broken ribs, swollen ankles, punctured lungs, busted lips, and facial bleeding. When the case went to court, he and his friend stated that we had instigated the altercation, that we [my family and I] had gone to begin the fight. His facial expression during the trial was that we deserved what we got. He had no remorse. In his eyes, it wasn't his fault. We had hoped that the judge would require group therapy sessions or self-improvement training for this person who obviously could not think very clearly, but that never happened.¹

Whatever you call it, both groups have been ostracized from society, just as Victor Hugo's character Quasimodo was in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. We all felt pity for Quasimodo while we were watching it, but if that were in our society, most of us would cringe, and head in another direction.

Fortunately, today we know that these are two seperate, yet very closely related disorders. And it is with this knowledge, that we can begin to treat these disorders. And with proper treatment, and for the lack of a better word, conditioning, people with ASPD can be brought into society to live just as the remainder of the visible world does.

One American woman, Dorothea Dix, began America's respect and humane treatment for the mentally ill when, in, 1845 she saw conditions in a county jail so sickening that she was willed to convince nine southern states to set up hospitals for the mentally ill.²