Why do some people keep denying the existence of mental disorders?
It's not ‘some people’, there is a whole school of thought that thinks mental illness labels are no more than a social construct. In fact they think the whole industry is just a social construction for those who do not accept diversity within the human psych and brain.They have many valid points. We are all without exception forced or taught to conform to the system created by men other than ourselves (even though life and people consists of so much more wonder and amazement than this!) . Grade school, junior high school and high school are often tests for those who shape the system, those who conform, those who end up rebelling against it and those who end up as outcasts.Psychologists have noted that this can even be predicted watching tots play in a sandbox or on the playground and that their roles in society are often shaped here! Many never escape this early conditioning. Many are not even aware of it! Those who are outcasts no longer get to shape the dynamics within the system and are left to find their own way. Some do find their own way and end up contributing to the created system. Others never do and constantly come into conflict with it and end up in the mental health system. Often these are people who never had an equal chance to begin with laden with all sorts of social issue strikes against them and lacking support in shaping their early development. Of course this doesn't account for everything in the DSM-V (probably a later edition by now?). There are babies born with differences do to genetics, pregnancy abnormalities, chemical differences in the brain….which this school of thought would simply label as medical issues, certainly not labels worthy of further social stigma and then as a result of the labels further revictimization.Some just do not like labels because the label escaberates the problems rather than solves them. There are some labels that have been scientifically tested but let's face it, much of the newer additions to the DSM are there to give people a way to cover insurance so they can get help and time off work for social issues not mental illness.
How do you as a psychopath, sociopath, narcissist or schizoid define and tell apart whom you consider a friend, an enemy or a neutral by your own standards and definitions?
Schizoid, here.I recently wrote about the concept of friends for another question, but to summarize:I have a very hard time letting people get close to me unless I can conceptualize them as extensions of myself. These are the people who matter to me, and can pretty much be characterized as ‘me and mine.’ Aside from myself, there are two people I currently consider ‘mine.’ I’d consider this group to be my actual friends. (Yes, I’m including myself in that. Obviously I’m my own best friend.)As for the rest of the question, I have people I’m friendly with who I might be very close to or know very well, but whom I will never allow to see the real me behind the mask (or beneath the shell of emotionless snark which the mask generally hides). This group includes most of my family, current coworkers, most of my former roommates, basically anyone whose name I can be arsed to remember who hasn’t made themselves into a threat. I generally feel pretty neutral about this group, if slightly resentful that I’m forced to interact with them regularly. Most of them are either entertaining or useful, though, so that balances out.People I consider enemies or threats and actively avoid are people who insist on attempting to get to know me despite my best efforts to dissuade them, people who make claims on me and impinge on my sense of independence/autonomy without my permission. This list mostly includes family, at the moment, because they are the group most likely to press a relationship with me despite repeated insistence that I don’t want one. My mother in particular is big on attempting to guilt me into loving her more. (Or at all. *sigh*)Then there’s everyone else, the “Who the fuck even are you?” group. Most of my former classmates, teachers, coworkers, customers, and 99% of anyone I’ve ever met and don’t see regularly anymore are in this group. I don’t remember their names or their faces. I’m not even ‘neutral’ toward them: I’m completely oblivious to their existence and certainly wouldn’t recognize them if they walked up to me in the street and started a conversation. (Yes, this has happened, and yes, it temporarily gets them moved to the ‘enemy’ group… until I forget that they exist again, since I probably still don’t know their names.)
Do psychopathic animals exist?
Well, that depends on how we define psychopathy. If we define it as a lack of emotions that are included in other members of the species, then I’d say yes.However, it’s not beneficial to be an animal psychopath.The amygdala is the part of the brain that is responsible for emotions, and is significantly underdeveloped in human psychopaths. It is present in many mammals, so I’ll focus on those. It doesn’t make any sense to talk about the lack of remorse in a crocodile, we’re just too different. Also, I’ll only discuss fear, as this is a really common emotion among mammals. Empathy for example, is only present in highly social animals. Where empathy is present (Chimpanzees for example) it goes without saying, that there are also Genotypes that express it at a lower level or lack it altogether.The go-to animals to discuss neurology are mice, because they are so well studied. It has been shown, that if you alter some genes in mice, they completely lose their fear of cats. They walk straight up to them out of curiosity and end up as a belly filler. This means, animal psychopaths, at least when they’re lacking fear and are not too far up the food chain, will have a higher mortality rate and we will have difficulties observing them outside of the lab. And that is exactly my point. Emotions are present in animals for a reason. They serve to protect us. In human psychopaths, intelligence substitutes for this lack of protection. You don’t need to be afraid of a lion to know you better avoid it. However, this knowledge is trained. A psychopathic child (Correct me if I’m wrong, Athena Walker) would walk up to a lion out of curiosity if they never heard of it. A neurotypical kid would be too afraid to do so.So, in theory they exist. In the wild however, they should be extremely rare.note: I know that there are studies regarding psychopathic chimpanzees. However, they identified a psychopathic chimpanzee as very mean, bold and lacking restraint. This behaviour can have multiple reasons other than lacking emotions, so I don’t like their definition.