Ask me anything about raising a child later diagnosed with ASPD

[Sodayoda]

I am not a frequent user of this site, but friend told me about some topics she had seen recently and I thought I'd open this up to share my experience on the matter should anyone be interested.
I raised a child who later got diagnosed with ASPD, which people generally refer to as psychopathy or sociopathy.
I'm not an expert on the subject matter or condition, but can only share my experience in our case, which might help someone or maybe just remove or confirm some stereotypes.

Hello OP, thank you for sharing. This is an area I have always been curious about. May I ask how it showed up? Was there always unusual behaviour, even from a young age? And what became of your child, have they managed to live a normal life?

What were the signs you noticed which led you to get a diagnosis?

He was my first so I didn't have a benchmark, so I might have missed cues early on. He was just a normal child who fit in with all of the other children, but he was generally very quiet and closed off which might just be a character trait. His younger sibling was a handful in comparison.
Once he reached 6-7 there were some signs such as lying and sneaking out but nothing that would have rung alarm bells. His behaviour changed around 9-10.

I would say that he lives a successful but not happy life now, although he might disagree.

Was it yourself that got him diagnosed or did he do it as an adult?

How did his behaviour change around 9-10?

Hope this isn't too insensitive but can I ask if you like him? Can you spend time with him easily?

He got diagnosed as an adult because personality disorders cannot be assigned before then I believe.
He was diagnosed with depression and a conduct disorder aged 10 after he had committed at least 2 assaults, but we were pretty much left on our own with this.

How on earth do you cope knowing this about your own child @Sodayoda.
You must be in bits . I am so sorry.

Thank you for starting this thread, I think it could help a lot of people wondering about their own child or young person. So you say you were on your own after he was 10, how did things progress? And how did you cope?

It's complicated. I'm proud of him but I don't really like him which I know sounds horrible.

Doesn't sound horrible at all. Have you any idea/theory as to what caused the ASPD?

That's why I started the thread. My child was perfectly normal until he suddenly wasn't, because we had all missed what else was going on with him.
We were in denial for a while, but also anxious at home because of his younger sibling.

It's ok. He's doing alright :)

Thank you for sharing your experience. What is his relationship now with you and other family members?

that sounds like one hell of a thing to get to grips with OP.

how did he treat his sibling?

also, was there trauma or dysfunction in his upbringing that may have contributed to it? that is not me attempting to blame anyone, i think most people have some trauma in their childhoods, I am just wondering about how the environment affects it.

Lastly, do you think any other of his relatives also have it, albeit undiagnosed?

thanks for sharing your story.

He is not close to any of us, and we didn't have any contact with him for several years until he started to reach out more. I would say the contact is superficial and he does not share anything personal, and I am not even sure if he has much of a life outside of work. His social circles seem to change frequently which does not surprise me.

Yes, there was some dysfunction in his childhood which he experienced, and this might have been a contributing factor. I think there are some relatives on his father's side who had some very dark personality traits but we don't know enough about them to draw conclusions.

I would say he got on well enough with his sister but he did hurt her badly on some occasions. Overall he is/ was very protective of her and I think he sometimes used her as an excuse to hurt others who had hassled her, which we only realised later. I think she is the family member that he has the closest bond with even though they hardly ever see each other.

Does he have children of his own? What kind of work does he do now? And why did you stop contact for those years, was it because he had hurt your daughter?

He did some very bad things that I found impossible to live with, particularly because we had realised that he didn't feel remorse. It put a huge strain on us as a family and we couldn't continue in this way. I still feel guilty and I doubt that this feeling will ever go away.
He works in a very well paid corporate job and is doing well on that front.
No children as far as I am aware, but he did get married and divorced.

When you say that you feel guilty what do you mean? Do you feel like you failed him or your family?

Also, have you met other parents in this position?
I’m sorry because you sound sad when you talk about him.

Yes many regrets. I wish we had done many things differently.
We were definitely in denial about him for a long time, and we put too much trust into him. We lived in an area where children just spend time outdoors and met friends, and we trusted that he was just doing the same as he told us. We later learned that he spent a lot of time by himself and that he was not with the children he claimed to be with.
I also wish we had gotten him seen by more healthcare professionals, and definitely more experienced ones. I'm not blaming anyone else for his outcome, but for a long time we believed that he'd grow out of it. We were probably also fooling ourselves because we wanted to believe that we'd ruin his future if we didn't help him navigate life and we inadvertently enabled him.
I think I'd also make the rest of the family see someone to talk to, not just the affected child. My daughter was definitely impacted by all of it, and I wish we'd given her the ability to cope with it from a young age.

If anyone was worried about their child I'd say these are the things I'd do differently now.

Did you have to ask him to leave home because of sheer stress and the impact he was having on all of you?

If so what was the final catalyst and how old was he?

That is so much for you and your family to go through. I am curious if you ever felt afraid of him
when he lived with you? Did you have to adapt your family life around his behaviour?

Most 7 year olds lie, do you mean lies that went beyond the usual childhood stuff? My 7 year old tries to tell us that he didn’t eat any biscuits whilst covered in biscuits crumbs, but true manipulation is beyond him. Was it more complex lies?

I have a neuro diverse child and it is hard enough. This is next level and I think you are very braver

Yes, the impact on us was immense. We had moved twice because of things he had done, which had made it difficult to remain in the area. It made it difficult to maintain friendships and relationships, and our daughter struggled with anxiety and eating disorder symptoms.

A sexual assault charge when he was aged 22 was the final straw, and I still believe with all my heart that he was guilty.
This will sound strange but it always made us feel partially guilty too.

How did he come to be diagnosed? Does he accept the diagnosis?

We weren't brave at all. Looking back I think that we were very ignorant and probably in denial but things were different then too. We wanted to protect him, and kept telling ourselves that we were doing the right thing.

No, we didn't adjust our behaviour around him at home because he was generally well behaved at home and in school. The real problem was that he seemed to have a parallel life that kept disrupting our world.
I guess one change was our decision not to leave DD with him when we went away.