Cosplay can be awesome. Just look at that image above. It’s beautiful with great attention to detail. This is the sort of cosplay I can appreciate. There is, however, a different type of cosplay, and I have discussed this one in the past. The cosplaying of identities. Previously I spoke about people who cosplay mental health issues like dissociative identity disorder, but in that post, I predicted that sooner or later psychopathy would fall to the same fate.
Well folks, that time has come, but it didn’t come exactly the way that I thought that it might. If someone is attracted to the idea of being psychopathic, you would first assume that they know what that word means. That… has not been the case, and I have had a lot of interaction with the psychopath cosplayers in the last few weeks.
My guess is that there was some representation of psychopathy in a TV show, a movie, someone big on TikTok, or some other media that suddenly made it come to the forefront of these people’s minds and make them want to pretend to be one because there has been a rapid succession of these people commenting on my answers and sending me messages.
Part of the reason I write about psychopathy is to innoculate the world from the types that would like nothing more than to overtake the definition and create it into whatever fantasy world that they are living in. In this post, we are going to look at some of these interactions, examine their claims, and see why they are factually incorrect.
If you have been reading me for a time you must have noticed that psychopaths are not inclined to have a plethora of things wrong with them in order to elevate their status in the oppression olympics. If a psychopath is ill, you will never know. If a psychopath is injured, unless it is obvious and absolutely must be attended to, it is none of your concern. Why do I mention this? I mention it because every single one of these people they aren’t just claiming psychopathy, they are claiming a plethora of different diagnoses, which often contradict one another.
It is obviously not just psychopathy that people like this will damage the understanding of, it is every single one of the diagnoses that they appropriate. Let’s get started with the first one.
About a month ago I got this comment:
I disagree when people say psychopaths don’t feel when a relative passes, I personally tend to take it extremely hard. I get extremely depressed and am lost within myself, if it’s others that don’t mean anything to me or who I don’t know through a hole in a wall I’m not really empathetic. I mostly feel hard for people I can relate to, for instance if I suffered a particular thing and I see someone else suffering the way I did I care a great deal and want to help. If i can’t relate in anyway I’m not cold completely I’m just less emotional then others, even though I can’t feel I still keep my respect level up and sympathize for people. I don’t act like a dick head and laugh when your family member dies in a car accident, I’ll stay there and talk with you till you feel better. If my enemy dies in a car accident or jumps off a bridge on the other hand, I’ll have zero empathy and I’ll actually want to throw a party and celebrate that persons passing. That’s the difference.
The first thing I will do when I get a comment like this is to examine their profile. Often in doing so I find that they are teenagers, or they are confusing psychopathy with sociopathy, or ASPD. Perhaps they are simply mistaken in their claims, but recently it is more often or not, they are pretending to be something, or many things, they are not. When I investigated this particular profile, I found that this person claimed to be BPD, PTSD, PPD, and depression. All right, they could be confused as to the difference between psychopathy and ASPD, and certainly, someone with those traits would be capable of behaving in an antisocial manner. Let’s dig slightly deeper:
In another comment I ran across this:
I have APD,PPD, Covert Narcissism, BPD, PTSD.
In another post, he includes MACH, or Machiavellianism which is a strategy for life, not a personality disorder.
All right… we have added three more diagnoses. What else do we find?
I listen to rap all the time, I’m a pretty severe case of psychopathy. To describe what type of psychopath I am, I’ve lived a life of extremely secretive crime. Neighbors had no clue about me, I was involved in federal level crimes. Was ultimately set up by a connection of mine, I came to deliver a product to my connection and was greeted by fleets of federal law enforcement. DEA, ATF, Opioid task force, three four cars of undercover detectives. I was a pretty violent individual but very cunning, all I would listen to was violent rap music. (Drill rap), I’m more high functioning as well I blend in really easily to society and you’d never know.
Provided that there is any truth to what he is saying, he certainly qualifies for an ASPD label, but that is a laundry list of diagnoses and it sounds like this is very possibly a fantasy world the person is living in. Regardless of the truth in the passage above, this person is not a psychopath.
Let’s examine number two. This one is more creative, and clearly, someone living in a fantasy world.
User
Hey I wanted to ask you a personal question and was wondering if it was ok if I asked you this personal question?
User
Hey I wanted to ask you a personal question and was wondering if it was ok if I asked you this personal question?
User
Hey I wanted to ask you a personal question and was wondering if it was ok if I asked you this personal question?
Athena Walker
Depends on the question. I am an intensely private person
User
Sorry it took m a while to respond but I was wondering if you ever met a paranoid autistic psychopath who also psychotic?
Athena Walker
There is literally no such thing
User
did you know that it is possible to be all of those things at once they might not be balanced but it is possible
Athena Walker
No, it literally isn’t:
—mappings of neural connections in the brain—showing differences in connectivity between the neurotypical brain, the high-functioning autistic brain, and the psychopathic brain. (Image credit: Walt Schneider, University of Pittsburgh, and Human Connectome Project | Gallery
It is impossible. Psychopaths cannot be paranoid, nor can we be autistic, and psychosis has nothing to do with psychopathy.
User
Well autism overlaps with psychopathy and recent studies show that it is possible to be both and you're correct that psychosis has nothing to do with psychopathy but I find your answer interesting because I was diagnosed as a psychopath with autism and with psychosis with paranoid tendencies or something like that but thank you for taking the time to answer my question I just wanted to see what your opinion was
Athena Walker
No, it does not. There is no overlap between them, they are literally the opposite of one another.
Athena Walker
No one is autistic and psychopathic. You either self diagnosed yourself, or the person that did “diagnose” you, got their “license” out of a cracker jack box. Either way, you are not psychopathic, autistic, have psychosis, and paranoia.
User
Well that's your opinion and I respect it but I was diagnosed by multiple doctors and psychiatrist and neurologist who seemed kind of weird because they get all hyper like but the doctors think that the psychosis part came from brain damage idk what are how they came to that conclusion but they did But on that note this conversation I got another question PS5 or Xbox1
User
I share a nuero-cognitive profile of both so basically put the two brain together and that's what you get except my frontal cortex does have that connection or whatever so unlike an autistic person who gets excited over things I don't I just find somethings very interesting also I hear electricity I guess and couldn't really pic up on social ques because of this but I was able to learn how to read social ques and that's all I know sor far because they don't tell me everything
Athena Walker
It is not an opinion. It is observable fact. You cannot have both too many synapses and streamlined synapses.
Athena Walker
I am not interested in dealing yet again with someone’s fantasy of having ninety-seven different things going on. You aren’t the first person to tell me all about their impossible brain and how special they are. Not interested
User
And who are you getting your information from?
User
Having a brain like mine isn't special at all in fact there is at least a couple thousand people with brains like mine
User
And I get my information from actually qualified not just my doctor's and things like that I get information from Mr. Coderre personally
User
But your opinion is your opinion
Athena Walker
It isn’t an opinion. I showed you directly that what you claim is impossible with visual evidence. You are still wasting my time with “because I say so”. Not interested
User
And evidence changes over time plus most of the evidence you show is completely off to what Mr. Coderre and his team have proven and they have solid evidence your evidence is probably something you just found online in which I don't trust because most evidence online only support one side of the factor and that side is the opinion of the person recording that data and most data is based off of criminals in jail so again your factorial opinion is your opinion
Athena Walker
No, it is a fact, and you have nothing more than your insistence that you are something that you are not. Stop bothering me with nonsense.
User
Ignorance is that you think you're right and can't except change tom coderre himself said that it's possible that it is possible and that there are people out there diagnosed as both but very rare based on his studies but he said that could change and become more common once he does more studies and I personally wouldn't diagnose you as psychopath you don't seem to even have an understanding of what it means and bases most of your evidence on things you find on the internet I I've been diagnosed as both psychopath and autistic person
User
And being something that I'm not that's the first time I heard that I don't care about being anything at all all I wanted was your opinion in which you provided so thank you for that you and I hope you have a good day you psychopathic wannabe.
The first thing I have to point out, I did not accidentally paste his first message three times, that is how I received it. They were sent one after another in rapid succession. Next, he claims to be psychopathic, autistic, paranoid, and psychotic. These things cannot coexist together. It isn’t possible. He was sent evidence that autism and psychopathy were wired the opposite from one another, but he was uninterested in hearing it. This specific claim:
I share a nuero-cognitive profile of both so basically put the two brain together and that's what you get except my frontal cortex does have that connection or whatever so unlike an autistic person who gets excited over things I don't I just find somethings very interesting also I hear electricity I guess and couldn't really pic up on social ques because of this but I was able to learn how to read social ques and that's all I know sor far because they don't tell me everything
That is not how brains work, and there is no one wired with both. He mentions this person, Mr. Coderre, or by his full name, Tom Coderre, so looked him up.
You can click the link yourself, but you will find this person is not a neuroscientist at all, and he does not work on psychopathy or autism. He works as the “Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use at SAMHSA”, and specializes in addiction and recovery. There is no overlap between his work, and that of the neuroscience of psychopathy or autism. He in no way could make a claim about psychopathy and autism coexisting, nor that a brain could be wired for both things, nor do I think that he has ever met the individual messaging me.
Why this person decided that Tom Coderre would be a viable source to support the claims that he made, I have no idea, but as you can read I had no interest in continuing to deal with him. He then resorted to the habit that I have seen many times. He didn’t get what he wanted, validation of his claims of specialness, so he decided to attack me by asking questions and writing a lengthy angry blog post about me. I can’t link you to the blog post, as it was deleted by the author, but you can see the question links here:
Where's the paperwork that says you are a psychopath?
He answered his own question by simply writing my name and a question mark. A bit later on someone sent me this comment that was apparently left on someone else’s answer:
Well if you take a look at Athena walker she claims to be a psychopath but doesn't show proof when you ask a question to show proof she deletes the question and when you ask her something and you don't agree with her she gets offend easily and most of her questions can be answered online she also has a big ego and her calling herself a psychopath publicly kinda contradicts that psychopaths with big e egos don't go around telling people their psychopaths because that makes them vulnerable to the people around them plus psychopaths are aware that they are looked down upon in society so they try to hide the fact that they're psychopaths to fit it with society so I would label Athena walker as a narcissist or a sociopath because it looks like she doing everything for attention and things like that when psychopaths are the exact opposite
Unfortunately, when you don’t entertain the fantasy, you become the target. Notice how he says that I deleted the question? Click the link and you will see it says clearly, “The author deleted this question.” Only two entities can delete questions on Quora:
The author, and this is rare, because once a question is asked it is usually difficult to remove.
Quora itself. This is also rare, but they do occasionally intervene and remove questions. When they do it will say something like Quora deleted this question, or moderation deleted this question, I can’t recall which.
Moving on to number three, which was a comment on one of my answers:
Well I can feel anxiety. Some psychopaths do get anxiety. I’m not sure if this was recently discovered or maybe there has to be a co-morbid diagnosis of other mental illnesses or personality disorders also. I was diagnosed with anxiety, bipolar1, BPD and psychopath.
Head on desk… sigh… where are these people coming from? In this particular case, I didn’t keep the entire comment exchange, as it wasn’t particularly interesting, just more of the same as up above. It was getting to be old hat at this point. However, the person was no more keen on being moved in their position as they had staked out a new identity for themselves and were reveling in its glory apparently, as I found out.
I did the same thing that I always do. I checked the profile. In this case, there were far more diagnoses listed than I had seen in the previous two:
Ok so since Im talking about them here’s a complete list of the different diagnosis I’ve received. Now, who’s to say it’s 100% accurate..ppl make mistakes. Lol my wishful thinking. This is the order from which I was told also. Starting at 14 I had a bleeding ulcer pretty much brought on by stress and worry. It was in the hospital I received diagnosis of generalized anxiety. 22 I got a dui was ultimately diagnosed with bipolar 1 and ADD and OCD and CPTSD. At 22 I began cutting my arm. The night of my dui is the night I came home from work to walk in on my fiancé having sex with a friend of mine whom I was on the fire department with me. Years go by.. Had some more life challenges went back to the Dr. was diagnosed with BPD also during this time I had a few episodes of psychosis. The Dr wrote it on my chart as bipolar 1 with psychosis -manic.
Fair enough, I am guessing that they mean antisocial personality disorder, not psychopathy. Many people do not know the difference. I told them about psychopathy and ASPD not being related. I also said that most psychopaths are not antisocial, and most antisocial people are not remotely psychopathic. They certainly could have ASPD, but not psychopathy. They asked for research that demonstrated that. I provided both an abstract from a study that speaks about the percentage difference between psychopathy and ASPD, and also an answer that I had written with numerous citation links in it.
That was not well received and they still insisted that they are psychopathic. To prove their point I was provided this link:
Personality and Individual Differences
They said that I would find something on this page that read, “The study highlights the importance of taking different types of psychopaths into account.”
If you click the link, there is literally nothing about psychopaths on that entire page, anywhere. I mentioned this, and reiterated that they certainly could have ASPD, but not psychopathy. I also mentioned that they themselves admit in an answer that they are not diagnosed with psychopathy, sociopathy, or even ASPD:
My Dr never told me. I even actually requested my medical records from her and she denied me. I had my attorney get them while I was going through a disability case. I was told I was bipolar1 and sometimes had psychosis from that. She also told me I had OCD, Anxiety, Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. Fast forward..I was seeing a therapist and got the Borderline Personality diagnosis as well. So those are accurate I would say but through those sessions with the drs and therapists I was honest about a lot but dishonest about some stuff too. I did wear a mask sometimes when I felt I needed to. I didn’t really start studying psychology at this time so my idea of them finding out I had psychopathy was just by my answers. It is but it isn’t. She was looking at my emotions and facial expressions during those questions. I wasn’t really aware of flat affect and that sort of thing. So I thought I was fooling them and I did trip them up but not completely. Ok so anyhow, I got my medical records and started reading her Dr notes. There isn’t a sentence that says “She is a psychopath,” but her notes said it without actually saying it. By this time I’m already aware. I love fire. I’m a pyromaniac (obsessed with fire.) I’m not an arsonist (set fires criminally). But actually there are firefighters out there today who are firefighters by day, arsonist by night. Few, but they definitely exist. I thought my “love” was love but it’s more of a game and a control and possessions type thing. Now I’m a little different than most psychopaths in that I also have BPD and it runs in me strong. So I can feel complicated to say the least. It sounds like an oxymoron those two disorders together but it happens. I read on here the other day someone saying that ASPD +BPD are impossible. Not true. Everyone is on a pendulum first off. Second off, why couldn’t it happen? It does, I’m proof. Do I care? A little. If anything it made my ego get bigger. However, it’s still not something I’m confessing to anyone
BPD and ASPD can certainly coexist, and I mentioned that they could provide very positive insight into borderline personality disorder with antisocial traits, as it is an area that could use personal perspectives as it is not well explored, especially in a noncriminal environment. However, they are spreading misinformation regarding psychopathy. They claim that they know what psychopathy is and that they are one, but they use the MacDonald Triad to back up their claim, making it even more obvious that this is playacting for them, as it was debunked in the sixties.
Their response was predictable. Keep in mind, this person is commenting on my answer, and is also the one to initiate and continue contact.
I don’t care. You obviously do.. which is weird. I have more important things on my agenda today. Hopefully your followers have their own brains and do their research. Need I remind them not to put the eggs in the basket of a psychopath. You may have manipulated them to believe your crap but not me.. remember, I’m a lot like you.
The whole research paper I posted is on psychopaths. What is your deal. Lady’s and gentlemen...this is how psychopaths act when they are intimidated and feel threatened..SEE ABOVE- not mentioning names.
It is the same response as above. They didn’t get what they wanted and they didn’t have an argument against their own words. Instead of rethinking their position, they make it a personal attack.
At this point, as they were unable to keep things civil, I removed their comments and went on with my life. Apparently, this was not the case for them, however. On this answer:
they tried to start everything up again:
This is funny 😂 After I had a disagreement with Athena on here about a week ago. While we were having the disagreement, all a sudden I was getting notifications about some of my answers being deleted bc of bunk reasons lol. These answers I posted had been up for weeks but the day we disagreed, they were reported. You may have some fooled but I see through you.
This person is clearly unaware of how things work over at Quora. No one can just report something or someone and have their answers deleted in a moment. You would have to be a part of the moderation team to have this power. I certainly do not work for Quora, and their attention to reports is extremely slow, if they respond at all in the first place.
There is someone on Quora that has literally doxxed a total stranger claiming that this person is me. They put up their name, photographs, address, etc, and reposted them over and over again. This woman has nothing to do with Quora, has no idea that I exist, and if someone is crazy enough to believe that this is in fact me, and they have an interest in doing harm to me she might end up in their crosshairs. I contacted Quora about this, I sent them all the relevant information, explained that this was in no way me, and that something bad could happen to this woman because someone either thinks this is a fun prank, or they really think that she is me.
What did Quora do? They sent me a form letter that is so old it informs me that if I block the person they will no longer be able to “suggest edits to my answers” among a list of other things. They did away with edit suggestions over a year ago. I wrote them back again and was very direct:
I am not concerned about MY safety. I am informing you that a completely unrelated person is being doxed on your site by someone that is clearly mentally unbalanced. This is a violation of your rules, and if this person is stalked, harassed, or harmed due to you not removing their information that has been placed on Quora's site by a stalker attempting to harass one of their users which in and of itself would be a direct violation of your policies, there is a written record that Quora was informed of this doxing, and chose to do nothing about it despite it being against their own rules.
I cannot report this to the police because I am not the person that this stalker is doxxing. They believe that it is me, or they know that it is not me and are trying to get this person harassed or stalked for their own purposes. If this information remains on Quora, her name, her social media posts, her photographs, and her address, and something happens to her because someone on Quora has the delusional belief that they can bring harm to someone that writes there is a problem. In and of itself it is a problem that they BELIEVE that this information is mine, posted it, and you are allowing it to stand on the site without removing it violates your own standards.
I then sent them their own rule that details the violations that this account was crossing. What is my point in telling you all of this? Everything that this person put up doxxing this stranger is still on the site. Quora has done nothing to remove it.
If they aren’t going to remove something of this gravity when I bring it to their attention, and let them know that my intention with my report is to be clear that they were aware ahead of time if something does in fact happen to her, that they would be liable legally if they do not act, they definitely would not give a dinkus damn about someone’s answers even if I had reported them, which would have been a waste of my time.
I have no interest in competing with someone’s narrative about themselves. It has nothing to do with me. However, there is enough misinformation regarding psychopathy, and it is people like this that are contributing to the problem. There is no amount of placation that these types are going to be satisfied with. They instead will demand to warp and bend things to suit a narrative about themselves that elevates them to some status of importance.
In dealing with all of the above people, it is clear to me that the cosplaying of psychopathy has begun. There have been too many of these messages and comments in the last few weeks. Why they feel the need to have as many acronyms after their names, I have no idea.
The reason for this post is to illustrate the sort of people that might be shaping your understanding of something. If they are claiming and writing about psychopathy incorrectly, they are likely doing exactly the same thing for every other claim that they make. I think that it is important to see this behavior and recognize it so the information provided can have that caveat to it. If we look at a collective list from all three, they claim the following:
ASDP X2
PPD X3
Covert Narcissism
BPD X2
PTSD
Bipolar
OCD
Anxiety X2
Depression X2
Autism
Psychosis X2
Paranoia
pyromania
AADD
Machiavellianism
That is a lot of diagnoses for three people, and that doesn’t even count for the overlap. I wonder if you see yourself listed there, and what misinformation that these types of people will spread that you will have to deal with, later on, all because they would rather pretend to be someone, instead of actually being someone. Claiming all of these things is not logical, but emotional. It seems that it is believed that the more letters you can add, the more unique and special you become. That is not reality, and in fact, it is a complete disconnection from it.
I write about psychopathy, but psychopathy does not define me. It is an aspect, not the entire picture. People like this are defined by these letters and words that they can pile up like discarded shoes. Higher and higher the pile will grow while the person looks to feel like a full person which will never occur.
In the meantime, psychopathy will be worn as part of a skin suit created by warping and stitching other people’s lives and experiences together in order to feel good about themselves.
Fun, right?
I feel like the list at the end shouldn't have made me simultaneously facepalm and chuckle as much as it did but truthfully, this was as well constructed as much as it is frustrating. It's one reason I'm not on social media anymore, because of how annoying the (trendy?) posting was of "look at this diagnosis I have," etc. At first I appreciated the posting occasional tips for living with a certain diagnosis, but like the point you made about psychopathy not being your definition as a whole, I noticed peoples' posting divert into a trainwreck of exactly that; all of the acronyms that honestly likely weren't even accurate having to be in everyone's bio, and the backlash if you don't use ...tone indicators? Someone got angry with me for posting a sarcastic comment without adding "/s", because I 'should have looked at their bio and seen their DXs and should know better etc' before commenting. Idk I feel like people shouldnt have that kind of time really🤦🏻♀️
I dipped shortly after; my own diagnoses couldn't take the pressure (ironic), but unless it's something relevant to a topic or conversation, I am sure as hell not making all of them public. That's a quick way to give someone ammunition if you're not prepared (I am not). This was a nice deep-dive honestly. Have to love people not listening to evidence and then blaming you🙄 (plus the retaliations? I want to know who left so many children unattended on Quora)
I do wish sometimes I didn't have as much pity as I do for people; maybe then I wouldn't feel as bad for their desire - wherever the hell it stems from - to feel so endlessly special. (.../s)
Cosplaying Psychopathy lol. Well this was funny.