The Follies Of Psychopathy

Just one of many tales...

Have you ever had a spinal fluid leak headache? I have, and they suck. This is a headache that you get after you have had a spinal tap or a spinal epidural, and you get a leak of spinal fluid. It causes an imbalance of the fluid around the brain, and creates a very unique headache.

When I have had mine, and this has happened more than once, I would ask my Significant Other when the truck was going to move. I didn’t mean this in a hyperbolic way, it literally sounded in my head like there was a truck sitting just down the street idling. You know when a big truck is not parked, but not moving, and the unique idle that it has? Kind of like a rumbling pressure that gets communicated back through the ground so it is both a sound and a physical sensation around your head? That, accompanied by a great deal of pressure and pain, is what a spinal leak headache is like.

The treatment for it is one of two things.

1. Lie flat on your back, and I mean totally flat without turning your head, and wait until it repairs itself. You are going to get intimately familiar with all the marks and divots that may exist on your ceiling, and you had best find a lot of things to listen to, because unless you have a television up there, you won’t be watching things for the duration.

2. Go get a blood patch. I don’t know about you, but I am disinclined to give the dude or dudette that caused the leak in the first place to have another go at my spinal column, so my choice has always been to ride it out. I will say this though, they do not mean it when they say you can go back to your regular routine the following day, because I have followed that advice and it is incorrect. Rest a bit longer, avoid the headache.

That said, why am I telling you about this? Well, remember in my last post where I talked about psychopathy causing the lack of fear and that lack of fear creating problems where they don’t necessarily need to be? Yeah, that, but different.

I am sure some of you recall me speaking about when I almost died from meningitis. That’s true, I almost did, and am only here writing about it because I have a Significant Other that is akin to a savior in this particular situation (and others as well, but specifically this one). If not for him, had I been alone, you would not be getting these weekly writings.

When I started to come down with meningitis I had a headache. Go figure, that’s what meningitis does to you. It is your brain saying, “HEY! I’m UP HERE DYING… DO YOU THINK YOU COULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT PLEASE?? LIKE NOW?!!!

Most of the time, the headache is severe enough that people seek medical aid. Not me though. Why? Well, there are a few reasons.

I have had headaches all my life, so this is not new to me. I am familiar with different types of headaches and how each of them likes to present themselves. For instance, for those of you who don’t deal with headaches, a cluster headache is like a sinus headache as a wolverine is like a stuffed bear. They may both technically be “animals”… but that is where their similarities end. Visual representation is more like this.

Sinus headache:

Cluster headache:

As you can see, they are not very similar at all with the whole absence of the demon thing…

Well, let me tell you, the onset of meningitis was a whole different type of headache. I can’t recall a great deal about how it felt. I looked for a handy dandy image to convey the feeling, but that’s not how Google works apparently. They are more concerned with you knowing what all the symptoms are of meningitis, but don’t give one f*ck about describing what the headache itself felt like.

I do remember that it was severe, but lots of my headaches are, so it being severe was not enough to warrant concern on my part. I don’t even know if I mentioned it to my Significant Other prior to my refusing to test drive a vehicle we were considering buying for me. It had a very stiff suspension, and he test-drove it, but when he asked me I simply said, “No, it’s too stiff, I want to go home.” I didn’t say, “Hey Babe, I think I might be dying.” Just, “Nah, let’s go home, this isn’t the vehicle for me.”

The next couple of days things got worse, I remember less, and then I go blank for many many days. During those many many days, my SO performed miracles to keep me breathing.

Now, you might think, “Athena, how bad could it have really been? If you were that sick, he would have taken you to the hospital.” You would think that, but no. Why? Because I made him PROMISE ME he wouldn’t. Not we go back to the part that I opened with.

Ever had a spinal fluid leak headache? I have, and they suck. While I don’t associate emotions with memory, when something is significant, like when you walk over a rotten floor you might fall to your death in a basement full of disused medical equipment that is old and rusty and waiting for you to be impaled on it. When it matters, I remember. Well, I remember spinal headaches and do not want to deal with that nonsense again. When you have meningitis, which prior to checking out for my absence vacation I was fairly certain that I did, they do a spinal tap.

Like every. single. time.

To me, that was a nonstarter. No spinal taps were going to be haunting my doorstep. I had gotten through intense health issues on my own in the past, and would be fine doing it again. Here is where lacking empathy, and being entirely self-focused ended up putting my SO in a very unfair situation. While I may not have any recollection of this time period, that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t communicating with him. I repeatedly told him that I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I reminded him that they would do a spinal tap, and that would make everything worse.

Before any of you think that he should have overridden me, he would have, had I not turned the corner when I did. We are talking hours of a margin here. Prior to that, he had to listen to me cry in pain, beg him for more pain medication when I couldn’t have any more, and also insist that he not take me to the hospital. Thinking about it from his perspective, that was completely unfair of me to put him through. I have since told him to ignore me, and take me to the hospital for his own sake if it occurs again.

Now, doesn't that seem like I learned from my mistakes and wouldn’t do something so foolhardy again? Indeed, I did… when it comes to meningitis. Other things, on the other hand, not so much. You have no idea how the psychopathic brain and stubbornness work hand in hand until you see it firsthand. You certainly have no idea what it is like inside our own heads. It is a will that is not easily argued with. Having a strong will is a good thing in many regards, but it isn’t when it comes to things like… you know… possibly dying due to stubbornness.

Whatever the problem is, I would rather handle it myself. I know enough about medical treatments that I can usually manage almost anything. You might think that gives me an inflated sense of confidence which then leads to things like the story above, but that’s not how it works.

Instead, what is actually happening is that I know that I would rather handle it myself, I know how stubborn I am, I know how willful I am, and I also know that if I don’t at least put in the groundwork to be able to manage things should they go cattywampus, then I have drastically reduced my chances of survival.

While I did learn to go to the hospital when it comes to meningitis, and to have a health directive in place so I can make sure that my Significant Other can refuse a spinal tap on my behalf, that in no way means that should some other totally unrelated issue come about that may be life-threatening, and it certainly doesn’t mean that I won’t repeat exactly the same behavior.

To make sure that I am not so close to losing to my stubbornness, I have also granted my SO carte blanche when it comes to deciding that I am in need of external assistance. Keep in mind, I am a very good negotiator, and when I want things to go my way it takes a VERY strong will to tell me no. I can make anyone believe that I have this handled, including doctors. In fact, I would say that they are actually far easier than my Significant Other. I definitely can speak with them on their level, so they will start to treat me like an equal, which means they take my word for what I think needs to be done or what I want. Then of course, my SO step in and say, “Yeah, what she’s not mentioning is X, Y, and Z, and those things seem relevant.

Of course, they’re relevant, but I didn’t want them to know about those things. Now they have a different methodology in mind of how to go about dealing with me and that isn’t the way I want them to do it. Way to mess up my plans, Love. He will just smirk and say, “You’re welcome.” Because he’s a sh*t like that.

Psychopaths are not easy to understand when it comes to how we think. As we are so different in how we deal with people and situations there are often misassigned notions to our behavior because neurotypicals will see them through an emotional lens. Everything that I have described above could be interpreted by someone who deals with the world with an emotional bent as a fear of doctors or hospitals. I know because people have asked me if that’s the reason. Nope, just stubborn as hell, and I would rather be home instead of on someone else’s schedule and/or plan.

I want to do things my way. I don’t ask that anyone else come along on that journey, to adopt my way for their own, in fact, I totally discourage it as it probably will result in someone being permanently injured or dying, and I don’t think that anyone else should worry about me either. It wasn’t until my way inflicted my SO with over a week’s worth of stress and worry that I conceded… on that point. Not other points, that one.

There are a lot of people who think that they wish that they knew a psychopath, and that might be true, some of you might wish that, but those of you who have actually known one, are one, and have met this stubbornness that seeming dwells within us all, I imagine you could testify that it isn’t all roses. There are many difficulties, and when you are faced with the level of entrenchment that one of us can reach in some situations it can be very disconcerting.

From my perspective, the meningitis tale turned out in my favor. I don’t remember the lost time, I don’t have any emotions tied to it, and I don’t think there is too much of a chance of a repeat performance. Without practicing cognitive empathy and without any emotional empathy, I could leave it at that and not see what that week must have been like for my Significant Other. It wasn’t a picnic, let me tell you.

This post is meant to serve as another example of the folly that psychopathy can bring to a person’s life. It is important to recognize that it has drawbacks, and believe me when I say, the stubbornness is legendary, and that’s not always a good thing.