Antisocial personality disorder?

[KarenEMT]

I was looking up something for work and came across the diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality disorder. This is my DH - I showed him tonight and he agrees with me!

Does anyone know anything about this? I have a nagging sick feeling in my stomach after reading more. DH truly has no empathy. He blames everybody for anything and spends on himself even if we have no $$.

Have any advice for me? He is considering gastric bypass surgery, so if he wants to go through with that he will need to meet with a mental health professional. We had tried marriage counseling in the past, but DH claims he's smarter than the counselor, so obviously that did not work well.

[BelgianSheepDog]

Yikes. Being familiar with the DSM-IV I feel for anyone who sees a loved one in that particular diagnosis.

One thing I will say is that it can be very hard to differentiate between ASPD and the other "cluster b" personality disorders (borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic.) There is a lot of debate about it among psychologists and other professionals, because it seems if a patient meets criteria for one, a good third of the time or more they meet criteria for one of the others too. So you might look at the diagnostic criteria for those ones as well.

I don't know what to tell you. I'm not a pro, just an ex-psych major. What I know from my studies is not pretty. Generally of all the mental disorders, personality disorders are the most intractable. If you can even convince the person to get treatment, much of the time they drop out or don't respond to therapy well at all. It's one thing to have a problem with moods, another thing entirely if a person's entire personality is built around profound dysfunction.

Speaking solely from personal experience with a roommate who met criteria for ASPD, and the relative of several family members who also meet the criteria, the only real advice I have is protect yourself. Do what you have to do to be safe. Chances are he is never going to think of you as anything but a means to an end.

Honor that sick feeling in your stomach. It will keep you safe.

[Shantimama]

Personality disorders can respond to therapy - but ONLY if therapy is chosen by the person with the disorder, not if they only go because they are pressured into going. They usually only choose treatment when they feel badly enough about how their life is going that the risk of therapy is preferable to the misery they are feeling. Many people with personality disorders never choose treatment.

Try doing a google search on personality disorders and see what you come up with. Getting some counselling for yourself could be a great help to you too. You cannot force him to change or even try treatment, but you can take care of yourself and make good choices - but you need to get the support for that from someone who is mentally healthy, not with someone who is showing many traits of a personality dfisorder.

Good luck.