Okay, so I have a problem. I think my cousin is a sociopath, and it worries me cause she says that she wouldn't care if anyone died, and I understand that because it's not her fault she cant care. But shes admitted to manipulating people to get what she wants-- like using their emotion, usually pity. And she told me to remember shes not a good person, and that's for my own safety. So now I'm worried. I asked if I should set boundaries for myself, and she said if i want, but i dont know what those boundaries should be? She usually just vents to me about her problems and i don't want her to stop doing that but i also dont want to get manipulated. My paranoia is just going nuts, especially since she'll sometimes talk about death and murder so nonchalantly-- but I dont think that's something she'd do. But what do I do? I cant tell anyone else about it because I told her I'd keep it a secret. At least shes trying to fund a therapist, but in the meantime, I dont want to be a replacement for one.

"Pure" OCD

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

Bit confused about why you don't want to stop her venting to you about her problems. She keeps insisting to you that she's dangerous and the way she talks about murder makes you feel threatened. Literally anyone would feel threatened in that position. Fyi it sounds more like psychopathy than sociopathy, but the most likely thing is that it's neither. That she's been through a bunch of trauma and is acting out for attention and trying to shock you. Psychopaths and sociopaths don't vent about their problems, other than ranting about people they don't like, or as a fake way to establish a relationship they think will be beneficial for them (i.e. you are rich or famous or very manipulable). They also have no interest in therapy. In any case it doesn't matter what diagnoses she might get in the future, you do just have to set boundaries. Which can include things like "it makes me feel uncomfortable when you talk about murdering people so if you want to be friends with me then I need you to stop talking to me about that", and "if you manipulate me or otherwise betray my trust, I won't be your friend anymore". Simple stuff.

worryqueen

Date posted: 5y

She's trans, and suicidal and depressed so I care about her and I'm the only person she can really talk to about all that. I dont want her to feel alone. She definitely has trauma, because her family life is tough. I want to tell her that stuff, and I mentioned if she manipulates me I'm calling her out on it but she said the point of the manipulation is that I don't know I'm being manipulated, and that's what she likes about it. She even admitted to manipulating me to tell her sister to stop harassing her, which I'm not sure was manipulation or not. It's confusing. I'm afraid that if I tell her to stop full force though that she'll harm me, but that's probably just my paranoia. Shes looking for a therapist right now but has said she doesnt wanna talk about those problems, which I pointed out is because she gains from the manipulation, and she agreed. But I'm hoping she will talk about it, because I'm tired of acting as a therapist.

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

@worryqueen If she wants people to be able to rely on in life then she needs to treat them decently. In any case, sounds like she talks about being a manipulative person a lot, and considering that something she describes as manipulative isn't something that you think is particularly manipulative, suggests that that's just the way she sees herself, more than an accurate reflection of what she's actually like. Everybody can be "manipulative" at times, I would agree that complaining about being harassed, with the hope that the person you're complaining to will tell the person to stop it, doesn't sound toxic at all, it sounds really normal. Even if she exaggerated a bit how bad the sister was behaving to try to increase the chances of you telling her to stop, that's also understandable. Sounds like she is going off a pretty harsh judgment of herself. Your original post says she manipulates people to get pity, but again that's something we all have done at times when we need support and nobody is offering it. Just because she isn't straight up asking people to care about her, doesn't mean that finding ways to encourage them to care about her is necessarily more manipulative than the rest of us. It's more of an indicator that she's having a bad time. She complains to you about her problems, you have bad boundaries, and clearly the combination of those things encourages her to see herself as taking advantage of you. Complaining in order to recieve comfort and feel cared about is not manipulative. She clearly does need therapy for her self image. Also her being reluctant to talk about these problems is likely not just because she gets something out of being manipulative you said. It's because she's scared that a therapist will confirm that she's manipulative and evil and that's too much vulnerability for her to be able to cope with. Have you ever tried challenging her self-image when she talks about what an awful person she is, and pointing out nice things she has done or saying that everybody deserves to feel cared about?

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

@Scoggy **as you said

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

@Scoggy This all coming from a really poor self-image would also, believe it or not, explain why she says things like she wouldn't care if people died, or talks about killing people. I've said similar (well, not THAT, but insisting that I don't care about things) at times when I felt really vulnerable, because I was unable to go against the negative way I saw myself, but I also couldn't stand feeling so vulnerable. Basically, it helps you to feel a little more in control and a little less vulnerable if you project yourself to others as being powerful and uncaring (uncaring = invulnerable, nothing can hurt you if you don't care). It both encourages you to see her as a bad person, which means that she can at least feel "seen", as she clearly feels like a fraud and manipulative whenever people see her as the vulnerable, hurt person she is, and allows her to feel less vulnerable for a moment because she's in a LOT of pain. I've only done this at my very worst moments, when I got sick of being so hurt that I wanted to just die, and needed some kind of way to be able to talk about the awful stuff I was going through, without feeling today vulnerable, so I tried, very consciously, to get a particular friend to see me as a "bad guy" who doesn't feel bad or vulnerable and is all like #righteous anger. I would actually guess that it's a pretty common thing. Men do it all the time, they feel vulnerable and they can't cope with it so they act like they don't give a crap.

worryqueen

Date posted: 5y

@Scoggy Yes, I see where you're coming from. But I dont think it all ties into her having a bad self image. I think she genuinely cant feel these things for other people. She does want sympathy, I think, but she's admitted to telling people shes manipulative, them leaving, then her manipulating them back into her life. Shes a very hard person to read, even though I've known her my whole life. She's obviously in distress,and I feel bad, but how do I establish boundaries with her without sounding rude? I dont think she's a bad person, or that's she evil, I just think that's the way her mind works and that's not her fault-- but her actions are. She outright told me she might hurt me, and I guess that's why I freaked out. But she said to take it as a warning and not as a threat. How am I supposed to even respond to that?

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

@worryqueen You must just have to deal with sounding rude, it's a known side effect of setting effective boundaries. You just have to decide which is more important, your right to have boundaries or her right to do whatever she likes. People who tend to step on your boundaries are necessarily going to be annoyed and think that you're rude for asserting them, it's an occupational hazard. Part of good boundaries is requiring accountability, you're totally right that her actions are her responsibility, no matter what her brain does or doesn't do. If you stopped being around her because you set boundaries and she kept breaking them, she might try to get you to come back with the pity stuff, but so long as you say "I won't allow you to overstep boundaries" and require experiencing her good behaviour for yourself as a prerequisite for being around her, that's all you need to do. Instead of getting sucked back in as a shoulder to cry on when she says she needs you, after she has crossed your boundaries and you have put distance between herself and you, your job is to just continue to expect the standards of respect for boundaries that you needed in the first place. Self aware people can't be manipulated via guilt or dependency- they just wait for the guilt to go away again instead of giving in to it. And possibly set further boundaries about "you contacting me to say that you need me is inappropriate, and makes me less likely to trust you and therefore want to be around you." Sure, it's good to give people a chance, potentially even several, but it should be done in a limited way- you let them prove their basic trustworthiness (that they're not going to be hurtful), so then you trust them a bit more in return. It's gradual, not total. Deciding to give someone a chance doesn't mean you hand over rights to all of your time and energy to the person. They have to deal with the amount that you feel comfortable giving them, and if it's not enough for them then tough luck them. You could maybe decide on a 3 strike rule regarding it, if you're worried about being constantly sucked back in.

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

@worryqueen https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/romantically-attached/201608/4-ways-set-and-keep-your-personal-boundaries

Gmoki

Date posted: 20w

Extended family doesn’t understand ocd

LONG VENT POST: This is my second post of the day. Seriously, I am SO sorry. I have therapy tomorrow, I promise I will shut up after this lmao. Anyway, for Memorial Day weekend, I spent it at my aunt/uncles vacation house. Fortunately it wasn’t a big crowd - just my mom, grandmother, aunt, uncle and I. For context, I come from a pretty big family, and I am the youngest of 7 cousins and a younger sister to two brothers. All my cousins are in their early to mid 20’s, each very successful in school and their careers. My half brother is 29, and absolutely crushing it. My full brother is turning 23, he’s also doing amazing with school. I just turned 20 in April, I feel very lost. I know I want to be a forensic psychiatrist one day, and that I want my PhD. I want to be the best therapist I can be, but the fact that I barely get by with ocd/adhd has been discouraging me, so I currently feel like a flop. Anyway though, spending time with my aunts/uncles/cousins/grandparents triggers my ocd the most, as majority of them can be on the judgmental side. ESPECIALLY my aunt, she’s on my moms side, and she and my mom are total opposites. My aunts a very calculated, straightforward, logical, stern, sassy buisnesswoman. She’s successful, but lacks a lot of understanding and can be so cold and just mean. My moms a kindergarten teacher in a struggling community, and she’s always thinking about others before herself, extremely emotional, caring, but neglects her own needs a lot. They’re sisters, and they bump heads a ton. My aunt and all of her kids aren’t neurodivergent. They simply don’t understand mental health. My mom does, thank god. My aunt and uncle think that if a kid is having a psychotic break, then that kid should be kicked out of the house and not helped at all. My mom and I entirely disagree with this idea, and that someone clearly mentally suffering NEEDS mental health help asap, and they need to be home. The streets are the last place someone suffering should be. While we were vacationing at the house, my mom argued about this with my uncle. I was asleep, thank god, but I seriously hate having people in my family like this. I can never tell them about me having ocd, they’ll think it’s just an “excuse” for not getting things done, or just me trying to feel special. The reality is, they don’t get it. My full brother went through the worst psychotic break a few years ago. It lasted two years on and off due to bipolar disorder, but thank god he got himself help and he’s doing absolutely amazing now. He’s frustrated and embarassed with himself but now he’s on track, and as I said, crushing it with school. But the entire time he was going through this, my aunt and uncle just didn’t understand. To keep it short, they thought his mental problems were behavioral, and that he’s a “crazy” kid. The reality is, he was coping with the loss of his childhood best friend and our other uncle who was like a second father figure to us. He had manic episodes from the grief and self medicating with drugs and alcohol. This was all the while Covid was happening and he was a freshman at a college states away. He was so vunerable. I’m saying all this because, well, how am I to seriously be forward about my mental struggles when they couldn’t even show the slightest amount of empathy to my brother, who was struggling, so much more intensely than me? I’m quiet at family gatherings when they’re around for this exact reason. I have so much resentment toward them for it. I try to avoid them when I can, because I love them, I just hate their actions/views. What do you guys do with these kinds of people?

sr.ek

Date posted: 19w

Stalking?

I try my best not to ask for reassurance, I really do. One thing has been bothering me a lot for a few hours now: A (former?) good friend of mine and I are meeting up next Thursday to talk about the situation our friendship is currently in (since I write a lot anyway and like to digress, I'll spare you the details for now). But to cut a long story short: it’s tense. Now, I've been "stalking" her on social media relatively often since the whole thing started, actually almost daily and on all socials. What really bothers me is the thought of whether I'm really stalking her at this point or not. I know that the term now has a pretty distorted meaning, especially on social media, but at its core, stalking is not only punishable by law, it's also morally wrong and indicates disturbed behavior. I noticed earlier that she somehow blocked me on Twitter/X. I have a very random user name there that she doesn’t know and I was also firmly convinced that you can't see when people visit your profile. It's stressing me out in two ways right now. On the one hand, I'm actually afraid that my behavior can now really be described as "stalking", and on the other hand, I'm confused and unsure about how she could even notice me on Twitter. Apart from social media activity, there were 2 "real" situations about 2 months ago in which I felt, in retrospect, that I had crossed a line. I "tracked" or checked (actually legally) the online activity on Whatsapp (EU) of her and a second person to see if they were online at the same time and therefore possibly writing together and she was lying to me. She knows about this since I told her. The second time was in person, when I went for a walk with another friend in the park behind my school and then saw said friend sitting there after she said (at school) that she was going home. I immediately panicked because I thought she was lying to me again, which is why I went up to her and pretended that I had just happened to pass her with the other friend. I didn't actively follow or spy on her on purpose in any way, however, up until a few weeks ago I did actually have the urge to do so. I'm quite aware of the legal boundaries and would never cross a line there, but I'm more concerned about the morality. I know that it probably sounds a lot like reassurance-seeking up to this point, but I don't really want to hear from others whether what I'm doing is directly considered stalking or not, because I'm going to have this heavy feeling either way. Instead, I would like to know what advice you would give me in this situation, either because you have actually been stalked yourself or simply because you have advice from a more distanced perspective than mine. I want to add that although I was officially diagnosed with OCD that I am sadly not in professional treatment yet and that I have been wondering for years now if I may fit the diagnostic criteria for BPD as I believe to have a lot of common “quiet BPD” symptoms, the friend mentioned being my FP.

pollydol

Date posted: 19w

I kill people with my mind

I don't know what this is, I don't know enough about OCD, my psychiatrist put me on a medication and told me I have OCD and a mood disorder but I didn't ask any questions because I didn't want to be annoying. I have "evidence" that every year, when I think about death, the world kills someone I love, and it always happens twice. I have nothing to help change that, like, I don't do anything with my thoughts or anything numbers or ritually, so I wasn't sure if it even was OCD, but I do move my hands in certain ways to make my friends happy or improve their lives. Also I cant turn off my fan or something SA related will happen (i dont know how) I think that the world is threatening me, and that if I do something wrong or involve myself with certain things, the world will punish me and the people around me, so all I can do is apologize I've tried looking into the different types of OCD, and all of them are things that I've been anxious about before, but I haven't really been so anxious about any one of them in particular or held onto it for so long, or done any rituals, that I would probably not even say I have OCD. Like, I worry that I'm a nazi, I worry that I like kids, I worry that I killed my friend, I worry that I have schizophrenia or am somehow giving myself it, I worry that I'm going to abuse someone, I worry that I've already abused someone, I worry that somehow I might die, I worry people can hear my thoughts, I worry about ignoring my friend when he cried out for help, I worry that God has already rejected me from heaven, I worry that I like women, I worry that if I don't hit the hammer 9 times on the wall when Im using it that just something bad will happen that I dont know what and I don't know why, and I feel like I don't have a single compulsion that can even "fix" or bring relief to any of these things besides saying sorry, because if I say sorry at least people know that I am apologetic for the crimes I've committed, but saying sorry doesn't fix anything except my own guilt so I'm just a bad person looking for sympathy or seeking attention I don't know enough about OCD, and I don't know how to seek help for my condition because I don't even know if that's really what I have, if I'm not just simply anxious, or possibly schizophrenic Does any of this seem familiar to anyone? Can it be this varied and unfocused? Does this really sound like OCD, or can it be anything else, because I don't want to bark up the wrong tree when I could just be taking medication for something else.

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