A 29-year-old woman is helping women be more detached when it comes to dating after sharing with the world she has anti-social personality disorder.
Kanika Batra was diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder (ASPD). It’s colloquially known as being a sociopath. The Brisbane woman was told she had the condition at 21.
Common traits include a disregard for others, manipulation and not feeling guilt.
“I was getting a lot of migraines and I tried to end my life because none of the doctors were taking me seriously when I told them how bad the pain was,” Ms Bathra told news.com.au.
“I ended up in hospital. I was asleep for 15 hours. When I woke up they gave me the choice of going to the psych ward or seeing a psychiatrist as an outpatient.”
She chose the second option. The former Miss Universe Australia contestant saw the psychiatrist for 18 months.
He concluded she had ASPD and a major depressive disorder. She’d had conduct disorder as a child. Behaviour she engaged in, such as criminal and discarding people, also ticked the boxes. She said she fit too much of the criteria.
She described it as an “experience”. She said he helped with some of her risk taking behaviour. This included going bankrupt after going on a trip she couldn’t afford. Another example was flying overseas to see someone she’d never met before.
The model said after reading about it more it’s hard to see how the forensic psychiatrist would come to any other conclusion.
She decided to jump online and share her experience.
“Not only is the disorder itself rare. It’s even rarer when it’s a woman,” she said.
“If a woman displays any characteristics they are automatically assumed to have borderline personality disorder.”
She doesn’t have mood swings and said that her emotions are over quickly, often within the hour. She feels joy and excitement, but emotions such as anger are stronger though. Ms Batra said there “isn’t much under the surface” but it allows her to be a chameleon and fit into different settings.
There are downsides. She said she’s often not believed because of her diagnosis. Often psychiatrists refuse to treat people with ASPD due to lying tendencies. She’s had people not believe her when horrible things have been done to her. She’s been accused of lying to get sympathy due to her diagnosis.
That’s why she’s been so vocal about what she’s been through. She gets asked endless questions about whether she experiences emotion and if she feels love. People often ask her for dating advice. So, she’s now writing a book to have it all down in one place.
“I got so many emails and messages asking me what a sociopath would do in these scenarios,” she said.
“How to not get attached so quickly, how to not get their empathy exploited and how to avoid abuse tactics like gaslighting and negging, which has been happening in the modern dating world.”
She says women often get attached to men quickly. She said this isn’t necessary so early on. It often leads to them getting hurt in the process. Ms Batra said she is teaching women to “date like a sociopath”. She said she doesn’t want women to form emotional bonds until men have shown they respect their time and commitment.
“Fellow sociopaths — males — tend to go for particular women who are vulnerable and display certain traumas that are linked to things they can exploit,” she said.
“So I also share the negatives of how sociopaths date and how it’s completely transactional.”
Ms Batra describes her own dating life as “serial monogamy”.
“But, when I am dating, I usually date three to four people at the same time,” she said.
However she won’t sleep with them. Ms Batra, who is bisexual, said there are a lot of risks involved in sex such as emotional bonding, pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.
“I personally don’t engage with that until I’m in a committed relationship and I feel comfortable enough to be in that position.”
