A popular news magazine just published an article on child psychopathy and what is being done to treat it. Studies had revealed differences in these children’s brain development as young as three or four years old. As I was a child with autism, a similar brain-related disability with similar societal consequences for atypical behavior, I was curious to see how their therapy worked.

While my behavior was not violent, I faced the same difficulties as children with callousness and lack of empathy. I couldn’t keep friends. I didn’t know how not to say upsetting things. Most important, I just didn’t understand how a cooperative society worked. Antisocial children struggle with these things, as well.

Although, perhaps struggle isn’t the right word. It isn’t a struggle for them. They don’t feel pressured to change. By the time they hit puberty, they know what they should do; they just don’t see any reason for doing it. People who follow the rules are beneath them. They like nothing better than to insult and assault others. It gives them a perverse satisfaction. They are taught to mimic and perform empathy through a reward system that involves games, candy, outings, and time with family.

The motivations of autistic and psychopathic behavior may be different, but the solution is the same. Autistic children must also learn how to exhibit empathy for those around them. Not because they don’t want to, but because they don’t know how to. In autistic children, rewards for performing this behavior correctly are as much external as they are internal. Furthermore, autistic behavioral conditioning is fraught with issues as to how much is compensation strategy and how much is conversion therapy, and consensus among experts and autistics alike has been elusive.

Regardless, using a reward system was how I trained myself to act non-autistically. I had to develop the same library of appropriate thoughts, phrases and reactions. I had to, and still have to, suppress my natural instincts. It takes constant work, even if that work is well-practiced and occurs almost automatically when a given situation emerges. My reaction times are quick, so quick that the uninformed wouldn’t notice the minuscule delay.

But I still have to force myself. I had a stressful day at work yesterday, and it was all over my face. My coworkers could tell and took turns trying to reassure me. I had to paste a “real” smile on my face to express my gratitude, as words with my usual expression would have seemed insincere. It was a costly additional exertion on a day that was already too energetically expensive. (To give you an idea, I have to work so hard to not be myself that I can only work around 20 hours a week.)

One person who had “graduated” from a retraining program for psychopathic children classified the work he had to do to suppress his natural instincts as an “8” on a scale of 1 to 10. And I thought, that’s me! That’s how hard I have to work.

The realization cut deep. Before I knew I was autistic, I had latched on to the idea that I might be one of those antisocial individuals. I had so much difficulty understanding why people got upset with me and didn’t want to be around me that it seemed the only logical explanation. It was hard to acknowledge that the solution I’d come up with, learning behavior instead of knowing it, was pretty much the same as it would have been either way.

There is but one difference between the two. Empathy.

I was distraught when I found out I’d insulted someone. It hurt when people pulled away from me, when no one wanted to be my friend and no social group could stand me. Because unlike the kids in the article, I wanted those things desperately; I just didn’t know how to get them. When I was teaching myself, each mistake was all the more painful because it was the exact opposite of what I wanted—and not for lack of trying.

Rather than being happy when I hurt someone, as those kids were, I was traumatized. Slip-ups were inspected and revisited often, as I sifted through each detail trying to figure out where I went wrong. If I let something slip, or, more likely, allowed my frustration and anger to seep out and affect those around me, I would berate myself at length for having been so sloppy, so lazy, so uncaring.

Lazy was a frequent accusation in my inner monologue. I imagined everyone else was working, too, but with much better execution and results. I felt like was forcing myself to excel at a sport for which I had zero aptitude. But since that was the price for relationships and a social life, I paid it every day without complaint. (Well, minimal complaint).

My rewards were intangible, but invaluable nonetheless. Instead of the prizes they use on low empathy children, I received respect and friendship from those around me and as full a social life as I wanted. But even with half a lifetime of experience it’s still hard. I can’t imagine how much harder it would be if I didn’t care about those things.

A cohort of autistics don’t care about those things. Do they have antisocial traits? Atypical development in the same areas of the brain? I hadn’t thought so, but now I’m wondering if psychopathy is an extreme end of “high”-functioning autistic behavior. They’re both neurological entities, and both as much nature as nurture.

The only difference is whether the difference bothers you or not. Which seems an all too thin and frangible line of distinction.