# Schizoid Personality Disorder



## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

I'm surprised not to see the thread dedicated to this disorder because I'd seen it mentioned before on this forum.

I'm not diagnosed, but the description suits me so well that it can't be other way... I wouldn't create the thread if it hasn't just hit me home and I've just read about it.

Is there anybody who has it along with social anxiety (disorder) or without? How do you cope with that? How do you treat it? What's your experience with it in general cause it literally affects the whole personality and life? 

*Edit: Books on schizoid issues: ''Schizoid Phenomena, Object Relations and the Self'' by Harry Guntrip https://www.amazon.com/Schizoid-Phe...855750325/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 , chapter 9 in ''Psychoanalytic Diagnosis, Second Edition: Understanding Personality Structure in the Clinical Process'' by Nancy McWilliams, an article ''Some Thoughts about Schizoid Dynamics'' by Nancy McWilliams https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7142775_Some_Thoughts_about_Schizoid_Dynamics*


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## SplendidBob (May 28, 2014)

I used to think I might be schizoid, I definitely don't though now. I think I just adapted myself in that way in order to cope.


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## teopap (May 12, 2013)

I suspect I have schizoid personality disorder.
I don't desire nor enjoy being around people. People just make me bored and I have no desire listening or talking to them. Even if its a subject I'm interested at. 
I like my own company. Furthermore, I have no interestes in life at anything. Ok I have 1-2 like cycling or trekking but that's it. There are times that I just prefer laying in my bed than doing any of those because they don't amuse me so much.
It surely affects my life in a negative way. People spend their lives working, sleeping and socializing. Since I am unemployed and I am isolated, I have plenty of time to be bored and think. And I get depressed.


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

I have some traits in common and can relate a bit to people I've come across online diagnosed with the condition, but I don't believe I have that condition. It's probably the same reason I've had people in real life in the past ask if I have aspergers though, and perhaps why some people accuse me of being a sociopath online (although usually they're overly emotional by normal standards,) because I notice people often confuse symptoms of those two conditions (aspergers and SPD) as well. But I don't have aspergers either.


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## causalset (Sep 11, 2016)

I feel nastalgic now  I was diagnosed with Asperger when I was 15, and then, at 17, I was at Barns and Noble studying DSM 4 and the moment I ran across Schizoid Personality I felt this would fit me much better than Asperger, since _I thought_ the root of my condition is "not caring" about social interaction. Well, few years later, at 21, I learned its not the case: yes I do care about making friends, I just don't know how to make them, so Asperger diagnosis fits me better. As of now I am 37, and yes I think Asperger is the correct diagnosis. By the way, I doubt anyone on this forum is Schizoid: if you were Schizoid you would be perfectly content with not having friends and, therefore, you wouldn't be here.


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## andy0128 (Dec 19, 2003)

Although a lot of the criteria rings true i think my lack of interest in making friends is more due to other problems like aspergers, which means i struggle to connect with many people and therefore am repeatedly rejected and even harrased to the point where i become fearful of trying to get to know people or simply see it as a hopeless exercise.


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## Nonsensical (Mar 29, 2013)

I'm fairly certain I have SPD to some degree. I can communicate effectively and I can make/keep "friends" but I find myself unable to openly relate to them. I feel empathy/sympathy unlike sociopaths but I have a lot of difficulty feeling connected to other people even in their company or during relationships that are perceived as intimate.

My pschiatrist mentioned the disorder to me before as well, but I had a minor panic attack during the conversation. What's odd about SPD is the more familiarity people have with you the more likely you are to engage in avoidance, even outright lying to confuse "friends".

I was watching a TV series called Mr. Robot that depicts the condition fairly well. Lucky for me I doubt my condition will ever devolve as much as it does for the protagonist.


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## Famous (Sep 6, 2011)

I've been diagnosed with SPD.


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## Nonsensical (Mar 29, 2013)

causalset said:


> I feel nastalgic now  I was diagnosed with Asperger when I was 15, and then, at 17, I was at Barns and Noble studying DSM 4 and the moment I ran across Schizoid Personality I felt this would fit me much better than Asperger, since _I thought_ the root of my condition is "not caring" about social interaction. Well, few years later, at 21, I learned its not the case: yes I do care about making friends, I just don't know how to make them, so Asperger diagnosis fits me better. As of now I am 37, and yes I think Asperger is the correct diagnosis. By the way, I doubt anyone on this forum is Schizoid: if you were Schizoid you would be perfectly content with not having friends and, therefore, you wouldn't be here.


While a schizoid can be perfectly content without close relationships I think not having any human contact at all is disconcerting for them in the same way it is for everyone else. It's why they create an inner life and do a lot of self talk which can create delusions if it's not kept in check.






The show says so much about suffering from the disease in certain scenes. At least it's very much like my experience with it, and my life in general.


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## causalset (Sep 11, 2016)

Nonsensical said:


> While a schizoid can be perfectly content without close relationships I think not having any human contact at all is disconcerting for them in the same way it is for everyone else.


That makes sense. So I guess the people that "don't care at all" about social interaction would be autistics. But when I make that claim about autistics, then people also correct me on this as well. But you see, there has to be SOMEONE who doesn't care about total isolation -- after all people assume I don't care, so there has to be SOMEONE who is responsible for this kind of misconception. Or could it be that said "someone" is a movie character (rainman, sheldon, or someone else "fun" like that), which means that entertainment industry is to blame?


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## Nonsensical (Mar 29, 2013)

causalset said:


> That makes sense. So I guess the people that "don't care at all" about social interaction would be autistics. But when I make that claim about autistics, then people also correct me on this as well. But you see, there has to be SOMEONE who doesn't care about total isolation -- after all people assume I don't care, so there has to be SOMEONE who is responsible for this kind of misconception. Or could it be that said "someone" is a movie character (rainman, sheldon, or someone else "fun" like that), which means that entertainment industry is to blame?


There are plenty of people that will say that they don't care about social interactions. They may even be telling the truth but the result is extremely negative to any human beings mental state. Humans can survive without anyone else, but it's a life of suffering.

I can understand why people would confuse being schizotypal with autism because the extreme isolation can cause poor social skills. People with SPD however don't display any of the different thinking styles that autistic people do. SPD people don't see order in the mundane like sequences of numbers, they don't enjoy repetitive tasks, and they don't have sensory disorders.

I think what really identifies some one with SPD the most is the inner life they build and the inability to make definable caring relationships. I have trouble feeling close to family for example.


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## causalset (Sep 11, 2016)

Nonsensical said:


> I can understand why people would confuse being schizotypal with autism


Important correction: schizoid and schizotypal are two separate personality disorders, although both are in cluster A. The difference is that schizoid is only about introversion, while schizotypal also has magical thinking and other mild quasi-delusions on top of it.



Nonsensical said:


> People with SPD however don't display any of the different thinking styles that autistic people do. SPD people don't see order in the mundane like sequences of numbers, they don't enjoy repetitive tasks, and they don't have sensory disorders.


I don't do those things either, which is part of the reason I suspected I was schizoid at some point. But then again the thing I "do" do has to do with obsessions (look at all of the posts where I over-analyze). To me, my obsessions are a lot more meaningful than the ones you mentioned, which is what would make me say "hey, people that look at patterns are autistic while people like myself who overanalyze are schizoid" but I guess from the perspective of someone who doesn't do either of those two they think both are equally weird hence they lump both under the same autism umbrella.


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## Cyclonic (Oct 25, 2012)

Never diagnosed with it, but I always suspected that I'm schizoid (every mental disorder quiz I've taken has me very high on schizoid and fairly low on everything else). A lot of the symptom descriptions are highly accurate for me.

- I don't have any close relationships, even with family, but more importantly I don't have any desire to form relationships either. The thought of getting to know someone does not interest me and I'd rather spend time alone. I don't even feel lonely most of the time, it's not like I want social connection but can't get it, I just don't want it.

- I rarely, if ever, show emotion. I don't even know what most of the emotions feel like anymore. I noticed this in my early mid 20s when I realized I couldn't cry anymore. I lost one grandfather when I was 18-19 and was very upset for a time even though I wasn't very close, I've since lost family members even closer and haven't felt anything. I could be best described as neutral pretty much all the time, not happy, not sad, not angry...just nothing.

- All of my hobbies are solitary, when the few distant friends I have want to join in those hobbies I actually feel somewhat annoyed. I've been playing online games for over a decade and haven't made a single friend from it, that should tell you something.

- I don't derive pleasure from many activities, I tend to do things just to pass the time. I have no creative passion and I've never had any, even in childhood. 


It's weird describing my life, because it's really bland and solitary, but I also prefer it this way. I don't know if I'm schizoid, but I feel like I fit the profile.


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## Glycerin (Jun 26, 2016)

causalset said:


> if you were Schizoid you would be perfectly content with not having friends *and, therefore, you wouldn't be here*.


That's a wrong conclusion. Social anxiety doesn't equate being unhappy with not having friends even if suffering from the lack of friends can be a consequence of the illness.
You can be fine with not having friends, but still experience anxiety in many situations that involve any kind of social interaction. For example using the phone to make an appointment with the dentist or to get your car fixed (even though you don't want to befriend the secretary, dentist, men in the garage), answering the door (even if you don't want to befriend the witness jehova or mail man or food deliverer), simply walking on the street or using public transportation (where you don't want to befriend the random people who might be looking at and judging you).


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

As for me, what I discovered yesterday was definitely a revelation about myself. It may sound farce, but it's so true and I feel both, more depressive (because I despirately thought I could be(come) normal) and more emotionally calm (because it's evident that I'm not the only one with it and that it has a name and also something I'll write about below...).

It is definitely pathological in my case because I have those social and emotional withdrawals and I've being dreaming unconsciously since my early childhood (starting from kindergarden, I think) and it made me counter-productive throughout my whole life. I wasn't good at school and dropped out the university I was too abmitious to attend and I'm currently unemployed. I could always sense the amount of time I was engaging myself in was pathological and that other people/kids definidely didn't do such a weird thing. And the dreaming itself wasn't about ''pies in the skies'' or, you know, ''ponies and rainbows''. It has always been about people, socially-related things (regardless of how unusual/unrealistic they are) and that was a substitude for those things in real life.

The positive part of it is that I read a chapter about it that was written in a rarely unbiased way... I found it reading Wiki SPD article references. There was a google books link in it. It was a book by Nancy McWilliams. She literally described my whole life and personality in that chapter and she might be the only who didn't make me feel so ****ty about myself and crazy (except for a few people I recently met on the internet, so this may only be a question of time). What unusual about it is that she writes about schizoid personality in general, whether it's about high-functioning, more adapted individuals with this personality or more troubled ones (like me  ). And she critisizes bias in psychological field. She described everything that would make a therapy to be ideal for me, just like I has always been thinking about it on my own.
Also I read her most recent article about this subject: http://internationalpsychoanalysis.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/McWilliamsschizoid_dynamics.pdf

Those who know they're schizoid or the ones who suspect it, you should definitely read this article! I'd also hope there would be people who'd read it just to be more able to understand us, but I know there are zero people who are interested in understanding us with empathy to the point where they would read this article from beginning to the end.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

Nonsensical said:


> There are plenty of people that will say that they don't care about social interactions. They may even be telling the truth but the result is extremely negative to any human beings mental state. Humans can survive without anyone else, but it's a life of suffering.
> 
> I can understand why people would confuse being schizotypal with autism because the extreme isolation can cause poor social skills. People with SPD however don't display any of the different thinking styles that autistic people do. SPD people don't see order in the mundane like sequences of numbers, they don't enjoy repetitive tasks, and they don't have sensory disorders.
> 
> I think what really identifies some one with SPD the most is the inner life they build and the inability to make definable caring relationships. I have trouble feeling close to family for example.


This is so true! Nancy McWilliams mentiones it in her article as well as in the chapter of her book. She says everyone seeks for attachment, but it's peolple's defense mechanisms that differ.

She says more maintream psychology has bias towards schizoids, because most people who created it weren't schizoid themselves and they only saw what was on the surface, so they concluded that schizoid people weren't interested in interpersonal relationships at all, while it's only the mechanisms they use in order to cope.

Other personalities have other mechanisms prevailed... She mentiones different types of defense mechanisms in her book. Withdrawal is not something most people can relate to though


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## Nonsensical (Mar 29, 2013)

SorryForMyEnglish said:


> As for me, what I discovered yesterday was definitely a revelation about myself. It may sound farce, but it's so true and I feel both, more depressive (because I despirately thought I could be(come) normal) and more emotionally calm (because it's evident that I'm not the only one with it and that it has a name and also something I'll write about below...).
> 
> It is definitely pathological in my case because I have those social and emotional withdrawals and I've being dreaming unconsciously since my early childhood (starting from kindergarden, I think) and it made me counter-productive throughout my whole life. I wasn't good at school and dropped out the university I was too abmitious to attend and I'm currently unemployed. I could always sense the amount of time I was engaging myself in was pathological and that other people/kids definidely didn't do such a weird thing. And the dreaming itself wasn't about ''pies in the skies'' or, you know, ''ponies and rainbows''. It has always been about people, socially-related things (regardless of how unusual/unrealistic they are) and that was a substitude for those things in real life.
> 
> ...












Thank you for the article, it is highly descriptive and accurate. I realize how much nonsense it is for me to make this comment considering the circumstances but if you'd like some one to talk to I definitely won't be judgmental. I'm actually very interested in communicating with another person that has extremely similar problems as me, it feels nice for a change.

I'm still working my way through the article but early on I noted this.



> Another possible reason for associating the schizoid with the pathological is that many schizoid individuals feel an affinity for people with psychotic disorders. One colleague of mine, self-described as schizoid, prefers working with psychotically disturbed individuals to treating "healthy neurotics," because he experiences neurotically troubled people as "dishonest" (i.e.,defensive), whereas he perceives psychotic ones as engaged in a fully authentic struggle with their demons


 Page 3 paragraph 2.

I experienced this reaction from my counselors and psychiatrist which is why they were often very eager to work with me on medication and treatment. When I spoke at length to my own devised coping mechanisms and how I keep my sanity in check along with how I attempt to form healthy relationships. I expressed frustration about some thing and she stopped me saying "Yes, it's because you're desperately trying to heal.".... I Should see her again some day but it feels highly uncomfortable for me to see her again in the most paranoid and typical of schizoid ways. I should know better by now.

Edit :

In continuation of the reading,


> Consider further the significance of the term "us." Schizoid people recognize each other. They feel like members of what one reclusive friend of mine called "a community of the solitary." Like homosexually oriented people with "gaydar," many schizoid individuals can spot each other in a crowd. I have heard them describe a sense of deep and compassionate kinship. with one another, despite the fact that these relatively isolative people rarely verbalize such kinship or approach each other for explicit recognition.


 page 6 and 7

It made me chuckle to myself after having posted this.

A gathering point for other schizoids I've found on SAS is this thread http://www.socialanxietysupport.com/forum/f24/hermits-and-grit-1106866/ our interactions seem to outline much of McWilliams observation.

It reminds me of the interactions I have with an elderly man at work. The day I met him I knew he was like me, later I found out that he had lived as a hermit for many years. I believe he is very much schizoid and deep into this pattern of thinking. We've never spoken on the topic, we aren't particularly close or communicate a lot. He sees me for what I am too, I know he does because I am one of the few people he confides how he feels in. He will talk to me about the way nursing staff behaves with him, how he's treated differently because of his schizoid disorder. I nod to him and much of the communication is in a non-verbal style because I've made it clear to him I'm unable to divulge information. I've made little comments to this man about some behaviors that aren't acceptable or will get him into trouble and he picked up on it immediately. He's crazy frankly, but our insanity talks to each other. By non-verbal I mean I say things that hint at what I'm actually trying to communicate because I can't speak to him confidentially. He picks up on it, and he talks to me the same way.


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

I remember reading about this when I was trying to see if I had this or just social anxiety and really felt matched up with schizoid rather well. I'm not sure though, I mean I could have been schizoid if I never had anything to open me up a little, if I never had psychologists and prozac. But since I've experienced so many other parts of my life which were dead without something to open me up, I feel like I am not schizoid. I desire people just like anyone else does. There was no dating before I was opened up a little, there was nothing, I was all dead inside. When you have something to open you up, I am sure anyone can go from a schizoid to just a little social anxiety and probably the schizoid term is just given for those people who are just completely closed off like I was. Give them something and maybe they will change. Every definition and symptom of schizoid or any other disorder just shows you how extreme a disorder is and how deep you're conformed to it and how dysfunctional your life becomes in this world.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

Nonsensical said:


> I experienced this reaction from my counselors and psychiatrist which is why they were often very eager to work with me on medication and treatment. When I spoke at length to my own devised coping mechanisms and how I keep my sanity in check along with how I attempt to form healthy relationships. I expressed frustration about some thing and she stopped me saying "Yes, it's because you're desperately trying to heal.".... I Should see her again some day but it feels highly uncomfortable for me to see her again in the most paranoid and typical of schizoid ways. I should know better by now.


Aw, that wasn't a sensitive thing to say :serious: This constant misunderstanding and labeling is what I'm afraid of the most, because you're supposed to be really open to a therapist and there should be trust involved in it, but it just ruins everything. I've experienced all of that throughout my whole life from other people, whether I tried to be desperately close (or rather more open in most cases) to them or not. That's something that keeps me in total isolation and only makes it worse and worse, like a never-ending circle...



Nonsensical said:


> A gathering point for other schizoids I've found on SAS is this thread http://www.socialanxietysupport.com/forum/f24/hermits-and-grit-1106866/ our interactions seem to outline much of McWilliams observation.
> 
> It reminds me of the interactions I have with an elderly man at work. The day I met him I knew he was like me, later I found out that he had lived as a hermit for many years. I believe he is very much schizoid and deep into this pattern of thinking. We've never spoken on the topic, we aren't particularly close or communicate a lot. He sees me for what I am too, I know he does because I am one of the few people he confides how he feels in. He will talk to me about the way nursing staff behaves with him, how he's treated differently because of his schizoid disorder. I nod to him and much of the communication is in a non-verbal style because I've made it clear to him I'm unable to divulge information. I've made little comments to this man about some behaviors that aren't acceptable or will get him into trouble and he picked up on it immediately. He's crazy frankly, but our insanity talks to each other. By non-verbal I mean I say things that hint at what I'm actually trying to communicate because I can't speak to him confidentially. He picks up on it, and he talks to me the same way.


Thanks for the thread link! 
I think, I've never came across other people with SPD in my real life. I can't recall people with similar symptoms, only people with slightly different problems.

However, I used to know one woman who suits Nancy McWilliams' description of ''people with schizoid personality'' and she was very high-functional and professionally successful person. I think, we did recorgnize each other as someone similar to ourselves... We usually had similar opinions on a lot of things which was very strange. And we were somewhat alike non-verbally too. She would look like ''I don't want anyone to come near me, I need my own space and I'm a little detached from you all''. Same was with me, but in my case it's really pathological and there was extreme anxiety on top of that as usual. Ironically, we never really got along and it was probably because both of us thought we'd rather stay away then invide each other's spaces cause it was clearly visible that we'd rather be left alone . That's the saddest part because it could possibly be a very profound communication and connection between people who relate to each other so much.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

SwtSurrender said:


> I remember reading about this when I was trying to see if I had this or just social anxiety and really felt matched up with schizoid rather well. I'm not sure though, I mean I could have been schizoid if I never had anything to open me up a little, if I never had psychologists and prozac. But since I've experienced so many other parts of my life which were dead without something to open me up, I feel like I am not schizoid. I desire people just like anyone else does. There was no dating before I was opened up a little, there was nothing, I was all dead inside. When you have something to open you up, I am sure anyone can go from a schizoid to just a little social anxiety and probably the schizoid term is just given for those people who are just completely closed off like I was. Give them something and maybe they will change. Every definition and symptom of schizoid or any other disorder just shows you how extreme a disorder is and how deep you're conformed to it and how dysfunctional your life becomes in this world.


But there are reasons people are closed off, it's not that simple for everyone. Everyone's reasons differ so I don't think a lot of people can relate to me personally, for instance. If it's claimed that people's psychologies are different at their very basis (unconscious) then it makes it much more complicated then just ''do it'' approach.

I refer to psychoanalysis here because it seems to explain things on a deeper level to me. I know, it's subjective, but stil.... it's just that I know I can't relate to most people with the very core of my personality/character and vice versa. If those differences were acknowledged then maybe there would be less misunderstanding, i.e. most people labeling me as weird, teasing and hurting me sometimes or just completely ignoring me or all things at once which enhances my isolation and mental health damage


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## OliveGage (Jan 14, 2013)

This is the description of schizoid from the Mayo Clinic: 
Prefer being alone and choose to do activities alone
Don't want or enjoy close relationships
Feel little if any desire for sexual relationships
Feel like you can't experience pleasure
Have difficulty expressing emotions and reacting appropriately to situations
May seem humorless, indifferent or emotionally cold to others
May appear to lack motivation and goals
Don't react to praise or critical remarks from others​
When I first went into therapy a diagnosis was not required by insurance companies and therapist felt uncomfortable giving them. Everyone is so unique and it is your hopes and aspirations that count.

Asperger's often involves physical behaviors like repetitive movements, constant movements, and odd food preferences. Communication problems and social withdrawal are also common with Asperger's. So, a person with Asperger may become schizoid, but not all schizoid people have Asperger.

I think Asperger is hereditary, there are others diagnosed in my family and reports from over 100 years ago. It's especially distinct because it sticks out in the family, like a very high-strung child.

My symptoms improve when I am careful with myself. I apply myself to being healthy, and creative stimulation. I have a hard time with too many people in the room. My social circle is small but I need people who share my interests. My personality makes me a magnet for predators. During stressful times I felt schizoid description fit, but that seems more like depression.


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## causalset (Sep 11, 2016)

SwtSurrender said:


> I remember reading about this when I was trying to see if I had this or just social anxiety and really felt matched up with schizoid rather well. I'm not sure though, I mean I could have been schizoid if I never had anything to open me up a little, if I never had psychologists and prozac. But since I've experienced so many other parts of my life which were dead without something to open me up, I feel like I am not schizoid. I desire people just like anyone else does. There was no dating before I was opened up a little, there was nothing, I was all dead inside. When you have something to open you up, I am sure anyone can go from a schizoid to just a little social anxiety and probably the schizoid term is just given for those people who are just completely closed off like I was. Give them something and maybe they will change. Every definition and symptom of schizoid or any other disorder just shows you how extreme a disorder is and how deep you're conformed to it and how dysfunctional your life becomes in this world.


Yeah thats totally me. Except that in my case what "opened me up" was a negative rather than a positive. Back in my happy "schiziod" days, I thought that any social contact is a disraction from my math and physics so I preferred not to have friends. But then I ran into a situation where I really wanted to connect and was shut down from connecting. That gave me rude awakening that its not me who is not wanting to socialize but it is others that don't like me. And that brief encounter with emotional attachment and subsequent rejection is what lead me to see that I am not schizoid after all. But ultimately it hurt me a lot more than helped me. I would have been better off if I were to stay "schizoid".


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## causalset (Sep 11, 2016)

OliveGage said:


> Asperger's often involves physical behaviors like repetitive movements, constant movements, and odd food preferences.


In my case I don't have those, but I still fit the diagnosis of Asperger because you don't have to have all the symptoms you just have to have the right number of them. From what I heard, repetitive motion part is less common among people with Asperger than it is among autistics. They have it in diagnosis criteria because they simply copied the autism criteria, deleted "language delay" part, and added that there is no delay in language among other things. I guess if they were to put more thought into Asperger as separate diagnosis, they might have moved repetitive movement from diagnostic criteria to "associated features"; but that is just me speculating, as it stands "repetitive movement" is part of diagnostic criteria for Asperger -- which is okay, since like I said I don't need all the symptoms I just need right number. As far as food preferences part or sensory issues, that is in fact part of "associated features" rather than diagnostic criteria, in DSM 4 as it is, and no I don't have those symptoms either.

But DSM 5 is different in DSM 5 they got rid of Asperger altogether and replaced it with ASD which combines autism and Asperger into a single diagnosis. I am guessing that in DSM 5 I might not even be qualified for ASD and instead I would be diagnosed with "social communication disorder" -- but I never actually went to be evaluated I am just guessing. In any case I like DSM 4 a lot better, and DSM 4 diagnosis of Asperger is appropriate, even though I don't have those sensory issues or repetitive movements or anything like that.


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## OliveGage (Jan 14, 2013)

Yeah, I don't have all of the symptoms and I don't really care for diagnoses. I was very high-strung as a child. It absolutely enraged my mother who could not change me. I do believe there is a disorder that affects communication and perception.

What I have found helpful is to understand what is a central part of your personality, what you can tweak and what you really want. I noticed I actually did feel better when I attempted social interaction, but I was terrible at it because I would immediately have a terrible anxiety attack and make a fool of myself. For whatever reason, some people tolerate this if you have other redeeming qualities (especially support groups and churches who feel some obligation to tolerate the inept). Having regular social feedback shapes your behavior. A lack of feedback has consequences too.

The benefits of social interaction: It's entertaining. It's creative. You can grow your ego or someone else's. Avoiding becoming schizoid or paranoid. People have a broad spectrum of emotions and intelligence that you miss out on if you're never involved.

The cons: Relying on substance abuse to help you deal with the craziness. It's expensive to play. It's time-consuming. Most people are boring after a few minutes. People are predatory and competitive and may hurt you. Somehow you're made to feel like it's your job to fit in.:O

Lots of people live in isolation because it feels good. I tend to treat social interaction like a drug that deserves careful moderation. Maybe that's because I'm an Aspie, or maybe I'm just right. I do walk my dog in public and socialize with people who like pit bulls (quite a few, he's really sweet).


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

causalset said:


> Yeah thats totally me. Except that in my case what "opened me up" was a negative rather than a positive. Back in my happy "schiziod" days, I thought that any social contact is a disraction from my math and physics so I preferred not to have friends. But then I ran into a situation where I really wanted to connect and was shut down from connecting. That gave me rude awakening that its not me who is not wanting to socialize but it is others that don't like me. And that brief encounter with emotional attachment and subsequent rejection is what lead me to see that I am not schizoid after all. But ultimately it hurt me a lot more than helped me. I would have been better off if I were to stay "schizoid".


Yeah, same happened to me, when I was closed off I was always focusing on my school but then when I opened up I started focusing only on boyfriends and didn't care about my school anymore. It's a negative for me too, that's for sure, thanks for bringing this up, it's really important.


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## causalset (Sep 11, 2016)

SwtSurrender said:


> Yeah, same happened to me, when I was closed off I was always focusing on my school but then when I opened up I started focusing only on boyfriends and didn't care about my school anymore. It's a negative for me too, that's for sure, thanks for bringing this up, it's really important.


Yeah same here, except that in my case I am focused on girlfriends. In my case it is very difficult to get a girl to like me due to lack of social skills so I only had 3 girlfriends my whole entire life (one lasted 8 months and the other two lasted 2 years each), and thats when I was obsessing about it. But how about your case did you also have hard time finding a boyfriend, as in did you also constantly get rejected? Or was it more that there were guys willing to date you but you weren't liking them back?

Also, what were you studying back when you were closed off? In my case it was math and physics (still is: its what I want to do for my career). But what subject did you like to study? Were you still able to complete your degrees after you became obsessed with boyfriends? In my case I completted my Ph.D. but couldn't really find a professor job so I went back for second Ph.D. just so that I can be "somewhere" if not professor then at least a student.


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

causalset said:


> Yeah same here, except that in my case I am focused on girlfriends. In my case it is very difficult to get a girl to like me due to lack of social skills so I only had 3 girlfriends my whole entire life (one lasted 8 months and the other two lasted 2 years each), and thats when I was obsessing about it. But how about your case did you also have hard time finding a boyfriend, as in did you also constantly get rejected? Or was it more that there were guys willing to date you but you weren't liking them back?
> 
> Also, what were you studying back when you were closed off? In my case it was math and physics (still is: its what I want to do for my career). But what subject did you like to study? Were you still able to complete your degrees after you became obsessed with boyfriends? In my case I completted my Ph.D. but couldn't really find a professor job so I went back for second Ph.D. just so that I can be "somewhere" if not professor then at least a student.


There were plenty of boys willing to date me when I was closed off, I choose to believe it was that way if so many more are willing to date me when I feel opened up. When I was closed off, I was just that, closed off - no interest in dating, I wanted it though but I could never try to get it. There was no eye contact, and if there was, it was very limited and super awkward compared to now where I stare way too much on purpose and smile too just to make someone tick....
When I was closed off and going to school I was just stuck in this one routine that I didn't like messed up or else. So, I didn't have much choice to choose anything else, I would always avoid anything to do with getting picked on in class so I never had any fun, I would get picked on anyway by teachers. Even when I was opened up, I still had a long way to go to complete a degree, and still do, I haven't completed any yet. I am very interested in psychology now a days, so it depends, but when I go back to school, I don't care about the pay, I want to be a psychologist and more.

Thanks for asking, tmi, but it's great to share. :grin2:


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## causalset (Sep 11, 2016)

SwtSurrender said:


> There were plenty of boys willing to date me when I was closed off, I choose to believe it was that way if so many more are willing to date me when I feel opened up. When I was closed off, I was just that, closed off - no interest in dating, I wanted it though but I could never try to get it. There was no eye contact, and if there was, it was very limited and super awkward compared to now where I stare way too much on purpose and smile too just to make someone tick....
> When I was closed off and going to school I was just stuck in this one routine that I didn't like messed up or else. So, I didn't have much choice to choose anything else, I would always avoid anything to do with getting picked on in class so I never had any fun, I would get picked on anyway by teachers. Even when I was opened up, I still had a long way to go to complete a degree, and still do, I haven't completed any yet. I am very interested in psychology now a days, so it depends, but when I go back to school, I don't care about the pay, I want to be a psychologist and more.
> 
> Thanks for asking, tmi, but it's great to share. :grin2:


I think I am pretty similar to you. When I was closed off I had a few crushes on a couple of girls -- I even remember who they were -- but I was really shy about it and was trying not to look at them. But it didn't matter because, ultimately, I knew I didn't want to date them or anyone else for that matter since it would take away time from school which I found all important. As far as those particular girls, I have no idea what they felt about me since we never talked. But there were a few other ones I was joking around with whom I didn't like that way (not more than most other girls) but who still reciprocated it. For example, in the physics lab I was giving "shock therapy" to myself and others by using 9 volt battery and one girl actually liked it and was goofing around together with me.

But then, at the age of 21, when I became desperate for female approval then the entire situation changed and girls started avoiding me. Did similar thing happen in your case? You said boys liked you back when you were closed off; but did they like you once you started to actually want a relationship?

So what made you interested in psychology? Is it because you are trying to understand your own social anxiety, or were you interested in psychology prior to this as well? Back when you didn't have social anxiety yet, were you majority in psychology or did you have some other major?


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

thedevilsblood said:


> A few things i noticed, she seems to be reluctant to make a strict difference between avoidant and schizoid disorders, and she actually tends to describes schizoid as a personality type more than a "disorder", which is something i agree with, not that i have any legitimacy to decide what's a disorder or not... but i'm wary about the tendency to medicalise everything and to see quirks and differences in personality as something that's some sort of illness that needs to be corrected. At the end of the day all these terms, social anxiety, schizoid, avoidant, more or less describe the same thing which is an archetype that always existed, the outsider, loner, extreme introvert, recluse, etc.
> 
> There's also this sentence
> "Second, sensitive clinical writers have also noted that schizoid individuals have radar for
> ...


Mmm, I really like what you say. A big warm smile :smile2:


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

causalset said:


> I think I am pretty similar to you. When I was closed off I had a few crushes on a couple of girls -- I even remember who they were -- but I was really shy about it and was trying not to look at them. But it didn't matter because, ultimately, I knew I didn't want to date them or anyone else for that matter since it would take away time from school which I found all important. As far as those particular girls, I have no idea what they felt about me since we never talked. But there were a few other ones I was joking around with whom I didn't like that way (not more than most other girls) but who still reciprocated it. For example, in the physics lab I was giving "shock therapy" to myself and others by using 9 volt battery and one girl actually liked it and was goofing around together with me.
> 
> But then, at the age of 21, when I became desperate for female approval then the entire situation changed and girls started avoiding me. Did similar thing happen in your case? You said boys liked you back when you were closed off; but did they like you once you started to actually want a relationship?
> 
> So what made you interested in psychology? Is it because you are trying to understand your own social anxiety, or were you interested in psychology prior to this as well? Back when you didn't have social anxiety yet, were you majority in psychology or did you have some other major?


Hmm, that sounds pretty sexy, so you're a sexy scientist right? Yeah, they liked me once I wanted a relationship, but only so they could get in my pants. I know all of their desires by now, they say okay to my wants just to get in my pants. There was this one guy who backfired at me and avoided me in 2015, I scared him away, I couldn't help myself though. There I was all high on prozac and feeling great for once in my life in a math class and his intelligence with solving a math problem before my eyes made me vocalize to him right there in person my amazement of how smart he is. Then he looked like he was getting uncomfy.... But ahh those big brown eyes. Then after class I wanted to ask him out and had to chase him, then he got in his mom's car and then when I got home I messaged him on the mathlab and he told me the truth that he was scared of me. Then we never talked again. But that's okay, I know there are other guys out there who won't be scared, there have been actually and I like that alot, so I don't take it too seriously now a days if some of them reject me. I am actually looking for rejection, because the more open you are towards rejection, the easier it will be for you to make friends with super attractive people.

No, I think I always had social anxiety, it started when I was about 11. So yes, in my early high school years I wanted to become an astronaut, I kept thinking about saving the world and that really helped uplift my mood since I was being bullied all the ****ing time. I also wanted to be so many other things, and they mostly focused on helping other people. So, my choices haven't changed that much, yeah psychology and doctor is something pretty cool, I keep thinking to myself that if so many people can be psychologists, why can't I? I have as much information to share with other people as they do, and if they can be so can I. Yeah, mostly because I have social anxiety and other stuff that can help relate to other people in this world. So if you feel the same, then just follow your dreams and do what makes you happy. Seems like psychologists always help people, because it makes them happy, doctors are the same, yep seems like everything brings the same happiness as long as you're helping people.


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## causalset (Sep 11, 2016)

SwtSurrender said:


> Hmm, that sounds pretty sexy, so you're a sexy scientist right?


Thanks for calling me sexy  It was over 15 years ago, remember. But maybe I should make myself sexy by trying to remember my mindset back then and forgetting whatever happened that changed it lol. You also sound sexy by the way 



SwtSurrender said:


> Yeah, they liked me once I wanted a relationship, but only so they could get in my pants. I know all of their desires by now, they say okay to my wants just to get in my pants.


A for me I want relationship for emotional reason. In fact as Christian I don't believe in sex before marriage. But even if I did, I jut don't ee a point a to why guy put o much energy into wanting just sex and nothing else it like do they not have anything better in life to worry about? And the sort thing of all i I have to pay for it since girl assume I also jut want e hen I actually want something a lot more genuine.



SwtSurrender said:


> There was this one guy who backfired at me and avoided me in 2015, I scared him away, I couldn't help myself though. There I was all high on prozac and feeling great for once in my life in a math class and his intelligence with solving a math problem before my eyes made me vocalize to him right there in person my amazement of how smart he is. Then he looked like he was getting uncomfy.... But ahh those big brown eyes. Then after class I wanted to ask him out and had to chase him, then he got in his mom's car and then when I got home I messaged him on the mathlab and he told me the truth that he was scared of me. Then we never talked again.


wow he was really lucky. In my case all I have to do is fail to smile and a woman wrongly think I ant to be left alone and grant me that supposed wish when as a matter of fact I don't want to be left alone, it a just a huge miscommunication. But he ha opposite situation to me: he actually tried to be left alone but you chased him anyway. well, lucky him! I guess if I ere to run acro someone like you then my situation would be so much better.

But then again, back in Russia I remember one girl that was scaring me as she was actually beating me up and stuff. Could it be that Russian girl are more aggresive than American ones, and my hole plight of being ostracized is due to the fact that I live in America?



SwtSurrender said:


> No, I think I always had social anxiety, it started when I was about 11. So yes, in my early high school years I wanted to become an astronaut, I kept thinking about saving the world and that really helped uplift my mood since I was being bullied all the ****ing time. I also wanted to be so many other things, and they mostly focused on helping other people. So, my choices haven't changed that much, yeah psychology and doctor is something pretty cool, I keep thinking to myself that if so many people can be psychologists, why can't I? I have as much information to share with other people as they do, and if they can be so can I. Yeah, mostly because I have social anxiety and other stuff that can help relate to other people in this world. So if you feel the same, then just follow your dreams and do what makes you happy. Seems like psychologists always help people, because it makes them happy, doctors are the same, yep seems like everything brings the same happiness as long as you're helping people.


In my case I always wanted to be a physicist. But saving the world is right up my alley. I want to "change" the world o that the world see physics in entirely different light 

so are you saying you want to be a therapist? hat type of counseling do you ant to specialise in?


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

@causalset ehh let's not get so carried away, if you want to know stuff just pm me.... Ehehehe.... I mean, this is an important thread, I don't want to make it all about me.


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

causalset said:


> I think I am pretty similar to you. When I was closed off I had a few crushes on a couple of girls -- I even remember who they were -- but I was really shy about it and was trying not to look at them. But it didn't matter because, ultimately, I knew I didn't want to date them or anyone else for that matter since it would take away time from school which I found all important. As far as those particular girls, I have no idea what they felt about me since we never talked. But there were a few other ones I was joking around with whom I didn't like that way (not more than most other girls) but who still reciprocated it. For example, in the physics lab I was giving "shock therapy" to myself and others by using 9 volt battery and one girl actually liked it and was goofing around together with me.


Yeah, I also had several secret crushes on boys in my classes when I was closed off, mostly through middle school and high school and college. And like you I was all like, oh well doesn't matter trying anything with them I came to school to learn not fool around anyway. Social anxiety keeps you very focused on your school sometimes, so that's good, but it's better to experience the best of both worlds for improved well-being, progress, and fulfillment of your life. As for what those particular girls felt about you is that they liked you and wanted what you wanted from them and what I wanted from guys and what they wanted from me, pure sparking connection/friends/possible relationships. Although, I do remember in 4th grade when I didn't have social anxiety just yet and this one boy and me hit it off pretty well, but we never kissed, and it ended prematurely anyway. But I enjoyed the spark I was able to have with him regardless of how long it lasted, lol he was the first and last one in dang I think it was my last try! Pretty interesting how young I started hitting on boys, I even remember doing it in kindergarten and there was lots of kissing there.


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## FeelingAlone (Feb 1, 2005)

causalset said:


> I feel nastalgic now  I was diagnosed with Asperger when I was 15, and then, at 17, I was at Barns and Noble studying DSM 4 and the moment I ran across Schizoid Personality I felt this would fit me much better than Asperger, since _I thought_ the root of my condition is "not caring" about social interaction. Well, few years later, at 21, I learned its not the case: yes I do care about making friends, I just don't know how to make them, so Asperger diagnosis fits me better. As of now I am 37, and yes I think Asperger is the correct diagnosis. By the way, I doubt anyone on this forum is Schizoid: if you were Schizoid you would be perfectly content with not having friends and, therefore, you wouldn't be here.


so how did you improve with being diagnosed with AS?


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## causalset (Sep 11, 2016)

FeelingAlone said:


> so how did you improve with being diagnosed with AS?


Why would a diagnosis make you improve? Diagnosis is not a cure LOL. In fact the whole point of diagnosis is to tell me how I "wasn't" cured.


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## ljubo (Jul 26, 2015)

i dont now, my therapists said no, but that did not stop me from being a member on a schizod group in facebook .


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## Humesday (Mar 6, 2016)

I've been diagnosed with this by several therapists. Bupropion helps offset the anhedonia. On the one hand, it's nice to have feelings, which bupropion helps catalyze, but, on the other, it's also sometimes nice to be indifferent.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

Has anyone watched a film called ''Persona'' by Ingmar Bergman? If not then I really recommend you to watch it. I'm pretty sure you can find it online.

I'm not saying the main character has schizoid personality or even just SPD. At the end of the day, it's just a film and it's just about certain narrative. We don't know much about character's past. She could've been pretty normal before, although I've never seen normal people (average, the majority) coming to such realization irl. At least not before their senior/pre-senior years. But her crisis is definitely of schizoid nature.

I've read a few reviews and one of them seemed particularly good to me and resonated with me. It pointed out that Bergman used ''Life is theatre and people are the actors in it'' metaphor because the character is an actress and her breakdown happened during the play. I would say for myself that I'm the one in the audience and have always been that pretty much, constantly watching people's pathetic theatre play and observing most of the time instead of participating. I'm really sick of even watching it now. It's something most of people do naturally(maybe except for us, people with huge SPD problems and possibly even healthy schizoids, who knows). They're so into it that it's their lifes and the only way they live and it's their reality despite it being totally artificial and deceptive. And I could see it almost my entire life and rejected it. If you ask me, actual theatre plays feel way more real and they're not even irritating compared to what people do, because all the actors are fully aware they're playing and that it's not real.

This SPD I have has been developing in me since childhood and I think I already had a great deal of this schizoidness and could perfectly suit SPD description in my teens and even pre-teens. I either was playing really badly or refused to play (like the main character) and was punished by being kicked out of the play and ridiculed. (Let me remind you, a play is a metaphor for social life which is actually life because everything involves interacting with people). Then I'd decide rather not to participate in it at all and I'd observe it (like the main character did). I would see everything as it is, people's motivations and proverbial elephant in the room, something Nancy McWilliams was talking about in her article. It was a dynamic process and here I am. I totally isolated myself and even words hardly come out of my mouth and it's a torture and a burdain to interact with people. 

I really don't know if someone can understand what I was trying to say metaphorically... But I hope those who can relate will understand it.

I could relate to both characters and the situation they're in so much. I mean mostly I could relate to the actress, of course, but the nurse represented vulnerable side that is still there, despite schizoidness. In case with SPD it's somewhere in subconscious and it can still pop out even during the worst crises like the one I have now... And if you take Nancy McWilliams article and chapter from the book into account then she says that all people seek for attachment, including those with SPD. It's something unconscious and it is on a deeper level. Deep down we're not completely indifferent and are connected mentally to people and our experiences with people.


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## Glycerin (Jun 26, 2016)

@SorryForMyEnglish thanks for the recommendation, I'll try to watch it this weekend if I can find it.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

Humesday said:


> I've been diagnosed with this by several therapists. Bupropion helps offset the anhedonia. On the one hand, it's nice to have feelings, which bupropion helps catalyze, but, on the other, it's also sometimes nice to be indifferent.


There are cases when bupropion and other medications aren't helpful :frown2: Glad you're doing ok with it so far. But even then medications are only short-term...



MissMadonna said:


> @SorryForMyEnglish thanks for the recommendation, I'll try to watch it this weekend if I can find it.


Hope you'll like/liked it!


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## Sliusarek (Aug 14, 2016)

causalset said:


> I feel nastalgic now  I was diagnosed with Asperger when I was 15, and then, at 17, I was at Barns and Noble studying DSM 4 and the moment I ran across Schizoid Personality I felt this would fit me much better than Asperger, since _I thought_ the root of my condition is "not caring" about social interaction. Well, few years later, at 21, I learned its not the case: yes I do care about making friends, I just don't know how to make them, so Asperger diagnosis fits me better. As of now I am 37, and yes I think Asperger is the correct diagnosis. By the way, I doubt anyone on this forum is Schizoid: if you were Schizoid you would be perfectly content with not having friends and, therefore, you wouldn't be here.


I don't think that people com here to look for friends. I personally just wanted to know more about what SA is and just look how people deal with it. Making friends... can't say it was my goal, when registering here. And it is also possible that some people just didn't know they were not interesting in making friends until they tried to do it here. Like, you can't know if Cola is bad for you, until you try it.


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## dj51234 (Dec 31, 2011)

I've been diagnosed but it has a lot of misconceptions. I'm not like outwardly eccentric or anything. Everything is much more internal, which they say is because of the combination of other disorders I have lol


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## criesofsilence (Jan 1, 2017)

> A schizoid man I know described walking through a hall with several
> classmates on the way to a seminar with a teacher he suspected of having a similar psychology.
> On the way to the instructor's office, they passed a photo of Coney Island on a hot day, a beach
> scene with people crowded together so tightly that the sand was hardly visible. The teacher
> ...


This is the sort of connection I've been wanting to find in someone. I think it's not that I don't want human connection, it's that I want the deepest kind of connection, nothing else will do. If someone doesn't understand then it takes too much effort in futility to try to explain.


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## I Beethoven (Mar 11, 2017)

I am not Schizoid because I get lonely but I think its similar to social anxiety it sounds horrible we all are suffering and the thing we all have in common is our voices are ignored (oh just get over it) I wish that was the case my social anxiety is so bad I cant even post on a forum without doubting myself... I read some of the symptoms of schizoid and I am sorry you are going through that


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

criesofsilence said:


> This is the sort of connection I've been wanting to find in someone. I think it's not that I don't want human connection, it's that I want the deepest kind of connection, nothing else will do. If someone doesn't understand then it takes too much effort in futility to try to explain.


What you said is very relateable.



I Beethoven said:


> I am not Schizoid because I get lonely but I think its similar to social anxiety it sounds horrible we all are suffering and the thing we all have in common is our voices are ignored (oh just get over it) I wish that was the case my social anxiety is so bad I cant even post on a forum without doubting myself... I read some of the symptoms of schizoid and I am sorry you are going through that


Schizoids get lonely too. I read it either in the article I linked or in Nancy Macwilliams' book I was talking about. I don't remember what was written exactly, but the point is we're not the stones. Everyone has that side in them. Schizoids are not an exception. We're human breed  It can look like we are from the outside though and some schizoid attributes (but not all of them) can be interpreted in this way (i.e. being like a stone).

Thank you for your compassion!

I used to feel like this too, but I don't care now. Even with my English etc. This is probably due to my SPD again. I'm used to people constantly hating me and ignoring me from like middle school if not earlier. But still, SA is extreme in my case too. It just takes different forms, I guess...

You shouldn't feel this way. People post here and I'm sure you can find tons of posts you can strongly relate to. That can be very helpful with posting and in general.


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## I Beethoven (Mar 11, 2017)

SorryForMyEnglish said:


> What you said is very relateable.
> 
> Schizoids get lonely too. I read it either in the article I linked or in Nancy Macwilliams' book I was talking about. I don't remember what was written exactly, but the point is we're not the stones. Everyone has that side in them. Schizoids are not an exception. We're human breed  It can look like we are from the outside though and some schizoid attributes (but not all of them) can be interpreted in this way (i.e. being like a stone).
> 
> ...


Thanks for the reply,I am just thinking of forcing myself to apply for a job and just go no matter how scared because im not getting any younger. or maybe thats a bad idea who knows i hope you have a bright future.


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

SorryForMyEnglish said:


> This is so true! Nancy McWilliams mentiones it in her article as well as in the chapter of her book. *She says everyone seeks for attachment, but it's peolple's defense mechanisms that differ*.
> 
> She says more maintream psychology has bias towards schizoids, because most people who created it weren't schizoid themselves and they only saw what was on the surface, so they concluded that schizoid people weren't interested in interpersonal relationships at all, while it's only the mechanisms they use in order to cope.
> 
> Other personalities have other mechanisms prevailed... She mentiones different types of defense mechanisms in her book. Withdrawal is not something most people can relate to though


That's interesting, I don't think I ever saw it that way, especially in the context of defense mechanisms.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

SwtSurrender said:


> That's interesting, I don't think I ever saw it that way, especially in the context of defense mechanisms.


Yeah, what I was reffering to was psychoanalytic understanding of it. It kinda digs deeper compared to today's general psychology which simply applies the symptoms and works on reducing them without focusing on the reasons rooted in our unconscious. But actually all those things like schizoid, narcisism, obsessive-compulsive etc come from psychoanalysis.


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

SorryForMyEnglish said:


> Has anyone watched a film called ''Persona'' by Ingmar Bergman? If not then I really recommend you to watch it. I'm pretty sure you can find it online.
> 
> I'm not saying the main character has schizoid personality or even just SPD. At the end of the day, it's just a film and it's just about certain narrative. We don't know much about character's past. She could've been pretty normal before, although I've never seen normal people (average, the majority) coming to such realization irl. At least not before their senior/pre-senior years. But her crisis is definitely of schizoid nature.
> 
> ...


Just saw it, I didn't understand it though but I do understand it now that I've read your description here. It's amazing - the whole metaphor of it all, wow!


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

SwtSurrender said:


> Just saw it, I didn't understand it though but I do understand it now that I've read your description here. It's amazing - the whole metaphor of it all, wow!


It's just that I read an awesome review before watching it and it was the review itself that made me watch it in the first place. To sum up, it's about loneliness that all of us are born into. From the very first scene of the movie to the last one. The reviewer also mentioned that the word ''persona'' means ''mask'' that actors used in plays to play a character. I wish I could link the review cause it's so well-written, but it's in Russian


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

SorryForMyEnglish said:


> It's just that I read an awesome review before watching it and it was the review itself that made me watch it in the first place. To sum up, it's about loneliness that all of us are born into. From the very first scene of the movie to the last one. The reviewer also mentioned that the word ''persona'' means ''mask'' that actors used in plays to play a character. I wish I could link the review cause it's so well-written, but it's in Russian


That's okay, but thank you for sharing this film, I keep watching it over and over again, it's so good - especially those sexy actresses. :laugh:


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

SwtSurrender said:


> That's okay, but thank you for sharing this film, I keep watching it over and over again, it's so good - especially those sexy actresses. :laugh:


Glad you like it! Although does it have English subtitles? Because the link you posted is without subtitles. I watched it in Russian on the internet so I thought it was available in English as well, but seems like it's not


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

Dang, I think I may have Schizotypal personality disorder! I read about it and there's similar things that I do too or think about. Hardcore! I think all of these personality disorders are just defense mechanisms we have to protect our psyche.


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

SorryForMyEnglish said:


> Glad you like it! Although does it have English subtitles? Because the link you posted is without subtitles. I watched it in Russian on the internet so I thought it was available in English as well, but seems like it's not


Yeah, this one does have English subtitles if you look for it on the video; settings and subtitles and then auto-translate and click on English. Click the CC as well.


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

SwtSurrender said:


> Dang, I think I may have Schizotypal personality disorder! I read about it and there's similar things that I do too or think about. Hardcore! I think all of these personality disorders are just defense mechanisms we have to protect our psyche.


Lol nevermind, I don't have lack of emotion! I HAVE emotions!


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

SwtSurrender said:


> Dang, I think I may have Schizotypal personality disorder! I read about it and there's similar things that I do too or think about. Hardcore! I think all of these personality disorders are just defense mechanisms we have to protect our psyche.


Dang! It does sound hardcore! But so does Schizoid PD, on the other hand. I was confused when I looked at it at the first time some time ago. I was unsure if I had STPD or SPD because a couple of STPD symptoms listed in Wiki could be applied to me as well, but then I read that chapter about schizoidness and everything came into place.

Despite it's level of hardcore, I find that kinda cool because it's different and rare and it's good that people are different and there's variety. It really shows how unique each person's individual experience is and how general imperfections of this world and other people make us imperfect. We should still take care of our mental health though and change what we can change. It's only possible with a therapist.

Yes, it's all about defense mechanisms we use, of course! All of these pathologies.


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## ljubo (Jul 26, 2015)

I think i read somewhere that 40 % in Russia is Schizoid.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

SwtSurrender said:


> Lol nevermind, I don't have lack of emotion! I HAVE emotions!


Oh. Yeah, it's often quite tricky to apply those diagnosises to yourself


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

SorryForMyEnglish said:


> Dang! It does sound hardcore! But so does Schizoid PD, on the other hand. I was confused when I looked at it at the first time some time ago. I was unsure if I had STPD or SPD because a couple of STPD symptoms listed in Wiki could be applied to me as well, but then I read that chapter about schizoidness and everything came into place.
> 
> Despite it's level of hardcore, I find that kinda cool because it's different and rare and it's good that people are different and there's variety. It really shows how unique each person's individual experience is and how general imperfections of this world and other people make us imperfect. We should still take care of our mental health though and change what we can change. It's only possible with a therapist.
> 
> Yes, it's all about defense mechanisms we use, of course! All of these pathologies.


Haha yeah good point, yeah same I see many symptoms apply to me as well. It's so cool.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

SwtSurrender said:


> Haha yeah good point, yeah same I see many symptoms apply to me as well. It's so cool.


Not that cool though cause it creates a lot of problems for us :wink2::smile2:


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

Does anyone have huge concentration issues due to SPD or possible SPD? It does affect our concentration abilities in a serious way. Also low energy and various kinds of addictions (like internet addiction)? Any tips for overcoming that or working towards overcoming those things so that would get better at least?


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## ScorchedEarth (Jul 12, 2014)

I'm not diagnosed but I fit most of the criteria. I was on a schizoid forum before this. A lot less drama there, just a lot of jaded no-BS individuals.


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## Glycerin (Jun 26, 2016)

ScorchedEarth said:


> I'm not diagnosed but I fit most of the criteria. I was on a schizoid forum before this. A lot less drama there, just a lot of jaded no-BS individuals.


I've looked at a schizoid forum a few months ago but I wouldn't join (or lurk around) because the members are mostly males.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

I don't know if we're talking about the same forum, but I looked at some SPD-related forum too as I got there by my google searches. It was not only about SPD, but also about a few other personality disorders, but it had SPD section in it. Yeah, I also saw only male members so I didn't register or read everything on there, because obviously I can relate to them far less.

That forum is where I got the idea of SPD being linkied to counter-productivity and concentration issues though. I'm not speaking for everyone with SPD or make generalizations though, because obviously it also depends on individual factors and everything is on the scale, including the level of your detachment, schizoidness and things you're detaching from etc But it makes a lot of sense to me, thinking that you have to put enough energy into tasks, fully focus on those things (that are objective material reality, something in the ''outer world'') instead of partly being in your thoughts and ''within'' your inner self and your subjectivity. I was never able to do that. 

It started in my childhood and was never fixed and now I'm a fully grown adult so it's harder to fix it now. It was addressed by some people back then. They were telling me that I do everything too slowly or too offhandedly etc But I percieved it as my innate essential qualities rather than something that's needed to work on. Those adults were presenting it like that too. Now that I got to know a lot about why I do that and what I'm doing specifically, I have more understanding and I want to get rid of it so bad. It's inevitable for me to function. Actually now it gets better once I focus a lot and control myself, focusing on what exactly happens and being conscious about how this psychological mechanism works but it's not enough, of course. I still can accidentally jump into my thoughs or daydream or etc. And I feel like it's still far from making me functionable enough. I'm still not concentrating enough, even though I'm concerntating more. I know, it takes a lot of time and practice so that brain neuron paths could be rewired and wired in a new way and you'd be doing it better and better. But something tells me it's not that simple either.

I'm not saying that concentration issues can only happen due to schizoidness, because there can be various reasons for each individual. It can be anxiety or something else. But when it comes to SPD, it has specific reasons and pattern for that as I tried to describe above. For each cause there are different reasons and patterns in how exactly that happens.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

I wonder if people who associate themselves with SPD or just Schizoid personality on the scale also experience what is called Selective Mutism or something that's like that if I misunderstood it. Because it could make sense if you think of it in terms of withdrawal. Here's a video I found and I can relate to it a lot. I also have been doing it since childhood but I couldn't recognise it, It's only now when I know how that's happening and why.


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## PurplePeopleEater (May 10, 2017)

If you hear voices and get paranoid a lot, you might have it. Most people don't show signs/symptoms until they're in their 20s unfortunately. :/ If you have jumbled thoughts that don't really make sense, you might have it. But I'm not saying you do. I used to think I was Schizophrenic for awhile because I started getting paranoid, thinking people were out to get me but never had voices telling me to do harmful things. Being brought up with an alcoholic father sure didn't help. I couldn't say anything to him really or be myself around him or anybody. I'm like that with everybody, probably because of the situation I was in with my dad. I guess that caused me not to be myself around people. I have voices telling me I can't do things I want around people because I think people will get mad at me Could have something to do with my dad or Social Anxiety, though. I dont know but I'm thinking about getting put on meds again.

Don't take what I said seriously. The brain is the most complex thing.


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## scarpia (Nov 23, 2009)

PurplePeopleEater said:


> If you hear voices and get paranoid a lot, you might have it. Most people don't show signs/symptoms until they're in their 20s unfortunately. :/ If you have jumbled thoughts that don't really make sense, you might have it. But I'm not saying you do. I used to think I was Schizophrenic for awhile because I started getting paranoid, thinking people were out to get me but never had voices telling me to do harmful things. Being brought up with an alcoholic father sure didn't help. I couldn't say anything to him really or be myself around him or anybody. I'm like that with everybody, probably because of the situation I was in with my dad. I guess that caused me not to be myself around people. I have voices telling me I can't do things I want around people because I think people will get mad at me Could have something to do with my dad or Social Anxiety, though. I dont know but I'm thinking about getting put on meds again.
> 
> Don't take what I said seriously. The brain is the most complex thing.


You're confusing schizoid PD with schizophrenia. They are not the same.

wiki:


> *Schizoid personality disorder* (*SPD*) is a personality disorder characterized by a lack of interest in social relationships, a tendency towards a solitary or sheltered lifestyle, secretiveness, emotional coldness, and apathy. Affected individuals may be unable to form intimate attachments to others and simultaneously demonstrate a rich, elaborate and exclusively internal fantasy world.
> SPD is not the same as schizophrenia or schizotypal personality disorder. But there is some evidence of links and shared genetic risk between SPD, other cluster A personality disorders and schizophrenia. Thus, SPD is thought to be a "schizophrenia spectrum disorder".


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

@scarpia True. Although the ''lack of interest'' part of this Wiki definition and DSM is tricky. Because superficially you can say that but internally schizoid people seek for attachment just like any other human being.


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## Rains (Jan 20, 2016)

I remember finding it in the DSM when I was a teenager and I related a lot. I don't have the strongest social drive and I found socialising not only overwhelming and exhausting but _boring_... I really would rather do my own thing, alone, most of the time (and I'm still that way). As a teenager, though, everyone I knew seemed to enjoy constantly going out, and constantly going to parties. The contrast made me feel freakish. Since coming across other socially anxious types though, I don't think having a sluggish social drive is that uncommon. As for other stuff, I'm not indifferent to praise and criticism (quite sensitive to that actually). And I can get attached to people and worry about them, but I'm not sure how close I get. I'm quite private and secretive and I don't really feel like anyone ever knows me. Overall though, I doubt I'm a true schizoid.


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## Typhoid Mary (Apr 28, 2017)

Rains said:


> As for other stuff, I'm not indifferent to praise and criticism (quite sensitive to that actually).


I'm quite the same. I've never been diagnosed, but I feel strongly I have SPD. The one thing I always questioned is the indifference to praise and criticism. I don't like attention, even good attention, so praise leaves me feeling very awkward and uncomfortable. Yet other times someone will praise me to my face and I'll just smile kindly and force out a thank you, because it all feels so whatever.

I also have strong rejection sensitivity, so some criticism decimates me. I will plummet into deep depression and self-loathing. On the other hand, a lot of other kinds criticism just makes me shrug and write that person off as a dick.

Perhaps there's more behind what you're sensitive to when receiving praise and criticism.

People with SPD can form attachments and care about people. It's being around them that's difficult. I love and care about my dad, if I can avoid seeing him ever again it's a win. Even talking on the phone is trying. I know that sounds ****ty, but I just don't feel that pull. It's not there. Empty.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

Typhoid Mary said:


> I'm quite the same. I've never been diagnosed, but I feel strongly I have SPD. The one thing I always questioned is the indifference to praise and criticism. I don't like attention, even good attention, so praise leaves me feeling very awkward and uncomfortable. Yet other times someone will praise me to my face and I'll just smile kindly and force out a thank you, because it all feels so whatever.
> 
> I also have strong rejection sensitivity, so some criticism decimates me. I will plummet into deep depression and self-loathing. On the other hand, a lot of other kinds criticism just makes me shrug and write that person off as a dick.
> 
> ...


 I have a strong feeling that by criticism they meant criticism of not following some social norms. I've read in that article or chapter that since pathologically schizoid people distance themselves from groups of people a lot, both, internally and actually it leads to them being more independent than others in their judgements, thoughts and etc. I don't think they meant any kind of criticism. That would be absurd.

I can relate to what you wrote about attachments. I think it can also depend on other factors like depression.


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

Do you know the book The Divided Self by R.D. Laing? It's amazing, the closest thing I can come to feeling like they're talking about me. I feel scared because I don't want to believe in it, I want to rather believe I can get out of this hole and live out there.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

SwtSurrender said:


> Do you know the book The Divided Self by R.D. Laing? It's amazing, the closest thing I can come to feeling like they're talking about me. I feel scared because I don't want to believe in it, I want to rather believe I can get out of this hole and live out there.


I only read a few fragments of it because they were posted on a sort of blog with psychoanalytical texts that I read sometimes. I definitely want to read the whole book. I recognized what I read about schizoid character there in me. This ''compliant false self'' is what I'm really struggling with at the moment, for example.

Aw no, sorry you feel so depressed about it  I feel the same way. I believe it's possible to change though therapy though. I know, it only sounds so easy with words


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

Persephone The Dread said:


> I have some traits in common and can relate a bit to people I've come across online diagnosed with the condition, but I don't believe I have that condition. It's probably the same reason I've had people in real life in the past ask if I have aspergers though, and perhaps why some people accuse me of being a sociopath online (although usually they're overly emotional by normal standards,) because I notice people often confuse symptoms of those two conditions (aspergers and SPD) as well. But I don't have aspergers either.


I actually think you do have it because I came across many of your posts and they remind me of myself when it comes to schizoidness and things I've read about schizoid personality. Not that I relate to you a lot because people are different, but after reading about schizoid character and knowing the fundamentals of what consitutes it I can find deep common things that don't look like common on the surface at all.

I'm talking about character in psychoanalitic/psychodynamic school of psychology sense. Like many things, it's on the spectrum so someone may not have SPD and actually be able to function well and even have healthy relationships with people. To be fair, I only got to know a woman like that once.

Also many people would rather not be aware of it regardless of how schizoid they are, even if they're deeply schizoid and it impares their ability to function. So if it doesn't bother you then you can forget about it. Definitely worth getting to know about it more though.

Sorry for rereplying to your post after 2 years. Not weird at all.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

People who feel like you strongly relate to this you can check this book: https://www.amazon.com/Schizoid-Phe...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=4NEYT0BKR66P2NDY69RZ

Lots of people on this site are definitely schizoid.

I'm on the extreme side of the spectrum, my parents were on the extreme side of the spectrum and the dude I firstly happened to ''date'' but not really despite what I believed cause he's a schizoid was on the extreme side of the spectrum. It's absolutely ****ed up both them and the impact they have on you through close relationships, especially when you didn't know any better before. I also hate myself because I'm such a schizoid and I'm ****ed up. But at least I'm self-aware, not defended about it and I want to change it and get better one way or another. I don't want to hurt people and only do as I please in relationship.


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## unemployment simulator (Oct 18, 2015)

I was going to start a thread on asking if anyone else has fantasies about living alone miles from civilisation and have these feelings of wanting to escape from a life surrounded by other people?lol 

I dunno is this is a spd thing? I have never really seen people mention such feelings on here, most people want to form social bonds but have issues doing so. I do relate a bit to spd, I lack some ability to assess the impact of my own actions in social situations. I have issues with people violating my personal space. I go through periods of just feeling massively apathetic about meeting new people, I am not anti social in the sense that I will speak when spoken to, but I never really reach out much. part of me would like to (which I will mention) and part of me just seems to lose interest.

I don't have problems making friends, I have problems maintaining them. I also don't like to be around people that much. the phrase familiarity breeds contempt is kind of relatable but I mean this is a generalised way with life, familiar places as well as people I avoid the routine of. I avoid building or forming strong bonds because I know something will inevitably ****up and make me feel emotionally down, its like a car with no brakes the only way you can avoid the crash is to not get into it in the first place, it might be quite thrilling flying down the hill at full speed but its going to end abruptly and tragically. I do actually have a desire deep down to have something of real significance and I feel sad about the prospect I will not experience friendships or relationships the way most other people do, I can see the potential and it makes me long for something I will never have.

iow I don't think I have read a description of a condition like this I can FULLY relate to, parts of it seem true, but other parts not so much. I am defo not autistic either, I seem to demonstrate traits which are polar opposite. I think I relate a lot to schitzotypal but not entirely with that either. I definitely have strong cluster A traits.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

@unemployment simulator what you described sounds like schizoidness. And yeah, they have such fantasies or they live in a fantasy word and have connections with people there as a substitute to real ones which other people don't do. One type of fantasy doesn't exclude another because they deal with dilema of distance vs closeness all the time.


> I do actually have a desire deep down to have something of real significance and I feel sad about the prospect I will not experience friendships or relationships the way most other people do, I can see the potential and it makes me long for something I will never have.


This is how schizoid people feel. It's a fundamental thing for people to form relationships with others and schizoids are not immune to that even though such longing retreves into their unconsciousness. The DSM doesn't cover it nearly as deeply and accurately as descriptions by psychoanalitics like Harry Guntrip and Nancy Mcwilliams.


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

unemployment simulator said:


> I was going to start a thread on asking if anyone else has fantasies about living alone miles from civilisation and have these feelings of wanting to escape from a life surrounded by other people?lol
> 
> I dunno is this is a spd thing? I have never really seen people mention such feelings on here, most people want to form social bonds but have issues doing so. I do relate a bit to spd, I lack some ability to assess the impact of my own actions in social situations. I have issues with people violating my personal space. I go through periods of just feeling massively apathetic about meeting new people, I am not anti social in the sense that I will speak when spoken to, but I never really reach out much. part of me would like to (which I will mention) and part of me just seems to lose interest.


 I don't know. Honestly, that doesn't sound like much of a disorder to me the way the world is. I think it's fairly normal to WANT to form bonds until you do it and you see what it's really like and you realize you don't really enjoy marinating in the unpleasantness of other people 24/7/365.

I think it's mainly the whole point of vacations. The reason people take vacations is being around too many people for too long without a break gets very tiring. Most people spend their entire lives hoping that someday they'll be able to finally get away from all the people they are forced to deal with on a daily basis. We call it retirement but really it's more like "OK. Put up with this crap all your life and have 10-20 years of peace and quiet as your reward.

Why do people put up fences? You notice they don't put up signs in their yard that say "Come on in! We want to meet new people!" Nope. People get a little money and the first thing they do is build a big ole fence to block out the obnoxious neighbors.

Of course if you want to move out in the middle of nowhere that's a bit extreme (or so it's said to be) but these days if you have internet, you don't really have to be alone even if you don't have someone right up your butt.

I mean, hell. It's not like we need to get a group of 500 people working together to grow our own crops anymore.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

WillYouStopDave said:


> Of course if you want to move out in the middle of nowhere that's a bit extreme (or so it's said to be) but these days if you have internet, you don't really have to be alone even if you don't have someone right up your butt.


You are alone and lonely if you're just communicating through the internet and you don't have any real life relationships, especially close ones.

What he said sounds like schizoid to me. Even his picture expresses the wish to be away from everybody.

You can rationalize it however you want but that's what people were designed for. I mean if you want to proceed living this way your whole life or untill some major psychological crisis in your life then you can forget about it and about the fact that your whole existence was corrupt by your early childhood and later experiences and that your needs in close relationships were repressed although they're still there and they let you know about them from time to time.


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

SorryForMyEnglish said:


> You are alone and lonely if you're just communicating through the internet and you don't have any real life relationships, especially close ones.


 So, would you say that if you talked to someone you know on the phone you didn't really talk to them because you weren't actually there?

Then what is the point? Why do we bother with phones and stuff if the connectedness they offer is a delusion?


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

WillYouStopDave said:


> So, would you say that if you talked to someone you know on the phone you didn't really talk to them because you weren't actually there?
> 
> Then what is the point? Why do we bother with phones and stuff if the connectedness they offer is a delusion?


I'm talking about relationships, not communication. These are different things.


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

SorryForMyEnglish said:


> I'm talking about relationships, not communication. These are different things.


So if you talk in the phone with your mother or your father, it doesn't mean anything? That's different from sitting in the opposite side of a table from them and doing the same damn thing?

You know. Before we get into this drawn out nonsense, I think you should probably just get diagnosed because you're the one who has a problem with how you are. You're trying to convince me that you can't stand being the way you are. Whatever. If you don't like it, go to a shrink or something.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

WillYouStopDave said:


> So if you talk in the phone with your mother or your father, it doesn't mean anything? That's different from sitting in the opposite side of a table from them and doing the same damn thing?


Well if you only want to have relationships with your mother and father then kudos to you :grin2:


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

SorryForMyEnglish said:


> Well if you only want to have relationships with your mother and father then kudos to you :grin2:


 The point is that modern life makes it possible to live in whatever way best suits you. You don't necessarily have to be right on top of people all the time if it doesn't work well for you. As long as you can make a living or have some kind of financial path forward, you don't absolutely have to do this stuff just because it is what everyone else seems to do. It's only if it bothers you that I'd really worry about it.

Since it obviously bothers you, why not talk to someone who knows what the hell they're doing instead of just asking a bunch of random people on the internet?

I wasn't talking to you anyway. I was talking to the other guy. I didn't quote you or even mention you.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

WillYouStopDave said:


> The point is that modern life makes it possible to live in whatever way best suits you. You don't necessarily have to be right on top of people all the time if it doesn't work well for you. As long as you can make a living or have some kind of financial path forward, you don't absolutely have to do this stuff just because it is what everyone else seems to do. It's only if it bothers you that I'd really worry about it.


It's not the point because untimately people need close long-term relationships and if they aren't able to form and hold ones then it's a serious disadvantage and those problems usually come from childhood. Although general alienation of people in modern society also plays the role in it, of course. The whole thread is about schizoid personality and it's a central problem for people who have it. They never want to be with anybody or if they are with someone then they're unable to be in relationship.



> Since it obviously bothers you, why not talk to someone who knows what the hell they're doing instead of just asking a bunch of random people on the internet?
> 
> I wasn't talking to you anyway. I was talking to the other guy. I didn't quote you or even mention you.


Wow you're so touchy. It bothers me because that's what this thread is about and I'm trying to share my knowledge about schizoid personality and what I've read. You personally don't bother me. So stop taking things personally.

People answer other people's posts even if they're not mentioned or quoted all the time. That's how this forum functions unless you block people. I read this thread every time a new reply is here.


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## unemployment simulator (Oct 18, 2015)

SorryForMyEnglish said:


> @unemployment simulator what you described sounds like schizoidness. And yeah, they have such fantasies or they live in a fantasy word and have connections with people there as a substitute to real ones which other people don't do. One type of fantasy doesn't exclude another because they deal with dilema of distance vs closeness all the time.
> 
> This is how schizoid people feel. It's a fundamental thing for people to form relationships with others and schizoids are not immune to that even though such longing retreves into their unconsciousness. The DSM doesn't cover it nearly as deeply and accurately as descriptions by psychoanalitics like Harry Guntrip and Nancy Mcwilliams.


I think like a lot of these things with mental health people are on scales, somewhere along a line of each type of issue. I probably closer to schizoid than the average person I have some cluster A traits that are prominent in my personality paranoia for example, there have been times when I was just paranoid but I have been proved right about it some times which is the reason I have never really resolved that issue. yea the reason I never get bored of my own company is because I have a pretty awesome imagination and tend to drift off into it when I feel like it heh. I am also ever curious about things so there is always a subject for me to become obsessed over lol. I will read up on this ,its interesting you pointed out the distinction between the dsm and what other people are saying. looks like I need to do more research!



WillYouStopDave said:


> I don't know. Honestly, that doesn't sound like much of a disorder to me the way the world is. I think it's fairly normal to WANT to form bonds until you do it and you see what it's really like and you realize you don't really enjoy marinating in the unpleasantness of other people 24/7/365.
> 
> I think it's mainly the whole point of vacations. The reason people take vacations is being around too many people for too long without a break gets very tiring. Most people spend their entire lives hoping that someday they'll be able to finally get away from all the people they are forced to deal with on a daily basis. We call it retirement but really it's more like "OK. Put up with this crap all your life and have 10-20 years of peace and quiet as your reward.
> 
> ...


I'm usually pretty cautious about throwing labels and diagnosis, and i'm pretty sure I am not 100% any type of mental health condition, I recognise some adhd traits, some avoidant traits and some cluster A traits in my personality, along with a smidgen of ocd. I think we are all mixtures and bits and bobs of various things. 

what you say about society is true but this is probably more modern or western society. in other countries community plays an important role, in the west especially in larger cities people don't pay any mind to their neighbours in a particularly friendly way. I will give an example, the road I live in is full of flats. I randomly bumped into one of the neighbours who lives a few doors up, I said hello and introduced myself, we parted ways. the next day I was walking to the local shops and notice him walking up the road, he looked up at me then just carried on walking. in some ways it didn't really bother me since I was being polite and I know its kind of pointless to be friendly with neighbours in a city, especially considering I am socially anxious.. a lot of these things seem like exercises in futility.. but I think more than anything to me at least it illustrates how people just prefer to stay in their own bubble inside a neighbourhood.

i'm not really gaining anything living like this, just having all the problems of people living around me (noise and harassment) with none of the benefits.

edit; also chill man.  i'm sure if I come to some sort of conclusion I will approach a professional, I am just putting stuff out there since it's rare I see discussions on this in my usual haunts. and its good to bounce ideas back and forth. its also kind of cathartic to talk about it.


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

SorryForMyEnglish said:


> I actually think you do have it because I came across many of your posts and they remind me of myself when it comes to schizoidness and things I've read about schizoid personality. Not that I relate to you a lot because people are different, but after reading about schizoid character and knowing the fundamentals of what consitutes it I can find deep common things that don't look like common on the surface at all.
> 
> I'm talking about character in psychoanalitic/psychodynamic school of psychology sense. Like many things, it's on the spectrum so someone may not have SPD and actually be able to function well and even have healthy relationships with people. To be fair, I only got to know a woman like that once.
> 
> ...


Yeah I've read about it a bit, I do relate to some stuff written quite a bit like the fantasy stuff, feeling like an alien/robot, weariness at times at lacking something Human that other's have, and even the sexuality bit ('voyeuristic asexual with perversions') Salman Akhtar mentioned in his profile of schizoid personalities (also read parts of the divided self a while back someone else mentioned here.)

But it is basically never diagnosed clinically and I don't fit everything.

A while ago I found this video of someone who is diagnosed. They are the sister of a popular YouTuber I'm subbed to (boyinaband.) But a lot of what they describe despite being relateable also overlaps with autism (like the restricted obsessive interests too,) so I sometimes wonder if more socially aware autistic females get lumped into schizoid despite the underdiagnoses generally, much like they do with BPD (if more volatile.)






the grandad thing especially. It's not that I don't cry though generally. I worry about how I should react at times like that. When my mum's dad passed away a while ago my mum and brother cried and I was like :blank my brother came in later to my room and was like 'I want to make sure you're not telling yourself you are a psychopath' lol but it's bad. I react to stupid stuff but not something more serious. I cried a bit at the funeral though so.

Besides that I am not as emotionally restricted I don't think. Fairly restricted but probably not enough? I don't know (not being in other's heads and all.)

I relate to autism stuff a bit too, but I don't think enough to be diagnosable.

There was also something else I related to but it was unqualified opinions from someone's blog.

Someone very knowlegable about this stuff did suggest randomly that I seemed schizoid though albeit an atypical example (because as he mentions research on this disorder is really sparse and poor,) but I dunno since I have AvPD traits too.


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## tehuti88 (Jun 19, 2005)

I could have sworn I'd read that the _DSM_ removed schizoid PD from its diagnoses, though according to Wikipedia at least it still seems to be there. :| What was it I was reading, then?


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## Icestorm (Mar 17, 2012)

tehuti88 said:


> I could have sworn I'd read that the _DSM_ removed schizoid PD from its diagnoses, though according to Wikipedia at least it still seems to be there. :| What was it I was reading, then?


I don't think it's ever been officially removed. A lot of people were arguing for it to be removed from DSM-5. Some wanted the disorder to be merged as sub-types of both Avoidant and Schizotypal if I recall correctly. Don't believe that ever happened though.


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## tehuti88 (Jun 19, 2005)

Icestorm said:


> I don't think it's ever been officially removed. A lot of people were arguing for it to be removed from DSM-5. Some wanted the disorder to be merged as sub-types of both Avoidant and Schizotypal if I recall correctly. Don't believe that ever happened though.


So weird. I was _positive_ I'd read about it being removed, because I remember thinking, that'll annoy a lot of people on the SAS forum. (I also remembered the subtypes of schizophrenia being removed...looks like that memory was accurate, at least.)

I hate my brain remembering things that never even happened. This is at least the second or third time that I know of. :|


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

tehuti88 said:


> I could have sworn I'd read that the _DSM_ removed schizoid PD from its diagnoses, though according to Wikipedia at least it still seems to be there. :| What was it I was reading, then?





Icestorm said:


> I don't think it's ever been officially removed. A lot of people were arguing for it to be removed from DSM-5. Some wanted the disorder to be merged as sub-types of both Avoidant and Schizotypal if I recall correctly. Don't believe that ever happened though.


Yeah this. The thing is AvPD, schizoid and schizotypal all used to be classified as one disorder with people fluctuating in symptoms over time and environmental context, but at some point they separated them, and there's been a lot of debate over whether that made sense and whether the separation was the correct choice. Some people also want to split schizoid into either AvPD or schizotypal but I think that will make it even more useless than either keeping them separate or combining all three.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/...01/the-disappearance-the-schizoid-personality


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## scarpia (Nov 23, 2009)

tehuti88 said:


> I could have sworn I'd read that the _DSM_ removed schizoid PD from its diagnoses, though according to Wikipedia at least it still seems to be there. :| What was it I was reading, then?





> Initially, there was a move to remove SPD from DSM-5, which was unsuccessful. (Triebwasser, Chemerinski, Roussos, & Siever, 2012)


https://www.theravive.com/therapedia/schizoid-personality-disorder-dsm--5-301.20-(f60.1)


> *The impact of deleting five personality disorders in the new DSM-5*
> 
> Date:January 24, 2012Source:LifespanSummary:Researchers report on the impact to patients if five personality disorders are removed from the upcoming DSM-5. Based on their study, the researchers believe these changes could result in false-negative diagnoses for patients.


https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120124113049.htm


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## Cletis (Oct 10, 2011)

A psychiatrist diagnosed me as Schizoid once. Who knows, he may have been right. :stu


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

Hey everyone!

Here's a book I'm still in the process of reading of (halfway through it). ''Schizoid Phenomena, Object Relations and the Self'' by Harry Guntrip. Link I've found: https://www.amazon.com/dp/185575032...&pf_rd_p=b4bbef4e-170e-463d-8538-7eff3394b224 Maybe there are other options somewhere else, but I'm just reading it in my native language so I can't say for sure.

What can I say? It really helps to understand what's going on with us. I would say it's vital.

I'm gonna insert it in my OP of this thread too.

Don't trust negative reviews because 1) what ''he repeats over and over and over and over and over and over and over... again'' is extremely important. Should every thought in a book be only mentioned once? This would be absurd. Plus it's not even his book. It's a series of his articles on schizoid personality/schizoid problems. There's even an apology that some things might repeat throughout the book in the introduction. It does help me, however, to memorize those parts as they're so important. Not that knowing it is healing on its own because what is really supposed to be healing is the relationship with a good therapist as I've heard, but it can definitely help in some smaller way.
2) The ''jargon'' thing... There's not a lot of ''jargon'', nothing you can't google and find an answer to in a few minutes. Imagine reading books in your second language. You'd always have to look for the words you don't know and for meanings of the words in certain context to translate it better. Actually not only foreign books, but books in general. It's inevitable for the process of learning. I always do that with both, books in my native language and texts in English. Moreover, there are only a few words and concepts you don't know and most of them are 100% explained in a simple way. It only requires a very basic understanding of some psychoanalytical terms and you get that understanding while reading the book. Seems like the reviewer was mentally too lazy and not motivated to read it at all. And it says me, the person who has problems with focusing and understanding. I don't even know what the hell the ''schizm'' this reviewer was talking about is.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

I was just reflecting back on my relationship with my schizoidness right now.

When I didn't know about it and why I turned out to be this way and when I used to think it was a part of me I was born with I would identify with it most of the time. I would just label it extreme introversion. I would idealize people who had totally isolated life styles and who lived in the forests or went somewhere and sat there with a library of books and lived for themselves, without any human contact (I mean partly it was a fantasy because it's actually impossible not to contact with anybody) and I would want to have this kind of lifestyle and I'd think that's what I was destined for.

When I was trying to be religious in my teens I wanted to become a monk living in a monastery or even somewhere more isolated. I thought it was also more than coincidence that a saint I was named after (in church) refused to get married despite her parents' wish. She ran away and while she was alone''God told her'' to wear male clothing and to ''subject her body to bites of the insects''. She did it and then after living alone she joined male monastery (apparently because they didn't have female monasteries back then) and they thought she was a man. And that's how she was living her life and only after her death they found out she was female.

So I had many similar thoughts and fantasies, but as I found out about schizoidness/SPD and that it was something that was actually caused by family environment I stopped identifying with it. It didn't go anywhere, of course, but I just started to think about my authentic self, what I was supposed to be. And btw this is what Harry Guntrip writes about in his book calling it ''true/real self'', this baby with a potential for healthy emotional and personal development, not spoiled by its parents yet. (Although to be fair traumatic process for schizoids begins from 0 to 4 months old and sometimes even in a womb. I'm pretty sure I could be ''spoiled'' in the womb given the environment and emotional state of my mother when she was pregnant wtih me. But the point is the same).

Both of my parents were deeply schizoid people, the ''relationship'' I had some time before finding out about SPD was with a deeply schizoid person. I reflected on them all which was and still sometimes is very painful and I realized it was too twisted and traumatizing for me. These people and these ''relationships'' are literally vomit-inducing (I actually have this strange psychosomatic thing having to do with my gut. TMI. Sorrynotsorry). (As for vomit-inducing people, I think of my mother especially because she had so much influence over me due to being my only parent. And I found I have a legion of ugly traits that she has but they're not me because I never knew anything else. They're not really her either tbf but it's her own business. But she didn't want me to be myself, she wanted me to be a little copy of herself she could project her inner child onto or something. And also I felt like she wanted me to grow up into a copy of her. Ugh. At the same time when I'd do something that wasn't like her she would project my father's negative traits onto me and constantly compare me to my father. Now back to what I was talking about) I'm not even sure if I'm supposed to call it relationships because if it's relationships then they're highly perverse and anti-relationship. But sadly that's all I ever knew and I was fooled by these people to believe that they were relationships. I started to want real, healhy(-er) relationships with people. I hated some form of narcissism (being entirely self-absorbed) that came with it while most of others had empathetic connections with other people. I hated the fact that I felt little to no emotions most of the time except for those intense ones that came with retraumatization (but that also made me feel alive, for the first time in so many years if not for the first time in my life). I started to want to reconnect with my emotions and become my true self one day. Because it's not me, it's something that happened to me and I had no control over it. I mean, sure, it's impossible to get rid of all the schizoid traits entirely and it is a part of my _personality_ and it will stay this way to an extent, even after possible healing. But I don't want it to define me.


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## savavdpeas (Sep 15, 2017)

I have schizophrenia. It started out as social anxiety. I think the extreme stress that I went through, and a lot of other things, triggered me to spiral into psychosis. Either that or the psychiatrists I've seen are wrong.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

savavdpeas said:


> I have schizophrenia. It started out as social anxiety. I think the extreme stress that I went through, and a lot of other things, triggered me to spiral into psychosis. Either that or the psychiatrists I've seen are wrong.


I'm so sorry you're currently going through it! I've never gone through it, but I know this youtuber filmed a documentary about people who were healng from it without medication. In case you might find it helpful I'll leave this link: 




But as far as diagnosises go, Schizophrenia and Schizoid Personality Disorder are unrelated. But that doesn't mean that a person with a schizoid personality can't have schizophrenia. Of course, they can go together.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

Does anyone know any ''schizoid'' songs?
I know a couple:









The second one is not obvious because a person (including the schizoid person) is usually only familiar with these distinctive *surface* traits of schizoid personality. But if you read this book I mentioned earlier ''Schizoid Phenomena, Object Relations and the Self'' by Harry Guntrip then you'll find out about it. This song is about ''regression back to the womb'' of schizoid libidal (true) self  Made me cry for one reason or another long before I found out anythng about schizoidness and that I have such personality.

And I also heard from my therapist that schizoid people often fantasize about space or underwater. I was more into ''underwater'' stuff. Although I wanted to become a spacewoman as a child. Howard Lovecraft's stories are pretty much about both because the ancient aliens that arrived from space millions of years ago live either underwater or at deserted places such as Antarctica

Btw schizoid problems are actually something apparently most or all people have to an extent according to Harry Guntrip. They're the deepest problems that occured during the earliest periods of our lifes. I'm still to figure it all out, to be honest, so maybe I'm wrong and I misinterpreted somethng lol Anyway, he said that each one of us sometimes has at least a little bit of fear of losing one's personality in close relaitonship and the existentional fear. And probably every person has their ego split off (libidal, anti-libidal egos) But a person has a schizoid personality when their main problem or trauma is a schizoid one and their main defense mechanisms are schizoid ones. People are usually schizoid if they were neglected or even just emotionally neglected at the period from 0 to 4 months and usually it continues to the rest of their childhood. Caregiver(s) can be both cold and intrusive at the same time. The deeper and more severe the ''schizoid'' trauma is, the more schizoid defense mechanisms are present and the stronger they are, the more the person is ''schizoid''.


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

I love this video 




I love this movie https://archive.org/details/Persona1966Pt.1VideoDailymotion


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

SwtSurrender said:


> I love this video
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So do I...  And thanks for sharing the video and the link! 
I love how Elizabeth represents the libidal ego (true, emotional self) and Alma represents persona (social self, personality or ''central'' ego).

This film feels very personal to me because my libidal ego is also silent and disinterested according to the therapist I go to, but at the same time my central ''anti-libidal'' ego tries to make herself be ''emotional'', act friendly, tries to participate in life etc. I think it's the same way as Alma in the film because of the things that people were requiring from me as a female (being warm, friendly, empathetic etc). I actually agree with the ethics so I'm trying to follow them, but underneath I often feel little to nothing. And when I feel something more intense it's dark.

Just like Nancy Mcwilliams said in the video you sent me, anti-libidal ago can be different. Not only ''do this, do that'', ''clean up your room'', ''go to the job you hate'' etc, but it can also be ''have fun. why aren't you having enough fun?'' as well as ''be emotional'', ''be social'', ''be this, be that'', ''like only conventional ''normal'' stuff'' etc, depending on socialization and parenting + circumstances of one's life.

I think I should think more of this film and these heroines to be more conscious of which part of me is which. But I don't know if it will help me personally that much because my therapist says my intellectualizing of things and speaking in psychoanalytical language is bad for therapy because it stops me from being spontaneous and that if I would rather sit silent than fill the gap of time by saying something would be better because it would be more genuine

Sorry I made this whole post about myself :/ (btw this is my ''persona'' is speaking right now) .


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

@SorryForMyEnglish
Wow I like what you have to say about the ''libidal ego'' and the ''persona.'' That is very interesting and I can understand more now about the movie and about myself, thank you. I would also think the same about other people, I would wonder if I could be more libidal than persona and if others are that way with me. And I think I can see it in therapists too when they become persona or when they just use their libidal ego on their patients/clients.


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## SorryForMyEnglish (Oct 9, 2014)

SwtSurrender said:


> @SorryForMyEnglish
> Wow I like what you have to say about the ''libidal ego'' and the ''persona.'' That is very interesting and I can understand more now about the movie and about myself, thank you. I would also think the same about other people, I would wonder if I could be more libidal than persona and if others are that way with me. And I think I can see it in therapists too when they become persona or when they just use their libidal ego on their patients/clients.


Yeah, same with therapists 

I noticed how when I started to open up to mine, it's only our two libidal egos (minus her contertransfering stuff and maybe something else) are talking to each other. That's because of her therapuetic technique.
I started to notice my anti-libidal tendencies more now. It shuts down my emotional/libidal ego completely. But whenever I have more connection to it, I identify with it and I feel pretty much like a different person for the most part. My emotions feel much more genuine as opposed to how I feel when I'm not connected to it. But that's only thanks to my therapist and the approach/technique she uses, what she sees in me that I can't see, what she encourages in me, mirroring of my emotions etc. Society, caregiver, relatives etc encouraged other things and made me the way I am before/without therapy. That's also why this forum is not so helpful... Because there's lots of people like that (like me too), plenty of self-hating ones who apply their philosophy to others (but that's because they think actually things are this way, and I'm not talking about pessimism and depression btw, it's more like repressiveness what I'm talking about).

Harry Guntrip said anti-libidal ego and false ego are not exactly the same things though. Anti-libidal ego ego is strictly anti-libidal while false one is more like a personality each one of us has with good and bad traits for survival. He says there's no point to render it completely useless because unfortunately we can't start from scratch and rewrite our whole personalities oh hiw I wish we could though) because it's impossible to recreate the process of developing in childhood, that environment in therapy fully


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## truant (Jul 4, 2014)

Um, yeah, don't know why I'm resurrecting this thread. I just happen to be reading the book SFME was reading and wanted some place to quote-dump. It's weird. Because the DSM5 description for schizoid doesn't really sound like me, I've always just kind of put off reading about it. But the kind of person Guntrip describes in his book (_Schizoid Phenomena, Object Relations and the Self_) sounds almost exactly like me. DSM5: Not schizoid. Guntrip: Schizoid. Whaddayagonnado?

Anyway, p 216:



> We meet the regressed ego most undisguisedly in tendencies to _schizoid suicide_, and, less extremely, in states of exhaustion, fatigue, and loss of energy. These phenomena emerge if one succeeds in getting the patient to lay off his fanatical anti-libidinal self-driving to activity; but they also repeatedly break through the manic compulsion to constant over-activity with its unrelieved tension, when a depressed or, more accurately, an apathetic state supervenes. One of the distressing states found in many patients is that of the 'bad relaxer' who longs to sleep, rest, and recuperate, and get back to work again, but whose body and mind just will not 'knock off', so that he lies tired out and physically restless and mentally active, being unable either to lie still or stop thinking. During the night he is as wide-awake as he would like to be by day, and in the day when he wants to be active he feels jaded and half dead. He is caught between the opposite fears of exhausting compulsive over-activity, and of giving up, breaking down, regressing.


Idk what the DSM5 would call this, but this is me.

Edit: Copying some stuff over from the other thread so it's all in one place...

Nancy McWilliams:



> Notwithstanding the existence of some connections between schizoid psychology and psychotic vulnerability, I have been impressed repeatedly with the phenomenon of the highly creative, personally satisfied, and socially valuable schizoid individual who seems, despite an intimate acquaintance with what Freud called the primary process, never to have been at serious risk for a psychotic break. The arts, the theoretical sciences, and the philosophical and spiritual disciplines seem to contain a high proportion of such people. So does the profession of psychoanalysis. Harold Davis (personal communication) reports that *Harry Guntrip once joked to him that "psychoanalysis is a profession by schizoids for schizoids."*


Funny, because I'm reading Guntrip's book and his description of the schizoid type sounds an awful lot like me at times. And I am very much a psychotherapy nerd.



> I've got six books all on the go together right now, and can't give myself properly to any one of them to finish it.' The bibliophilic Don Juan is likely to collect and possess books without reading them.


I have about 20 or so on the go right now. And I own well over 1,000 and haven't read half of them. But, in my defense, I do often finish reading them.

Edit: Is it possible to be a schizoid hysteric?



> Both schizoid and hysterical psychologies can be characterized as hypersensitive, as preoccupied with the danger of being overstimulated. Whereas the schizoid person fears being overwhelmed by external sources of stimulation, the hysterical individual feels endangered by drives, impulses, affects, and other internal states. Both types of personality have also been associated with trauma of the cumulative or strain variety. Both are almost certainly more right- than left-brained. Both schizoid men and hysterical women (at least those who regard themselves as heterosexual-my clinical experience is not vast enough for me to generalize about others) tend to see the opposite-sex parent as the locus of power in the family, and both feel too easily invaded psychologically by that parent. [For me, that would be my father.] Both suffer a consuming sense of hunger, which the schizoid person may try to tame and the hysterical person may sexualize. [I tend to sexualize. Or hypersexualize.] If I am right about these similarities, then some of the magic between schizoid and hysterical individuals is based on convergence rather than opposition. Arthur Robbins (personal communication) goes so far as to say that *inside every schizoid individual is a hysterical one, and vice versa*.


There it is. This explains why I keep going back and forth between feeling more schizoid or hysterical.



> most of what is therapeutically transformative to schizoid individuals involves the experience of elaborating the self in the presence of an accepting, nonintrusive, but still powerfully responsive other


Being seen as one really is, and being accepted as one really is, is, imo, the very foundation of mental health. You have to have that foundation if you want to build a healthy ego. Without it, you will always have some kind of sickness.

_Schizoid Phenomena, Object Relations and the Self_, p 178:



> *The real taboo is on weakness; the one crime is to be weak*; the thing to which none dare confess is feeling weak, however much the real weakness was brought into being when they were so young that they knew nothing of the import of what was happening to them. You cannot afford to be weak in a competitive world which you feel is mostly hostile to you, and if anyone is so unfortunate as to discover that his infancy has left him with too great a measure of arrested emotional development and a failure of ego-growth in the important early stages, then he soon learns to bend all his energies to hiding or mastering the infant within.


Slightly OT gender-related stuff:


* *





I think this throws light on many kinds of bigotry, especially misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and femmephobia. In our culture, "woman" is associated with "femininity" and "femininity" is associated with "weakness". So maybe sometimes it's not so much that people hate women as that they hate weakness and women merely symbolize weakness. Ofc, if one is a woman, one is much less likely to hate women. So, instead, it becomes a hatred not of women, but of femininity (cf. radfems).

This may also explain homophobia and transphobia and the way that "anyone who is not a cishet male is a woman (not a man)". What they're really hating is weakness. Male homosexuals and bisexuals, and trans women and amab nonbinaries, are associated with femininity, and femininity is a sign of weakness in males. And all afabs (lesbians, trans men, afab nbs) are associated with "women"/femaleness, which is femininity and weakness from the other direction. All of these people violate the taboo against weakness.


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

@truant

the dsm criteria for schizoid is pretty rubbish and seems to be based on external judgements (I also get the impression there isn't much in the way of treatment for it, and plus most schizoid people don't present for treatment.) Although I think older definitions of schizoid incorporated AvPD and schizotypal PD as well into the definition of schizoid then they separated them into three personality disorders in the 80s. Not sure every work on schizoid personalities is based on SPD either.

I can't remember if I read any of that book or not now, a while back I was reading a bunch of stuff about schizoid personalities and also read the schizoid part of The Divided Self and found a bunch of that relatable. Also some stuff some therapists were saying about the disorder on quora.

I also found the stuff written about sexuality on the wikipedia page interesting (and relatable because my own sexuality is weird and often dissociative.) People kept misquoting it to remove the homosexuality part from the source (because it's 'not a paraphilia like the other things mentioned') and I got into some editing war at some point over it. The entire section was removed, then it came back misquoted again I then brought it up on the talk page and just didn't go back to it for a really long time until now. It seems around November someone decided they agreed with me and then later that entire section was removed (again) since there's no section on sexuality on any other personality disorder wikipedia page but tbh I just wanted it to be quoted correctly... I guess we'll see if it comes back or not lol since it has several times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Schizoid_personality_disorder&oldid=992220393#Sexuality

and that's the full quote:



> These patients have been long noted for their perverse sexuality (Terry & Rennie, 1938 ). Polymorphous features of sexual relationships, especially sadomasochistic features reflecting the underlying ambivalence in the relationships, are an important part of erotic interactions found in the spectrum from normality to severe pathology (Kernberg, 1971). In the schizoid, perverse fantasy, including themes involving fetishism, voyeurism, bestiality, homosexuality, transvestism, and exhibitionism tend to increase as the severity of pathology increases, though these themes are rarely enacted within relationships. In general, the degree to which the perverse tendencies are transformed into action in the patient's life may follow the degree to which his aggressive instincts predominate, the regressive nature of his personality, the quality of his superego functioning, the predominance of ego splitting, and the weakening of ego boundaries (Kernberg, 1991).


edit: another thing is, and it's actually brought up on the wikipedia page, almost everything written about this is really old now. Like 40+ years old.

I think masculinity is weaker because it has very fragile ego boundaries and the perception that it's always being encroached by the other. That's why people use the term 'fragile masculinity.' So a lot of it is just framing of masculinity as strong and femininity as weak. People who are very into manosphere ideas, also tend to be into fascist texts particularly Evola, because that's the male political form of this fear (obviously radical feminism is the female form.) Paradoxically femininity can also be leveraged sadistically in this way by playing into the idea of femininity as a destructive force.



> Evola held that women "played" with men, threatened their masculinity, and lured them into a "constrictive" grasp with their sexuality.


Something like that. I guess that ends up in more of an androgynous space though symbolically if you're doing that actively but it's predominantly feminine. (Because people see pursuing power/control as being masculine in itself.)

Anyway I wonder if anyone who is 100% feminine would care about that, it seems more hypothetical though since most people are pursuing power in some form at some point in time, sometimes defensively perhaps but nevertheless.


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## truant (Jul 4, 2014)

Had to trim a bit because I ranted.



Persephone The Dread said:


> the dsm criteria for schizoid is pretty rubbish and seems to be based on external judgements (I also get the impression there isn't much in the way of treatment for it, and plus most schizoid people don't present for treatment.) Although I think older definitions of schizoid incorporated AvPD and schizotypal PD as well into the definition of schizoid then they separated them into three personality disorders in the 80s. Not sure every work on schizoid personalities is based on SPD either.
> 
> I also found the stuff written about sexuality on the wikipedia page interesting (and relatable because my own sexuality is weird and often dissociative.)
> 
> edit: another thing is, and it's actually brought up on the wikipedia page, almost everything written about this is really old now. Like 40+ years old.


The book was published in 1969. I like it maybe partly because it's doing such a good job describing some of the problems I have. But I'm not really anything like the DSM5 description for SPD so they're different kinds of things.

It's frustrating being so messed up and yet not meeting the criteria for a single diagnosis. If they can't diagnose you, then you just don't have any problems; there's nothing wrong with you, so you're just supposed to get on with things and stop malingering. Wish I could kill myself, but you can't get approved for assisted sui if you can't even get a diagnosis.

Even the description for GAD, which is maybe the closest, sounds sort of off in ways I have trouble putting my finger on. Look at this nonsense (pulled randomly from the internet):



> What Do People with GAD Worry About?
> For the most part, *people with GAD worry about the same things that others worry about*, they just worry more and more often than other people. Some common GAD worries include:
> 
> Worries about minor matters, such as punctuality and small decisions:
> ...


Now, what do I worry about?
"What if that person pushes me in front of that truck?"
"What if I push that person in front of that truck?"
"What if my heart stops beating and I drop dead right now?"
"What if my house catches fire in my sleep and I burn alive?"
"What if a phorid fly crawls into my ear when I'm asleep and lays eggs and the maggots get into my brain?"
"What if I get flesh-eating disease from a yellow sac spider bite?"
"What if I stab my eye out with this fork?"
"What if hang myself from the railing?"
"What if, when I'm homeless, I get frostbite and they have to amputate my hands and feet?"
"What if that dog attacks me and I get rabies?"
"What if someone asks me on a date and then murders and eats me?"
"What if someone jumps off that 10th story balcony right now?"
"What if there really is a giant beehive in my ceiling?"
"What if ghosts are real and I'm not imagining the face I think I'm seeing in my closet right now?"
"What if aliens are real and they abduct me?"
"What if that spot on my cheek is cancer and they have to keep amputating more and more of my face?"
"What if they put me on SSRIs and I have a psychotic break and go on a murder spree?"

I can't possibly imagine worrying about things like, "What if I go see this movie and I don't like it?" With so many much more interesting things to be afraid of, how does anyone have time to worry about whether or not the checkout girl thinks they're a weirdo or if "in 20 years I don't have enough money to retire?" I'd be bloody well surprised if I _did_ have the money.

If the kinds of things I worry about on a near-constant basis is quite normal for people with GAD, then sign me up. These are the kinds of thoughts that preoccupy me. I get actual physical urges to do a lot of these self-destructive things. Like drink bleach or stick a knife in an electrical outlet. So my fears feel very well-founded. The fact is, I'm _not_ sure I won't hang myself from the railing or walk in front of a bus. If I could be sure I wouldn't do it, I wouldn't worry about it.

But if most people with GAD worry about being late for appointments and failing tests then maybe it's not the right fit. I'm much too worried about whether or not I'm going to stab myself in the eye with the pencil to worry about what kind of grade I'm going to get. It starts to border uncomfortably close on psychosis. And my dreams are all the same way. Except that, in my dreams, the things I fear will happen IRL do happen with rather depressing regularity. But I'm not paranoid. I don't actually believe there are plots to kill me or anything.

The stuff I can relate to from the book are things like the feeling that, if someone knows what I look like, or hears my voice, then I will suddenly cease to exist as a real person in their mind and everything they say will be directed toward this other person who just happens to be the one with the body. Like, that my body will replace me. The relationship stops being real. I get trapped in the void and it feels like living death.

I interact with the world through this persona, which is nothing like the person I am on the inside, and it feels like the two worlds barely have anything to do with each other. My fantasy/mental life is this vivid, detailed nightmare world, where I have a body and voice that are nothing like my real body and voice, and the whole psychic terrain moves in parallel with reality without ever really touching it. Often, the real world feels like it's the dream, because it feels so unreal and insubstantial. Is this derealization? Is feeling unreal if someone knows what I look like depersonalization? How does one classify the feeling that, when one is looking in the mirror, one is _actually_ looking at a stranger ... who is looking back at them? Is this dissociation? Is this Schizotypal PD? Idk.

My sexuality is pretty messed up, too. It's sort of like my fears in a way, in the sense that, I can make almost any given situation into a terrifying possibility, but I can also make almost any given situation into a sexual fantasy. And with the same kind of compulsiveness. (I can't write the "what ifs" in this part of the forum.) I have a hard time not thinking about sex the same way I have a hard time not thinking about violence. The thoughts intrude on me all the time. Except that my fantasies rarely involve anything that could be considered painful. I may fear that I'm going to cut myself with a knife but the thought of being cut is the opposite of erotic. The exception is rape, which seems to combine the automatic sexual fantasies with the automatic violent fears. Except that I never actually get hurt in those fantasies because then it just stops being erotic. I don't have any paraphilias, if by paraphilia we mean a fixation on some specific kind of fantasy or object in order to experience arousal. The whole world is my playground.



> I think masculinity is weaker because it has very fragile ego boundaries and the perception that it's always being encroached by the other. That's why people use the term 'fragile masculinity.' So a lot of it is just framing of masculinity as strong and femininity as weak.


Masculinity is weaker, because it's harder to be a "real man" than it is to be a "real woman". A "real man" is a man who can "rise to any occasion" and succeed. How many people can actually do that? No wonder so many men have fragile egos. By contrast, it's quite hard to fail as a woman. One can be so masculine physically and behaviorally that people stop thinking of you as a woman, or mistake you for a man, but that's relatively rare. One can be so ugly that no man has any interest in you. I think that's one way that women can feel like they've failed to be a woman.

But I meant that the trait itself pairs with masculinity, not femininity, in our culture (the "framing"). The stronger a person is, the more masculine they seem, regardless of how fragile masculinity is in practice. It's also paired with being an adult (vs being a child). Adults are supposed to be strong, only children are allowed to be weak. That's why we say that men who break down under stress are "acting like little girls" (the two pairings put together). When women criticize other women for being weak, they say "put on your big girl pants" but they don't generally say "stop being a man".


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

@truant

:squeeze

Yeah I guess that's a side effect of medicalisation. Problems don't exist unless there's a specific category that someone created. If the concerns you listed actually bother you a lot then I guess it could be schizotypal pd (particularly things like the alien invasion and ghosts.) I think schizotypal people usually don't have delusions and just interpret events weirdly in a way that suggests it has personal meaning. A lot of what you're describing sounds like OCD though like the thoughts about stepping in front of a bus or killing people are pretty common intrusive thoughts that most people get sometimes, and then at the extreme end is more common in OCD. I guess it depends on how weirdly you interpret events in reference to yourself and the degree of magical thinking.

I think a lot of my brother's anxiety comes from the possibility of being attacked in public and things like that which seems different to generalised anxiety which is more worrying excessively about every day things (although the movie example seems bad, not sure that would apply to most things.) He also had random concerns over the years like not wanting to go to the bottom of the garden into the shed alone but not saying why.

I think this YouTuber has schizotypal personality disorder (though it could also be schizophrenia really also this is the first time YouTube has ever been down for me so I think this is the video she had another one where she was talking about how sugar being poured into a bowl sounds violent which seems like a schizotypal thought to me. Like there's a weird interpretation but it's not exactly delusional or conspiratorial it's just the sugar sounds violent to her.) I stumbled on this person a while ago while falling down some weird YouTube rabbit hole.

(OK the video I was going to link called organic portals, and how to recognise them I can't embed because it's age restricted on YouTube, not sure why since the content isn't 18+ at all but I'd guess it's just because it's borderline controversial since that term seems related to the 'NPC' concept which is politicised. That's all I have I've seen them do this with certain things. So I just linked her channel instead.)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzvARgF8TtOE89fGsWfy1Pg

I don't think the body/mind split you're talking about is schizotypal though, it seems like a form of dissociation (the differences/definitions of derealisation and depersonalisation never really stuck with me. I guess with one you feel unreal and then the other the world does I dunno.) I think that's pretty common for trans people anyway because they have to live in their head most of the time. Some people have written about that (I think she's written quite a bit about it maybe on her website but just found this link quickly):

https://medium.com/@zinniajones/5-things-to-know-about-transgender-depersonalization-8d0e27d29947

I guess I don't exactly relate to the body thing like I know people base opinions of me on the body because they do that with everyone, and I think I dissociate from specific parts of it, but there's some qualitative difference I think I pick up from your posts that makes me think it's different. I'd have to think about that more but I think there's a bit less of a complete schism. Even though I'm frustrated by other's opinion, feel weird around others (because of the height thing mostly,) and have some weird thoughts about my body at times. Actually something weird happened earlier today? Although it now feels like I was dreaming. It was very upsetting I think but I kind of shove those feelings down very quickly so they're also not. I don't want to talk about that here. I have a very weird relationship with parts of my body. But I still feel like it's not quite what you talk about. Like they're not completely severed for me.

I seem to eroticise weird things sometimes. Seems to be some fear component occasionally.



> Masculinity is weaker, because it's harder to be a "real man" than it is to be a "real woman". A "real man" is a man who can "rise to any occasion" and succeed. How many people can actually do that? No wonder so many men have fragile egos. By contrast, it's quite hard to fail as a woman. One can be so masculine physically and behaviorally that people stop thinking of you as a woman, or mistake you for a man, but that's relatively rare. One can be so ugly that no man has any interest in you. I think that's one way that women can feel like they've failed to be a woman.
> 
> But I meant that the trait itself pairs with masculinity, not femininity, in our culture (the "framing"). The stronger a person is, the more masculine they seem, regardless of how fragile masculinity is in practice. It's also paired with being an adult (vs being a child). Adults are supposed to be strong, only children are allowed to be weak. That's why we say that men who break down under stress are "acting like little girls" (the two pairings put together). When women criticize other women for being weak, they say "put on your big girl pants" but they don't generally say "stop being a man".


I think it's pretty common if you have the right mannerisms. It happens to butch lesbians a lot, some of them get it all the time. Some aren't _that _ butch (probably easier if you're black or mixed race though):

https://@www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxkNoqd7zKU

I think it must be mostly about body language too since that's the only time I've been compared to a guy something about my body language seeming like a guy (this only happened once because I'm very feminine but some people have different models or whatever, and I guess it varies at different points in time and in different locations. Many people online think British women are ugly or masculine as a generalisation. East Asian and Eastern European women are considered more feminine. Also that example that happened to her would basically never happen here because I said this before but nobody in shops uses pronouns here as far as I can remember. Like never. I started to wonder if it was just my personal experience but it seems not I guess sir is used more than female pronouns. I guess maybe you have to go somewhere fancy? I dunno there's definitely class connotations there.)

I guess it is easier to have people say you're acting like a girl then the reverse though yeah. The kind of superficial things that make someone 'like a girl' culturally don't apply in reverse. Nobody is going to say Simone Giertz is acting like a guy (I guess they might say 'hey it's cool that a girl has these interests' or something:

https://@www.youtube.com/watch?v=9reSQXZy77U

but I think her friend in the same video who is a butch lesbian, would probably get comments to that effect occasionally being more masculine overall (Also this video subject is probably the worst example too since it's explicitly female oriented lol but they're both in the same video so.)

Another thing is if they respect you, which they're more likely to if you're established in a masculine field, they probably would want to highlight your femininity as a kind of compliment or at the very least not make comments about you being a man if you don't look like a cis guy. You can see that somewhat in the comment section:



some guy said:


> I've been thinking recently that my favorite makers on YouTube are women, in large part because of you two, and I've been trying to figure out why. And I think it's because of stuff like this. As a guy I appreciate the male makers, but I find myself in similar trains of thought as them. With both of you however, there's just a way of seeing the world that I'll never quite tap into in the same way and that I find super valuable. Thanks for broadening my perspective.


Yeah being strong is seen as a masculine trait.


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## truant (Jul 4, 2014)

Persephone The Dread said:


> :squeeze
> 
> Yeah I guess that's a side effect of medicalisation. Problems don't exist unless there's a specific category that someone created. If the concerns you listed actually bother you a lot then I guess it could be schizotypal pd (particularly things like the alien invasion and ghosts.) I think schizotypal people usually don't have delusions and just interpret events weirdly in a way that suggests it has personal meaning.


:squeeze I think the problem is that I don't know _for sure_ whether or not something is possible. I don't really believe in ghosts or alien abductions, but when my anxiety is high I feel that they _could_ exist and I _feel_ like I am about to be haunted or abducted. When I'm in movie theaters, or look up at tall buildings, I'm afraid that I'm going to "fall" up. I know that's impossible, but it _feels_ like it's really going to happen, so I have to hold onto things. They're not actually delusions, because I don't normally believe these things are possible, it's just that when I'm afraid, I believe.

When I was younger I was really into Crowley and witchcraft and Castaneda and UFO abductions and stuff. I was convinced I was hearing bees for months. I dressed weird in hs (according to other people) and dress like a bum now. I have the paranoia about other people wanting to hurt me. Idk if people think I speak weird, but I know I have idiosyncratic uses for certain words. And schizophrenia runs in my family. So I feel sort of on the edge of being schizotypal. But I feel like I'm on the edge of a bunch of things.



> A lot of what you're describing sounds like OCD though like the thoughts about stepping in front of a bus or killing people are pretty common intrusive thoughts that most people get sometimes, and then at the extreme end is more common in OCD. I guess it depends on how weirdly you interpret events in reference to yourself and the degree of magical thinking.


The first woman in this video sounds like me:


* *














I once had a thought that someone I knew was going to get into a car accident, and then they DID get into a car accident that same day. That really messed me up because the moment I heard about the accident it was like something snapped and I thought I'd caused the accident. After that, I thought my thoughts could influence things, so I had to be careful about what I thought. And that's when I became terrified of my thoughts about violence and stuff. I won't look up at balconies, for example, because I'm afraid that if I do someone will jump. Not that I'm making someone jump with my thoughts, exactly, more that it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't looked. I know intellectually that makes no sense, but I feel like "I'd better not risk it".

So it's not just that I have these terrible thoughts all the time and they make me feel like a bad person; it's that I can't be sure my thoughts won't _cause_ the thing I'm afraid of to happen. That's why my life feels like Hell World. I can't be sure, when I look at someone and I think, "They're going to stab me," that the thought won't cause them to stab me. I know that doesn't make any rational sense, but on some level I'm not sure that the world doesn't work that way. When I'm dreaming it _does_ work that way, and maybe reality is just a really convincing "dream"? Maybe thinking about aliens is what makes aliens take an interest in you? It's not that I believe this stuff, per se, but that I can't rule it out. So the more anxious I am, the more it feels like a real possibility.



> I think a lot of my brother's anxiety comes from the possibility of being attacked in public and things like that which seems different to generalised anxiety which is more worrying excessively about every day things (although the movie example seems bad, not sure that would apply to most things.) He also had random concerns over the years like not wanting to go to the bottom of the garden into the shed alone but not saying why.


That sounds like me. I hate being alone. I feel much safer if there's another person around. If I'm by myself, I'm more likely to get thoughts about ghosts, abductions, etc. My cat was never very affectionate, but I was so glad to have her around because if she was relaxed it meant there probably weren't any ghosts around.



> I think this YouTuber has schizotypal personality disorder (though it could also be schizophrenia really also this is the first time YouTube has ever been down for me so I think this is the video she had another one where she was talking about how sugar being poured into a bowl sounds violent which seems like a schizotypal thought to me. Like there's a weird interpretation but it's not exactly delusional or conspiratorial it's just the sugar sounds violent to her.) I stumbled on this person a while ago while falling down some weird YouTube rabbit hole.


I haven't had time to watch more than a few minutes, but judging by the titles I have an idea. This sounds more like my sister (who I'm pretty sure is schizotypal -- she has basically all of the traits). I feel like I'm not quite at this level. I don't believe that all this stuff exists, I'm just not sure that it doesn't. "Sugar poured into a bowl sounds violent" is the kind of association I might make, though I probably wouldn't say it out loud.



> I don't think the body/mind split you're talking about is schizotypal though, it seems like a form of dissociation ... I think that's pretty common for trans people


I know about the dissociation trans people experience. But I feel like it's worse for me somehow. Like, how do you learn how to apply makeup if you can't even look in a mirror? How can you share photos of yourself asking people if you pass? How can you make videos? If they felt like I do, they wouldn't do it. Though maybe it's that they don't also feel ugly the way that I do. Maybe it's the combination of dissociation + ugliness.



> I guess I don't exactly relate to the body thing like I know people base opinions of me on the body because they do that with everyone, and I think I dissociate from specific parts of it, but there's some qualitative difference I think I pick up from your posts that makes me think it's different.


If I text someone, and they don't know what I look like, then I feel like they're relating to me directly. My body isn't distorting how they respond to my texts (to the same degree). But I feel like if I share a picture then suddenly they're relating to that picture and not to me and I no longer have a real relationship with them. Their attention shifts from me to that image and the ideas they have about me are based on that image. I become the "third wheel" and I watch them have conversations with that image instead of with me. I think this happens because I don't feel like my body is me, but someone else. So if I share a picture, it's like I cease to exist inside the other person's head and that image exists there instead.

I suspect the problem is that the discrepancy between how I picture myself in my head and how I look IRL is so great that I've lost the ability to identify with my own appearance or something. My body has stopped being "me". But idk how it got to be so bad. I'm not sure that's how most other trans people feel. If I were to put on makeup, etc., I would be making my body more feminine/attractive (maybe) but I wouldn't be making myself more attractive because my body isn't me. My body is a vehicle that I move around in.



> I seem to eroticise weird things sometimes. Seems to be some fear component occasionally.


I was watching some video about "pure O" OCD and they brought up that intrusive sexual thoughts were often about people you weren't attracted to. Which is something that happens to me all the time. I get thoughts like, "What if they try to have sex with me?" And sometimes it's hard to stop thinking about it. It doesn't really have anything to do with what the person looks like, more the context of the interaction. Like, I'll think that way about my doctor in the consulting room. Basically any kind of situation where someone could try something inappropriate.



> I think it's pretty common if you have the right mannerisms ... I think her friend in the same video who is a butch lesbian, would probably get comments to that effect occasionally being more masculine overall ... Another thing is if they respect you, which they're more likely to if you're established in a masculine field, they probably would want to highlight your femininity as a kind of compliment or at the very least not make comments about you being a man if you don't look like a cis guy ... Yeah being strong is seen as a masculine trait.


Yeah, body language has a lot to do with how people perceive you. And I don't mean to imply that just because you have some one trait that is commonly associated with the opposite gender to a pronounced degree that people will stop seeing you as your gender. If you're afab and you happen to like fixing cars, no one is going to see you as masculine based on that one trait. It takes a lot of simultaneous cross-gender traits, and mostly the visible ones (anatomy, body language), to shift people's perception. Until that threshold is reached, people are going to treat you more or less the same way they treat everyone else of the same gender. So they're still going to call you "beautiful" and point out all your "feminine" traits because you're still that gender to them. But at some point you cross over that threshold and their brain just sees you as a man. It's much easier to fail to be a "real man" than it is for people to stop seeing a female as a "real woman".


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

truant said:


> :squeeze I think the problem is that I don't know _for sure_ whether or not something is possible. I don't really believe in ghosts or alien abductions, but when my anxiety is high I feel that they _could_ exist and I _feel_ like I am about to be haunted or abducted. When I'm in movie theaters, or look up at tall buildings, I'm afraid that I'm going to "fall" up. I know that's impossible, but it _feels_ like it's really going to happen, so I have to hold onto things. They're not actually delusions, because I don't normally believe these things are possible, it's just that when I'm afraid, I believe.
> 
> When I was younger I was really into Crowley and witchcraft and Castaneda and UFO abductions and stuff. I was convinced I was hearing bees for months. I dressed weird in hs (according to other people) and dress like a bum now. I have the paranoia about other people wanting to hurt me. Idk if people think I speak weird, but I know I have idiosyncratic uses for certain words. And schizophrenia runs in my family. So I feel sort of on the edge of being schizotypal. But I feel like I'm on the edge of a bunch of things.


Oh like Casadastraphobia? My brother mentioned he used to know someone with that phobia.



> The first woman in this video sounds like me:
> 
> 
> * *
> ...


Yeah that sounds difficult to deal with. I guess your brain just makes you aware of all the possibilities even if it's very unrealistic. I guess there's a fear of losing control and feeling like you have a lot of control as well like you're responsible for other people's actions.



> That sounds like me. I hate being alone. I feel much safer if there's another person around. If I'm by myself, I'm more likely to get thoughts about ghosts, abductions, etc. My cat was never very affectionate, but I was so glad to have her around because if she was relaxed it meant there probably weren't any ghosts around.


That's pretty sweet. I guess pets are helpful that way.



> I haven't had time to watch more than a few minutes, but judging by the titles I have an idea. This sounds more like my sister (who I'm pretty sure is schizotypal -- she has basically all of the traits). I feel like I'm not quite at this level. I don't believe that all this stuff exists, I'm just not sure that it doesn't. "Sugar poured into a bowl sounds violent" is the kind of association I might make, though I probably wouldn't say it out loud.


I kind of get where she's coming from yeah, that's probably why that example stuck in my head lol. I have a lot of weird auditory processing stuff. I hate the sound of vacuum cleaners.



> I know about the dissociation trans people experience. But I feel like it's worse for me somehow. Like, how do you learn how to apply makeup if you can't even look in a mirror? How can you share photos of yourself asking people if you pass? How can you make videos? If they felt like I do, they wouldn't do it. Though maybe it's that they don't also feel ugly the way that I do. Maybe it's the combination of dissociation + ugliness.


Mm I'm not sure I guess it's because they're satisfied with the end result somewhat like it's an improvement even if not ideal. So even if they dislike how they look before they feel better later. I actually don't here many people talk about these topics that often though. Most common thing I hear is people crying in the shower/while being naked but not much about when they have clothes on (and also it's mostly trans masc people I hear that from so that might be different.)



> If I text someone, and they don't know what I look like, then I feel like they're relating to me directly. My body isn't distorting how they respond to my texts (to the same degree). But I feel like if I share a picture then suddenly they're relating to that picture and not to me and I no longer have a real relationship with them. Their attention shifts from me to that image and the ideas they have about me are based on that image. I become the "third wheel" and I watch them have conversations with that image instead of with me. I think this happens because I don't feel like my body is me, but someone else. So if I share a picture, it's like I cease to exist inside the other person's head and that image exists there instead.
> 
> I suspect the problem is that the discrepancy between how I picture myself in my head and how I look IRL is so great that I've lost the ability to identify with my own appearance or something. My body has stopped being "me". But idk how it got to be so bad. I'm not sure that's how most other trans people feel. If I were to put on makeup, etc., I would be making my body more feminine/attractive (maybe) but I wouldn't be making myself more attractive because my body isn't me. My body is a vehicle that I move around in.


Yeah that makes sense. I identify with my body somewhat so when other people interpret it I often dislike their conclusions/how they react to it but I want them to basically view it/me differently like the reaction it gets bothers me, but I don't see it as separate mostly. The only time I see it more as a separate person is when I'm topless/naked sometimes if I'm paying attention, because it's very different than with clothes.

I also don't have a clear idea of who I am internally like self image wise. Sometimes I'm someone who's significantly different but it's not impacted the body thing too much. What I think happens more is that I become what I've internalised about my body around others, which I also dislike (although it doesn't always happen since some people can see through that or around it,) but that's part of why I prefer being alone.



> I was watching some video about "pure O" OCD and they brought up that intrusive sexual thoughts were often about people you weren't attracted to. Which is something that happens to me all the time. I get thoughts like, "What if they try to have sex with me?"


Yeah I had that as a teenager for a bit, but don't really get them now.



> Yeah, body language has a lot to do with how people perceive you. And I don't mean to imply that just because you have some one trait that is commonly associated with the opposite gender to a pronounced degree that people will stop seeing you as your gender. If you're afab and you happen to like fixing cars, no one is going to see you as masculine based on that one trait. It takes a lot of simultaneous cross-gender traits, and mostly the visible ones (anatomy, body language), to shift people's perception. Until that threshold is reached, people are going to treat you more or less the same way they treat everyone else of the same gender. So they're still going to call you "beautiful" and point out all your "feminine" traits because you're still that gender to them. But at some point you cross over that threshold and their brain just sees you as a man. It's much easier to fail to be a "real man" than it is for people to stop seeing a female as a "real woman".


Yeah I know, I brought that up I guess to say that if a man did something equivalent like he was really into makeup etc it's more likely that someone would comment on him being feminine or something or consider him less of a man. See the complete freak out to Harry Styles simply wearing a dress lol. Often from women who wear trousers or suit jackets. Not just that he seems feminine but that he's forcibly emasculating the whole of America somehow. (Despite being English. I'm so proud. I might even start listening to One Direction's music which has never interested me at all. No can't quite bring myself to, but still kudos.) Actually it's 'the West' I think. Conservative Americans really think they're emperors lol but going off topic.

But yeah if you have pretty masculine body language I think you could be feminine in numerous other ways and it wouldn't count as much because I think body language is more weighted in terms of perception of masculinity for some reason. I've also had people comment on my lack of makeup but I think that mostly makes you seem young not masculine and wearing certain clothing makes you seem less attractive not masculine or like a guy.


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## truant (Jul 4, 2014)

@Persephone The Dread

I moved the conversation over to the OCD thread, since that's what it's become about.


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