actuallyschizoid - Tumblr blog

[actuallyschizoid]

have you seen mr. robot, what are your thoughs on the main character elliot ?

I’ve seen like 2/3 of first season, I think. At some point I randomly bumped into a spoiler on twitter, then I kinda lost interest to it. I assume that guy had some sort of a split personality variation, so the guy he keeps seeing is himself/some part of his mind in a form of his father or whatever. Eh... not exactly my kind of thing, tbh. The second theme about politics and hacking was somewhat interesting, but not enough to justify the time it takes to keep watching it. Maybe I’ll return to this show eventually, once it’s complete (and if it’s not dropped unfinished).

[actuallyschizoid]

Does you still have a discord server? I tried to join it, but it says Invite Invalid.

Eh, sorry, those guys on Schizoid Sanctuary asked me to remove the invite link. Seems like they wanna keep that community private, and I don’t really mind either way as I don’t interact there much at all last year or so, I only ensure it stays in one piece. 

If you guys wanna new schizoid Discord, I can just make another one, but it’ll need couple mods at least. Or just make one yourself and I’ll post new link. 

PS: to those who’ve been sending me asks in last few weeks - sorry, I haven’t even opened tumblr in ages, or even my mailbox for that matter. I might reply to some of them later. 

[actuallyschizoid]

Do you have any tips on how to keep up with household tasks? My dishes always pile up for like two weeks until I have none left so I have to clean them.

Sure, there’s an easy lifehack for dirty dishes: just trash all extra dishes, cups, spoons etc you own :D Leave just one of each item. And buy a pack of plastic disposable ones that can be used in case of emergency like sudden guests (bleh). 

There’s no need to clean your cup if it’s the only cup you own. It will auto-clean itself the next time you fill it with tea, coffee or soup. Maybe just rinse it with hot water in between the uses if you feel like it’s not clean enough.

Eventually the layer of tea on the inside of cup might start to fall off - well, just scrub it off with your nails or something if it bothers you too much. But my tea/soup mug somehow stays clean on itself, i dunno, maybe it has some anti-whatever surface.

Still too much the effort? Just trash all cleanable dishes you have and go with disposable ones to begin with. You can order them in the small gross amounts with a good discount, and they’ll be delivered right at your door. There’s no need to ever clean anything if you don’t feel like it.Schizoid Sanctuary discord

[actuallyschizoid]

What do you do with a loss of interest in everything? Nothing seems worth putting effort into. Even TV shows and video games bore me. It's like every moment is just waiting for when I can next fall asleep.

Eh, nothing in particular, as of last few years. I just flow with the flow, tag along with any interest that gets even a fraction of my attention, and when it no longer does, I stick to something new. I don’t set my expectations high, just not as boing as doing nothing = good enough. And when doing nothing is actually less boring... well, I do nothing then :) Until I get bored of that enough to get my interest swap elsewhere on its own.

And yeah, I fell behind on my tumblr mail again. -_- Have 3 more asks there, will reply tomorrow, maybe. And for now a reminder: we have a Schizoid Sanctuary discord.

[actuallyschizoid]

hi! i was curious if being schizoid affects sense of humor at all. like is it harder to make someone with szpd laugh or do you appreciate comedy as much as anyone else? thanks :)

I might have a bit of a weird sense of humor, but apparently, I have some sort of it, at least :) I rarely make jokes of general kind, but I can (and do) ironize on certain things, I can understand satire and various kinds of “intellectual humor”. Often it’s rather narrowly targeted and hard to understand without knowing the subject enough though. 

I can appreciate comedy, but I rarely watch them intentionally. Like, early seasons of TBBT were ok to my taste, but later on this show was boring 90% of its time. I also like when drama and humor go along, like in recent “Kidding” tv-show with Jim Carrey. It has interesting contrasts on occasion, and humor is rather a plot tool than the whole point of this show. Heck, I could even somewhat understand “English humor” things like “Monty Python”, “Bit of Fry & Laurie” and “Jeeves and Wooster” back in the days, despite I wasn’t yet fluent enough in the language to understand some jokes (I got better thanks to it, though). 

All in all, humor is more of another field of knowledge to me. A puzzle that I can play with, pinpoint some correlations and mechanics, etc. I don’t really do humor for the sake of it being funny. Unless it serves some other purpose, like making a point or highlighting a thought in a way to make it easier to understand to others.

But I suspect it’s heavily individual and depends on personal characteristics, age, experience, social circle (or lack of thereof), background, etc. Some schizoids just don’t care enough. Some of them might have those issues due to depression that may be fixed in time. Some are just natively immune to humor, I suppose. And that’s fine :)

[schizoid discord]

[actuallyschizoid]

Is it possible to be successful in life with szpd? I have no motivation to complete my degree (or even what to do for/after my bachelors, since I have no interests in anything), but I do know that I need to get a decent job in order to meet my basic needs. Is it possible for someone like us to be "successful?"

It depends on your definition of successful, I suppose. There are people with schizoid traits among rich people. Plenty of our qualities go well along with business - as long as one can approach it from sides where things like motivation is irrelevant. 

Also it’s possible to tap into some substitutes of motivation. Like, to suck it off from someone who’s close to you irregardless of you preference. Like, parents or whatever family members you can’t get rid of as easily as taking a divorce. If they’re motivated instead of you and you’re already forced to deal with it somehow, it doesn’t matter if you don’t care to success yourself. They’ll make you do it anyway lol. And the best you can do in that case is stop resisting and get a proper antidepressant because most likely you’re gonna need it sooner or later with that lifestyle.

What I personally prefer though, is finding a business that takes little motivation to sustain, requires little day-to-day effort, requires limited interaction with people and leaves you little choice by itself.

So far best I could find myself is short-term rent. Think Air-B&B or Booking.com I have a couple extra properties for it, but if you don’t, it’s possible to just rent it yourself for long-term and then benefit from the net difference. 

If you don’t have ambitions set too high, just one property might sustain your living (assuming you’re not too picky about quality of life). If you really feel like doing it properly, it’s possible to arrange things in a way you’ll be able to handle 3-5 properties just by yourself, without spending more than 3 hours a day. 

Like, I have just one (might add another one soon). And all I really need to do is make myself wake up around noon when there are guests leaving/incoming, clean the place after they’re gone (optionally can be outsourced to neighbors or professional cleaners, tho that’ll cut off from the profits). And that’s it.

I don’t interact in any way with 90% of our guests. They get their key from a lockbox right next to the door. They put it back there when they’re leaving. I email them a passcode. They get a full manual too, so I don’t have to explain shit to them. 

Everything - and I mean *everything* - in the room has labels and instructions on it. Like, literally… this is a microwave. Don’t put metal in it. This is a water boiler. Turn this thing to the max and then back down before you leave. It won’t be enough water for more than 2 ppl at once, etc etc. Everything on how to get there, written in a way an utter idiot will understand. This way I don’t really have to do much talking at all. And in rare cases I need, I just point them to look up their mailbox. 

Is there a business better for a schizoid? Well, maybe there is. I’m yet to find one though. I’m also about as content with this way to get my living as it realistically possible atm. I’d prefer to get rid of cleaning part, but tbh I have no issue with it. When it’s mostly automated and guests are politely asked to help out with cleaning before they leave (most do), it’s a matter of 15-30 min a day. And I get more than most local people’s salary per day for that alone (ofc, that only means people are generally poor around here).

You might also consider things like financial trading, but motivation is a massive issue there. You might be good at it if you try hard… but you won’t. Maybe you’ll last long enough to learn, to get some first taste of actual money on your account, made from thin air… But then you’ll just get bored and tired and find some better use of your time. 

Because without motivation all the result is just numbers. Some pixels on your screen. Most of the money, aside from the part you’ll use on mandatory bills, most likely will just stockpile on your account with no good use, no goal to farm it towards, no plans to use it on something you really want - because you probably don’t really want anything. Or don’t want it hard enough at least. 

And that’s your main problem. The one that won’t really get away. Best you can do is learn to bypass it, the sooner the better. You don’t have motivation to complete your degree now - well, guess what? You’ll complete it, probably, but there won’t be any more motivation after you do so. 

Just… stop relying on motivation whatsoever. Try to arrange your life in a way that it matters little if you want something or not. Like, in case of my renting stuff, I don’t have to think about motivation when I go to prepare the place for next guests. 

There’s just no option to not go. They’ll arrive no matter what, it’s already set and there’s no tool to cancel their arrival. The place has to be ready no matter what, and I only get a choice as to how to make it happen. I have an option to ask my parents to help out in case I get sick, or even I can order a cleaning service (which would eat all the profit and will likely cost me in addition). But so far I had no need to use that. 

That inevitable factor supplements the lack of motivation better than anything I’ve found so far. My advice is try to find something like that. Maybe that’ll work for you too.

[schizoid discord]

[actuallyschizoid]

I am bad at remembering other things, but stuff related to people is the worst of all. It doesn't really bother me since I have most phone numbers/birthdays on social media, but the face thing freaks me out. Because I can see a person and think it's that other person. Or see someone I know and not realise it's them until they tell me. I don't even remember my mother's face off-hand and I live with her. I only remember the general "look" if even that. I get confused with actors and characters too

Yeah, that’s pretty close to how I experience it. I remember the face somewhat, but things like new haircut would confuse the fuck out of me, I’ll probably think that’s someone else. And generally I think there’s a bunch of people I only remember by face, and I know there was some data assigned to that face, but I really don’t store that data anywhere. So it’s just “familiar face #0397, name and personality data missing”. 

One thing I got to learn is that it is a skill. We might have less “talent” (and/or innate practice) than most people, but we’re still able to get better at it to some extent. If that bothers you and lowers quality of life, it might be worth to intentionally learn it. 

Being a schizoid, it’s likely you weren’t looking at people as much as it’s intended by human design to be able to rely on this skill. Just because you didn’t care enough to get better at this. But you still can catch up. I know I got better at it than I was back in college, let alone in school. 

In fact, back in school I had terrible myopia, like -6. And no glasses or lenses. I just didn’t need them, all I cared about was to see within 15 cm from my nose and the world around me, including people, was just fine in it’s perfectly blurry state. And it provided a good excuse why I don’t look at people, let alone their eyes, why I don’t recognize anyone or talk to them. So 90% of my face recognition experience until I fixed my eyes was from TV/PC screen. And only few years after laser correction, around 25 y.o. I started to properly recognize faces from distance. And now? Well, I still suck at it, but that skill is at least usable. 

[actuallyschizoid]

I dont fit the full criteria for SzPD, but being schizophrenic w/ mostly negative symptoms, plus the total emotional numbing i've put myself through as a defense against trauma and Borderline PD, seems to have made me resonate a LOT with some traits. I hate when people try to be my friends when I dont explicitly pursue their company bc then Im forced to fake caring about them, and even many of my friends i know i dont care about as much as the average person. And im so numb + alexithymic.

Well, being schizophrenic pretty much makes you a schizoid by default. It’s more of a schizoid+, if anything :) Schizoid PD is not often diagnosed along with schizophrenia, afaik, but only because it’s more or less included in the pack. 

I.e. schizoid PD is negative symptoms alone, and at some point in history of psychiatry it used to be diagnosed as a form of schizophrenia (latent or whatever it was called on English). 

Since genetically it’s heavily related, the difference comes down to having some positive symptoms along with negative (and sometimes not all of the negatives, but usually at least some of them).

So it should come to no surprise that experience of people with SzPD resonates with your own. Perhaps some of your experience would also resonate for many schizoids, and just some of it won’t. 

[actuallyschizoid]

Personally I got diagnosed with SZPD at 16 and it made my psychiatric care providers completely ignore that I also have had clinical depression for most of my life. I don't think my psychiatrist knew what she was doing. At that point it's mostly signs and extrapolations. She was correct in the end, but being saddled with a PD diagnosis as a younger person might take a toll on you. I was a minor, so I was basically dismissed from getting proper care for a couple of years.

Yeah, sometimes they diagnose it earlier than it’s advised by their own books. Probably sometimes it’s justified, but somehow I think it often ends up a misdiagnosis or self-fulfilling prophesy kind of diagnosis. Generally I’d look for second opinion if anyone encounters a psychiatric doctor who casually diagnoses a teen with personality disorder.

[actuallyschizoid]

What age do you think szpd can be properly diagnosed at? In a few months I will be 18 and I was wondering if age is a big factor in diagnosis... would it even be worth getting an evaluation at this age? I have every listed symptom in dsm-5 but I'm unsure if age will be a deterrent.

Well, SzPD has genetic predisposition, as it seems from the research that I’ve seen. Like schizophrenia and most of (all?) the rest of the spectrum, there are several genetic markers that in various combinations can cause the shit that may or may not turn into Schizoid PD or some other spectrum stuff. Or, in some cases, one might have genetic predisposition, but it never turns into actual PD or more severe conditions. Because reasons. 

And sure, if by 18 y.o. you already have some solid szpd-related symptoms, that might be a good idea to check how far down the road you are and if that already looks like proper szpd or something else. At very least, that’s better than if you do the same thing 5 years later - by then there won’t be a chance to do anything about whatever you end up with.

But there’s a good reason why they rarely diagnose PDs, including schizoid, in people aged under 25. Because whatever it is, it still might (and probably will) evolve along with you getting closer to psychological maturity stage - which is the shit stage where you get rigid enough to make things very hard to change, for good or for worse alike. 

What I’m saying is… In your age I had no idea wtf is wrong with me. Not a single clue. I only knew there was a lot of things about me that weren’t the same for most people around me. But I did nothing about it due to being clueless. So in your place, knowing what the heck’s going on or what it might be at least, I’d probably try to use those ~5 years to make the rest of my life a bit less of a disordered mess. 

So yeah, go on with evolution and stuff. Just keep in mind it might change - and that’s a good thing. You better try to make it change for good, at least.

[actuallyschizoid]

This doesn't quite align with my experience, but is likely relatable to quite a few schizoids and might be useful to some of my followers.

The Schizoid Childhood - “You have no right to feel things.”

INTRODUCTION

Schizoid Personality Disorder is just a name for adaptations that this group formed to cope with their childhood. A common theme during a schizoid’s childhood is that their feelings and what they thought did not matter. Most also went through some form of abuse as well.

FEELINGS

WE HAVE NO RIGHT TO FEEL THINGS

Common phrases from parents:

“You have no right to be angry when I yell at you.”

“Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

“No one cares what you think. I’m your parent, do as I say.”

“Why would I care about how you feel? I don’t want to hear about it.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

BEING TOLD WHAT TO FEEL

Common phrases from parents:

“You’re not depressed, you have a good life and we do so much for you. Be happy.”

“You can’t possibly be anxious right now. You deserved that punishment. Just calm down.”

Whatever emotion that was felt was wrong. 

FEELINGS WERE DISMISSED

Common phrases from parents:

“Are you on your period or something?”

“You need to get more sleep. Someone needs to take a nap!”

“Maybe your medications are ineffective.”

“You’re just confused.”

Their feelings were always given a condescending explanation. They were told their feelings were not the cause of the psychological abuse they went through. Their feelings were caused by their periods, lack of sleep, and medication ineffectiveness. 

END RESULT

The schizoid has essentially learned to shut down emotionally. They learned from a young age that their feelings don’t matter and won’t be taken seriously. And that expressing emotion would get them in trouble. They have trouble recognizing or feeling emotions due to being forced to shut them down while growing up.

Detachment from emotions

Flat or restricted affect

Limited capacity to express positive or negative emotions towards others

Chronic emptiness and numbness

Taking pleasure in few, if any, activities (anhedonia, avolition, apathy)

AUTOMATIC THOUGHTS

It is better for me to maintain my distance and maintain a low profile.

I shouldn’t confide in others.

I have no motivation.

I’m just going through the motions.

Why bother? Who cares?

ABUSE

On top of the feeling dismissal, the schizoid may have suffered through one or more of these things:

Psychological: gaslighting, interrogation sessions, dismissal of feelings, locking up the victim, sensory deprivation techniques, blame shifting, denial of abuse, intrusiveness and denial of privacy, emotional neglect (minimal, if any, affection)

Emotional: name calling, shouting, mocking, threats, intimidation, ignoring, isolating, humiliation

Physical: r**e, molestation, beatings, being thrown, being restrained (grabbed by the arms, held down, tied up), hair pulling, ear yanking, slapping, being spat on, ejaculated on, pissed on, torture techniques (e.g. chinese water torture)

END RESULT

The abuse is impossible to cope with. Schizoid adaptations are based on escapism and dissociation since they could not escape physically. The schizoid also begins to view friendships/relationships as intrusive, controlling, and enslaving.

Dissociation

Depersonalization

Escaping to a fantasy world

Lack of desire for social relationships

Little, if any, interest in sex

Consistent preference for solitary activities

Very few, if any, close friends or relationships

AUTOMATIC THOUGHTS

It is important for me to be independent and free of others.

It is better to be alone than to feel “stuck” with other people.

My privacy is much more important to me than closeness with people.

Relationships are messy and interfere with freedom.

Life is less complicated without other people.

END NOTE

The schizoid usually was not treated as a human being with the rights to feelings, emotional expression, privacy, or fair treatment. The classic flat affect, chronic emptiness, and lack of pleasure is due to them learning to detach from their emotions. Their strong emotions were unbearable, so they started suppressing them. The dissociation and escapism techniques are due to not being able to physically escape, so they learned how to mentally do so. Most schizoids have also formed a disinterest in people due to the belief that relationships are a loss of freedom and that other people are intrusive and controlling.

[actuallyschizoid]

I am bad at remembering other things, but stuff related to people is the worst of all. It doesn't really bother me since I have most phone numbers/birthdays on social media, but the face thing freaks me out. Because I can see a person and think it's that other person. Or see someone I know and not realise it's them until they tell me. I don't even remember my mother's face off-hand and I live with her. I only remember the general "look" if even that. I get confused with actors and characters too

Yeah, that’s pretty close to how I experience it. I remember the face somewhat, but things like new haircut would confuse the fuck out of me, I’ll probably think that’s someone else. And generally I think there’s a bunch of people I only remember by face, and I know there was some data assigned to that face, but I really don’t store that data anywhere. So it’s just “familiar face #0397, name and personality data missing”. 

One thing I got to learn is that it is a skill. We might have less “talent” (and/or innate practice) than most people, but we’re still able to get better at it to some extent. If that bothers you and lowers quality of life, it might be worth to intentionally learn it. 

Being a schizoid, it’s likely you weren’t looking at people as much as it’s intended by human design to be able to rely on this skill. Just because you didn’t care enough to get better at this. But you still can catch up. I know I got better at it than I was back in college, let alone in school. 

In fact, back in school I had terrible myopia, like -6. And no glasses or lenses. I just didn’t need them, all I cared about was to see within 15 cm from my nose and the world around me, including people, was just fine in it’s perfectly blurry state. And it provided a good excuse why I don’t look at people, let alone their eyes, why I don’t recognize anyone or talk to them. So 90% of my face recognition experience until I fixed my eyes was from TV/PC screen. And only few years after laser correction, around 25 y.o. I started to properly recognize faces from distance. And now? Well, I still suck at it, but that skill is at least usable. 

[actuallyschizoid]

I have recently realised that I am at least partially face-blind. But the longer I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that it might be connected to my szpd. I don't remember or recognize faces, but I also have extreme difficulty remembering names, ages, birthdays and any kind of personal information really. Maybe my brain just deems that information unnecessary because I have such difficulty forming any social connections. Have you encountered anything like this before?

Yep, about the same for me. 

Names, birthdays, ages — tbh, I don’t even try to remember it anymore. I don’t bother to remember by own birthday even. When I’m asked by whatever that’s not officials that might matter I just input random date in realistic range. 

I don’t remember birthdays of my own parents, I just open their diet app where it’s listed when I need to know it, and then I’ll forget it few min later. All I know atm is that it’s late winter lol.

But maybe that’s just my thing, coz it goes to a bit more than just personal/social data. I suck at memorizing history dates, all kinds of numbers (my phone number that I have for like 15 years? ye, let me open my contacts to read it to you). 

Then somehow at random I just remember numbers I absolutely don’t need. For eternity. Like, when I was like 8 y.o. my mom was reading a book and had nothing to bookmark the page with so she said something like “page 137, pls remind me tomorrow what page it was”. Sure, mom. How about I’ll remind you which page it was 25 years later? Don’t remember which book, tho. 

Anyway, if your selective memory is so selective it only sucks at dates connected to information related to people and everything else works fine, then perhaps it has some psychological layer to it. Which means you might be able to recover that ability with some psychotherapy or whatnot, should you ever need it. 

But tbh, I don’t think it’s all that much of a problem. In the age of smartphones, you can just write down any info that’s actually needed and never bother to rely on your own memory. I’d say, it’s for the best to be able to keep your memory free of all unnecessary garbage like birthdays of people you meet once a year at best. Or, well, even if you meet them daily, but that date only needed once a year - the heck you’d waste a memory slot for that? Even if it’s just a single byte of brain cells, I’m sure there are better use for it.

Oh, and as for faces — yeah, I’m not too good at face recognition either. Though later it turned out I’m not too bad at it, but at a different angle. Like, I’m actually capable to recreate face pretty accurately from photo, using 3D software like DAZ Studio. I’m also able to create unique faces plausible enough with it (like for character illustrations I’m sometimes asked to make). I can somewhat recreate face from memory same way, maybe a bit less accurately. 

But then when it comes to practical usage?.. “Eh, that girl looks kinda familiar… Oh hey, neighbor next door I know for years, I never expected to see you 1 km from home and wearing a hat, that’s probably why I didn’t say hi and not because I thought I probably have seen you on tv or something”. 

Like, I probably would remember the face... eventually. But I might not remember which person it’s connected to.

[actuallyschizoid]

That's interesting, thanks for addition!

did or do you have psychotic episodes? how does it feel, how would you describe if so

No, I don’t think I ever had psychotic episodes. At least not that I’d be able to tell that’s what it is. I might’ve had couple panic attacks through my life, but even that I’m not too sure about. Maybe it was, I dunno, fever or some other sickness.

[actuallyschizoid]

Thank you for running this blog, I’ve found a lot of information about szpd on this blog than I ever did google.

Thanks for reading my blog :) Glad it was helpful, if even a bit.

[actuallyschizoid]

did or do you have psychotic episodes? how does it feel, how would you describe if so

No, I don't think I ever had psychotic episodes. At least not that I'd be able to tell that's what it is. I might've had couple panic attacks through my life, but even that I'm not too sure about. Maybe it was, I dunno, fever or some other sickness.

[actuallyschizoid]

Major downside to being a loner: not being able to ask classmates for help/bribe them for answers on homework assignments 😒 -MHM

Well, being a loner doesn’t really contradicts with that :) Some strategic usage of local recourses is absolutely fine. For a schizoid, being a loner generally means avoiding emotional intimacy or any long-lasting intrusion in their inner world. Occasional meaningless social contacts have nothing to do with it.

Even those schizoids who are absolutely committed to remaining a loner often can afford things like help from society — they just have to provide something in return, being not really the kind of person whom people would be willing to help for free. Like, well, actual money. 

You need help from classmates? Pay them. It can go as a reverse deal as well: first pay, then ask. Offer to buy them food or something, and when you need them, they’ll feel obliged to help because you already gave them something before. I did that plenty of times when I was in school and college. None of this shit resulted in any emotional intimacy whatsoever.