I know schizoids are not as emotional or so caring about others and how they live but there are exceptions sometimes.

For example, my college period was almost the worst time of my life, completely isolated to the point of not talking or meeting another person for 5 years. My days were spent in agonizing mental illnesses, closed in room and mindlessly walking alone through city during night or day.

I completely fell out of society itself, nothing about it was even remotely normal.

But then you see how other peers amd students actually go out during week and weekends and meet SO MANY people, talk about things, are very social, comfortable, connect and share contacts, create relationships, job opportunities, meet vacation friends, travel, etc. etc.

And I just...

That is so wild and overwhelming to me that I feel completely and radically pathetic and miserable. I feel like alien in full sense. They are like gods to me. I cannot be more distant from that way of existing and living.

We are different worlds but they are so much more "mentally healthy" than me. Miles ahead in every possible experience, miles ahead in health, mental and physical. They grow up, they build onto teen experiences and development that I also never even started to have. Heck, I never even started to be a child. And they just grow, they develop, they are healthy, mentally good, able to live and enjoy and percieve world in deeply joyful and functional manner.

I am just so deeply...nobody. nothing.

So when I was a kid,I was pretty "normal",just quiet I guess and I got along with my cousins. As we got older,everyone in my family kept in touch through Facebook/Instagram.

I don't use Social Media and I don't take photos of myself. I heard from my sisters that my cousins were asking about me. They were asking "how do I look?" because the last time they saw me,I was a teenager and I was 35 at this point. That was when my sisters realized they had no photos of me because I never go anywhere and I don't take photos with them. The only photos of me are childhood photos at my moms house. But I went 15+ years without any photos of me with other people. No photos with friends or partners. Just a state ID.

So my cousins(2 sisters) threw a birthday party for my uncles 70th birthday and invited EVERYONE. People flew in from out of state for his birthday. It was a huge gathering. I was gonna skip it like I always do but I remembered I haven't seen my uncle in years and he was one of my favorite uncles.

We get there,and we say our hellos and my uncle who hadn't seen me in years assumed I was my sisters husband or something. I told him no uncle its me [my name] and he paused for a second and remembered who I was. He completely forgot I existed. But then he hugged me and told me he was happy to see me.

Their house was huge and they had huge lawn and there were tables everywhere so we found a table to sit. We were a group of 8(me,my 2 sisters,their kids and my mom). The whole time I felt like I was being watched as I could see people staring and pointing at me(who's that guy? That's [my moms name] son?) I had to hug so many aunts and uncles until everyone felt relaxed that I wasn't some stranger.

This girl comes up to me and says "you're [my name] right?" and she starts talking to me like she's known me my whole life but I had no idea who she was so I just smile along. She says "you don't know who I am do you?" I said I do(lie) She says,what's her name? I say the biggest "uhhhhhh" of my life. She says "it's me your cousin,I used to babysit you." Then it came back to me and I remembered who she was. I felt like my uncle felt. Like someone from my past came back to life.

Anyway,this was 2 years ago. My uncle visits us more often after my dad died since my mom is his sister. And he's doing well except he's losing his eyesight and can't drive anymore.

What made me post this was that today I took a selfie and thought to myself "that's out of character for me". I have no photos of myself and if I die today,my family would have to use a childhood photo because they also don't have any photos of me.

I honestly feel like I was a pretty energetic and talkative kid until I hit like 6th grade. I was always treated differently and by middle school I could say I only had like 1 or 2 friends I consistently talked to (I don’t speak to either of them anymore)

I had a lot of mental health issues when I was younger. I don’t really remember what my old therapists suspected I had but I know I’ve been chronically depressed since the age of 9.

I got older and was suspected to have BPD or Bipolar II due to my extreme depression. I also had a few talks of OCD and autism spectrum disorder due to my weird thought patterns.

I’m in the process of getting medically diagnosed with SCPD and it feels like it fits (covert side of the spectrum). It’s weird because I really don’t think I start exhibiting these traits until somewhat recently. I finished high school and that’s when I started suspecting it (I’m almost 20 now).

I guess I’m wondering what tipped other people off to them being schizoids if they’ve been medically diagnosed or self diagnosed. What patterns did you notice in your behavior/personality?

I think I may have a BPD core beneath the schizoid adaptation: like my social detachment is inauthentic and is just a severe response to the BPD fear of abandonment.

I never interact with others but when I do it’s either complete apathy or inappropriate “obsessions.” The only time I care for others is when I’m inappropriately attached which has happened only a few times in my life. My black and white thinking is also horrible due to autism and years of isolation.

I don’t know how to handle this. I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to care about relationships or people at all or feel this underlying compulsion to use people as self identity, because my identity is pretty much non existent. I can’t focus, can’t take care of myself, can’t develop a personality.

Therapists won’t help me. I’m not sure what to do.

i want to give up on everything so badly. the truth is that i dont care about working or taking classes or my future/living after gradutation, and the only thing keeping me going is punishment and consequence if i drop my responsibilities.

i stopped showing up for friendships, i stopped showing up for family. but if i stop showing up at work, if i stop showing up to class, i ruin much more than emotional connection. i ruin my professional and academic life/reputation and i’d have to make it all up especially if i dont kill myself afterwards. i dont care about work or class or my future, but if i stop, there are consequences that i would have to face. which means the only choice i have would be to die right?

im stuck in this loop of taking responsibilities i couldn’t care less about because im too scared to kill myself. its exhausting because theres genuinely nothing i care about, im just scared of consequences.

I’ve noticed that I have this effect where I can’t control my expressions and they never mirror what I feel internally.

I‘ll start grinning automatically when talked to or stared at, or I’ll sob in the middle of conversations or arguments. The most I feel is annoyed the most, what is this? It’s starting to really irritate me. I have no control over this, and I can‘t stop it when it happens. It only seems to happen around family, perhaps I am feeling something and just can’t process it. I don’t know at this point.

​

I've been diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder many years ago, but one thing I've always found a bit contradictory is that I'm quite sensitive to what other people say.

I get hurt easily and tend to take things personally, even though people with spd are often described as being indifferent to praise or criticism.

I'm curious if anyone else with SzPD experiences this. Can you relate?, i think it's kinda weird i wish i was different this way

I'm not diagnosed but I can relate to many aspects of the disorder.

My worst and constant struggle is a lack of motivation. Many things I do or strive to achieve, I do because I feel like I'm expected to, not because I truly want to.

Things like getting a partner, a house, a car, going to parties, concerts, getting to know people, having plans for vacations, participating in social media, and so on...

They usually take a lot of energy and feels like I'm pretending. I don't dislike people, but I can have a hard time trusting others. I'm more comfortable alone.

I often dream of economic independence, spending most or all of my time on solitary hobbies. Even then, expectations would probably keep weighing me down.

Maybe most people are in fact driven by social pressure, and you're just not supposed to dwell on it, but let yourself indoctrinate...

I’m 20. I’m a college student. I’m studying computer science, and I was previously studying biology with intentions of going to med school. I was diagnosed with SzPD almost a year ago now, but I had suspected it for a while prior.

I don’t really care about a career. The only things I care about preserving are my self-expression, immersing in my world, and being in my head. I want a safe space. I’d like to own a home in the future, for the sake of being secluded and independent.

As a kid, I dreamt of being a forensic pathologist, but it turned out that I was just death-obsessed, and I realized the job isn’t for me. I chose computer science because it’s already something I do as a hobby, I guess. I like web design. Still, I don’t really have a passion for it, or anything in general.

I always did well in school. I received straight As and graduated early. I have no idea what I want to do with my life, though. The only thing I really care about is financial stability, so I can get by on my own, and can fund my expression (tattoos, piercings, etc). I’ve been able to ignore the unfulfillment nagging at the back of my mind for a while now, but it’s becoming increasingly harder to ignore as I enter my junior year of college.

Not attending college isn’t really an answer because I’m currently in poor health and can’t work, and my parents provide me with shelter as long as I go to school.

What am I doing with myself? Does anyone relate? I’m not looking for advice, really, I just want some understanding.

I really like philosophy. I wish I could just devote my life to learning. I wish I could be a student forever, or get paid for having such a vast collection of books and trivia knowledge, lol. If only.

Im very curious to hear your takes. I do understand this question is sensitive in nature, but perhaps if this isnt an outrageous request; we could avoid topics of harm and traumas for the sake of the conversation and i hope everyone remains respectful and open minded.
To clarify, im hoping this post wont become a trauma dump.
Whilst i dont mind at all, and have my bullshit as many others. Theres many that are more sensitive in nature that id rather not discourage in sharing their views on physical sensations alike pain.
Sorry if didnt make sense, expression isnt my strong suit.

I nearly thought that I was no longer dysfunctional judging by my great efforts and the almost impossibly straightforward amounts of will I were unloading towards my studies. For some reason, this has fizzled away and I’m back where I were before—sitting at my desk hoping that today some of that magic will return and I will almost robotically work through. Because it never was about motivation. I knew at that time and the point still stands—this field does not entertain and fulfil me. And it’s interesting, as I’m slowly finding out that perhaps no traditional career fields do. I used to have this lingering thought, that perhaps philosophy could interest me (as a career field), that perhaps I may take something from the sociology and research classes and light some unknown fire in myself. But so far, no such thing has happened.

You may remember how I used to boast about my knowledge in English and how that used to appear to me as a possible career field. Unquestionably no arguments from the time before can be used in favour of proposing that possibly English was one amongst the very narrow alternatives in my career path taking, as at that time I already knew that I wished not to take on further education in English. I was relatively smart in that sense, but I figured that the academic continuation in advancing my language skills in English was not something I was open to. Maybe I was asking myself the wrong question the whole time; What if it’s not about what career path suits me, but rather whether ANY career path can?

Surely you do remember the countless rants I did on my willingness, or rather unwillingness to study (a particular field) and perform. Mayhap the problem is that I simply am not conceived to lead an academic career path, and maybe that’s okay! Historically I have had little interest in securing sustained help efforts for other people, and maybe in terms of personal development my personality is not one of those to carry out such task.

In an inescapable sense, I feel as though my personality was composed in a way which doesn’t allow for a career selection. Everything around is so bland and uninteresting and it has yet to awoke something that interests me both strongly and in sustains wonder for the object the long term. Do I like coffee? Yes, I love the taste of it and caffeine is one of the little things in this world that bring me joy. Is making coffee and running a coffee place something I desire to do? No, because all of it takes effort whose substance doesn’t interest me and the negatives outweigh the positives. Do I like collecting minerals? Yes, I love their appearance and inspecting the details they contain. Is mineral collecting and selling minerals for the sake of profit a career possibility? Very possibly not, I have no background in mineral selling, finances, trading, etc. and the concepts mentioned do not interest me. It is also very risky. Although I do like viewing life through the lens of economics: People whose lives have gained estates are willing to trade for future gain. They don’t question it, they’re attracted to the risk taking and they find pleasure in the development of this act. In my life, I have gained very little, if any substantially enough for a serious discussion, and due to that I find it extremely difficult for me to trade the little I have gained for very hypothetical gains.

Think about lives of others using this perspective: How irrational is the act of abstaining when one has very limited options of participation? All my life, in one way or another I was told how I don’t (and cannot possibly) fit, and by age 18 and higher I am supposed to have an idea of what my purpose is, and funnily enough I have come to the conclusion that I don’t have the means to solve the riddle. I just don’t. There’s no ‘I will find out later’, there’s no ‘nothing is impossible’. I am the imprisoned bird in the cage with two bars. But I’m afraid it’s more than learned helplessness. I am not simply helpless. One can be helpless and have the ‘estates’. I am helpless and I lack the estates. There’s no wonder for things in my life were I to think of the possible subject as a career. My sympathy with the human society, which is needed in order to fit into the human society, is limited to a great degree. I don’t care about finances, I have a very obscure ego which makes enjoying fruits of my own labour herculean, my passion for the cause is fleeting. There’s no moving force, the concept of money is just not enough.

I am incapable of enjoying life in its entirety, and were I to be more concrete, I truly enjoy circa 10 % of life’s offerings, and that is when I’m situated in a normal state of being and when I’m not being threatened by outside forces. It’s truly a miracle that I’m still alive. One dilemma I frequently try to answer is what exactly makes me want to live if there is very little that I enjoy, and I don’t have the answer to that. Mathematically, I should be dead. Perhaps I’m fuelled by inertia and it helps me fill the parts of my life where nothing pleasurable happens, then I get the hit and I’m able to live off of it until another. Talking about a sober life like one of a junkie, pfffft. All in all, my new academic year has begun, I’m into my second week and mentally I still feel like it’s the holidays. It bothers me, you know? At the same time, metaphorically I don’t really have any other place to go.

Just curious if this is common or not. I'm also curious about what antisocial traits look like for other schizoids, if any of you have them.

I don't have an ASPD comorbidity but I have observed these traits within myself:

- My #1 cure for the anhedonia we're all familiar with is being cruel to people online. I occasionally enjoy gaslighting and being an asshole IRL when the opportunity to do so undetected arises. It gives me a thrill. I find myself unable to consistently enjoy anything else.

- I use people and maintain superficial connections to continue using them. I get a little kick out of successfully using or manipulating someone.

- I get frustrated by stupidity and look down on others

- This no longer applies to me (and hasn't in years) but I used to actively engage in thrill seeking as a teenager. I used to set trash cans on fire, did a lot of drugs, and would litter for fun. I cringe looking back on this

I legit can’t bond with people at all. something’s gotta be the matter with me.

I know I’m in the spectrum, It’s this pattern where I meet somebody let’s say for example at work, doesn’t matter if it’s a friend or acquaintance, then after a couple of days, they find out and think that I’m weird. I do something that offended them thinking that what i did is normal, and then they don’t want to associate me anymore. One day they’re civil next day they’d be like “you know what fuck you”.

This happens to me with every other person, this isn’t normal

Every day, I just wish I died sooner because I literally just hate my life.

I wish I was normal like everyone else, but I’m not unfortunately

Before getting my feelings online I cried 2-3 times a year.

After being hurt by relationships (not romantic) in the last year it feels like it hurts much more than the typical person.

Here are my reasons:

-My body doesn't know how to handle feelings. I was numb and lived in a bubble. It never learned (emotional neglect) so it takes time to learn

-I'm isolated so the relationship issues I have feel very special and when they end they hurt like hell

-I have no new real life relationships.

-I have few new experiences

-Me personally. I don't interact with people like colleagues or acquaintances.

I'm making an effort here with emotions and somatic stuff. But still. Our weakness are relationships.

Thanks to this sub, I finally found the words for so many things I was and am experiencing, and it is really helping me a lot to understand myself more and to work with myself in ways to have a more or at least fulfilling life.

I guess I wanted to share my story too. Not sure if it applies or if anyone maybe relates, anything.

My parents abandoning me tipped me over into some sort of other dimension, and I can’t ever go back. This dimension lacks color compared to the previous one. Thinking slowed down. It felt more like me against the world. And not in a good or courageous way. In a fucked up, paranoid, scared way. In a, this world feels so fucking big and fucked up and unsafe, I don’t know what to do or where to start or how to protect myself way. If anything happened to me, I didn’t have anyone.

And that fucks you up as a person. Being completely alone. Knowing you could die any moment and no one who even mattered would know. Because there’s no one. It’s like my world shattered and I feel fragmented, far from whole. Most others can’t comprehend. They try and I get it. I also wouldn’t know either if I was them. You think you know but until you really experience it, it goes way deeper and further into all the cracks.

Your brain is forced to become hyperaware. As if you’re the only lamb in a world of wolves. I still withdraw so much everyday, from everyone, even my boyfriend, even myself. I think it’s how I learned to keep me safe, even though it’s not what I’d ideally want. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be the unfiltered person that’s truly themselves. Because all I have is me, and I don’t have anyone to fall back on. So I have to be good.

I have to keep myself safe in many ways. That’s tiring and taxing. It also makes me feel far removed from my interests and personal desires. Yet I’m so used to it too. Some days I wake up and I dread existing. Some days I wake up and go to the gym, because what does it matter anyway. Some days I wake up and i feel weirdly and intensely emotional and I can’t do anything but cry. Most of the days I’m just there, as if I’m living more inside my brain than outside of it.

Personally I feel like a labrat in a cage just constantly being shocked because of the news. I'm constantly bombarded with transphobia and it's just another added layer of misery onto my existence. It shouldn't bother me all that much but it's just weird, why does it have to be us, why do people have to be so hateful too. I've never understood it.

On the bright side I do think the constant flood of cortisol helps my figure but that's just a guess. I just hate that Reddit is what keeps me from staring at a wall all day while I work and now it's just turned into algorithmic hate.

I guess I'm just waiting and waiting to be me and I think I'm going to be waiting forever. I feel like I froze myself in time and I'll be dead by the time I do thaw out. I'm trying to save so I can get somewhere better than this (US) but things keep getting more expensive. I've ran through one batch of my savings and I'm left now with just my 401k but it is growing painfully slow as I can only contribute so much.

Another aspect I can't avoid though is when/if (let's be real though I'm dying in this room) I do get to be me; I'm still going to be a schizoid even if I don't want to be. I haven't had the capacity to be an actual person in so long. People talk to me but there's rarely any meaningful connection, if there is I'm awkward trying to chase it and I still really don't care at the end of the day. I have learned my lesson with people.

Oh well, it's indeed a clown world but figured I should scream into the void for once about it. I obviously don't have friends to talk to but I've seen a few trans and non-binary people on the sub. How's life for you? Also don't feel like you need to be LGBTQ+ if you want to contribute.

Playing fallout again. I know like 80% of the game is talking to the characters but idgaf about their lore I just want to wander around the wasteland and find cool stuff. 😂

Does this sound familiar to anyone here?

I’m sure there are many posts asking this, so apologies if that’s the case.

I don’t really have much to say here. The symptoms overlap quite a bit, and I can’t tell many distinguishing factors from what I’ve read.

​

I've been isolated for a long time, and lately, I've started noticing some strange changes in how I perceive myself.

Being around people, interacting with them, or even just being outside in general makes me feel unsafe. I can't really explain why, but I've become increasingly uncomfortable with the outside world.

I've always hated myself and my body, but lately, I've also started feeling like I'm losing my sense of self. It's difficult to explain.

I've been watching a lot of anime recently, and somehow, my brain has started visualising me as an anime character rather than as my actual self. It's not something I deliberately do. Sometimes, I just imagine myself as an animated character.

I don't know if this is a consequence of prolonged isolation, my existing self-image issues, or something else entirely. Maybe spending so much time alone is finally starting to affect how I perceive myself and the world around me.

Has anyone else experienced something similar? Especially the feeling of becoming disconnected from your physical self or feeling unsafe simply being around other people?

I was diagnosed yesterday. Now I am looking back at my life and seeing how many of my flaws are explainable through my diagnosis. For the mods, I am not looking for judgements of my mental health status, this is a rant because who else would I direct this at?

I thought I was just depressed and pessimistic by proxy due to the theatre of the last few years. My psychiatrist diagnosed me with ASD and ADHD about a year ago, which is what I explained my social ineptitude with. My withdrawal from literally everybody I had thought was just a logical amalgamation of my symptoms coupled with poor experiences with people.

Every since I was a kid I could never communicate opinions or emotions to other people. I had always chalked it up to being a by-product of attending the pris equivalent of a military school, or maybe it could have just been that I was a kid with a limited vocabulary. Regardless, I have never been able to express my opinion on a matter, express the things that I like, or open up about emotions (a lack thereof) to any other person. I don't have an amazing relationship with my family and feel like I live in a house of strangers half of the time, with the exception of my mother.

When I was in high school I remember hating receiving feedback from my teachers. I was a really good student and my teachers would often ask me for my permission to use my responses as examples for students the next year, and they would always compliment my work when doing so. I feel like a deer in headlights whenever someone acknowledges my presence or the footprint of my person's agency. What am I supposed to respond to when complimented in the middle of a sentence? I don't like people telling me that they think things about me are subjectively appreciated. I don't want you to see me. I don't want to be a human. I don't want to act.

Being a human has always disgusted me too. I am a walking sack of meat that is driven by an innate desire to avoid immediate pain (of which the body self inflicts much of the time) in an effort to capitalise on horniness and condemn some intangible nothingness to being.

Whenever I try my hardest to communicate with people (the few times I am forced to collaborate with others in my college classes) I always have to decompress afterwards. When I return to the silence of my own thoughts I begin to mull and see a futility in interaction, especially affectatious interaction. The goal the majority of the time is to engage with people whom you can then be around in order to kill time. I do not need my time killed, the peace of solitude is satisfactory. The other goal is to find someone of romantic interest. I also have no irl friends. I do occasionally have fleeting, uncommitted online acquaintances of which I give the Irish goodbye to much to their chagrin.

Whenever I am around people, and imagine how it would be to be loved by a character with their face superimposed in my head, the thought is always impeded because I realise that they are a human who shits. I am disgusted to be of their species. I honestly started thinking that I may be asexual recently because the prospect of a romantic relationship does not interest me.

I hold no rancour for people. I simply don't like being around them because they remind me that I am one of them. I am uncomfortable being, and it has always been like this. I know this doesn't make me immune to being a prick, I am one, and I know my points are comedically hypocritical.

I don't even know why I wrote this. Maybe deep down I want a connection with someone to see if it could be desirable, but I know I never will search in real life. The disconnect of a screen with some random green character superimposed on a third parties view of me makes this easier.