12 ms·
The Schizoid Difference
- PuppyTailWags 4y agoI think part of the difficulty is that there is an assumed notion of an objective reality when it comes to motivations, relationships, and anything else relating to internal experiences. Neurotypical people will find significant overlap with other neurotypical people's internal experiences and therefore assume that's objective fact, and are only exposed to radically different internal experiences in the context of "Crazy", "Psychopath", etc. In fact, as a fellow non-neurotypical person, I see different neurotypical people differ in internal experiences from other neurotypical people all the time (see: introverts vs extroverts, love languages, other pop psychology) but they're just not categorized the same for seemingly arbitrary cultural norm reasons, aka popularity.
- helf 4y agoTbh, the more I have to deal with NTs the more convinced I am that the majority of them do not have much of an inner world or defined personality. There seems to be a complete inability for real introspection or even “third thoughts” as Pratchett liked to call them; thoughts about thoughts.
- foobiekr 4y agoA more likely explanation is that they may choose not to show those thoughts to you.
- helf 4y agoYep. That is clearly it.
- PuppyTailWags 4y agoI would give more of the benefit to NTs; they simply don't have to develop the skill of explaining their own inner workings to the level of neurodivergent people at a complex level. Often times they can speak in a generality and assume the vast majority of their nuance will be captured by their audience, which is a strategy often validated by other neurotypical people. There are plenty of neurotypical people talking about their thinking patterns in the form of pop psychology, horoscopes, MBTI, meditation, YouTube/TikTok cultural commentators, etc. It's just not viewed that way because it's viewed as "normal". But earnestly I don't see a difference between a neurotypical person saying their love language is acts of service and an ADHD person telling me that when they talk at length about their special interest with me it's a sign of psychological safety.
- brnaftr361 4y agoShould we even be using the term "neurotypical"? Like, I don't know a single person that actually suits some magical mean. The term can only possibly represent some abstract, non-existent, unidimensional person. And you can't extract hypothetical expectation sets from the public reliably because they're in constant flux. Maybe social and private dysfunctions, with some degree of overlap, but there's a pretty wide band, which appears to be ever-growing in which a huge variety of internal morphologies can operate. I do think though, that we all too closely observe psychology - itself an instrument with two cutting edges. On one half, you offer support and vindication to some extent, and on the other stigma and hopelessness. If we excised our newfound habit of wanton prognostication - what we're left with is "they're a peculiar sort" and I wonder if that's not - at least in less extreme cases - preferable as it forces us to assess from the ground up the individual rather than some categorical definition which to me reads as something much more just. An end unto themselves.
- PuppyTailWags 4y agoI think neurotypical accurately describes people who don't have neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD, Schizophrenia, or Autism. There are distinct brain architectures involved here; autistics generally have statistically significant reduced brain activity in response to the human face compared to neurotypical people. This is a bit like arguing that because some people learn to read slower than others, or learn to read by sounding out the words vs memorizing consonants, that dyslexia shouldn't be differentiated from non-dyslexic people. Of course you can be varied and neurotypical. There are neurotypical people who focus well and some who struggle with that a bit more. There are some people who struggle to read facial expressions and others that can accurately guess nuances. But that doesn't mean that they're not neurotypical, and that their internal experiences aren't more widely represented and reflected in the cultural norm.
- brnaftr361 4y agoI'm leaning more towards the fact that umbrella terms like "neurotypical" are setting forward something that doesn't exist, and that everyone has some aberrant wiring. I just find that a lot of this tends to boil down to people scree-ing at one another, coming up with broad generalizations, boxing themselves and others... It should be "normal" to be different - 'cause that's the reality, even if you're in the tails. And to be fair, I did add a caveat where... "Clinically" severe cases probably do need some formalities. It just seems like, reading through the DSM, knowing clinical therapists, and having my own deal of insight on these matters that we're (society) actually pathologizing functional people. That we're giving people language and identities to fixate on or to affix onto others and we do it in a way that is inconsistent even at the clinical level.
- mistermann 4y ago> Neurotypical people will find significant overlap with other neurotypical people's internal experiences and therefore assume that's objective fact Wouldn't it be funny if the whole world ran on this phenomenon? And even funnier: if there were large organizations whose duty was to coordinate and normalize people's perceptions of what is going on? I wonder what that would look like in action.
- phkahler 4y ago>> this boundary will always exist, regardless of the amount of therapy, or effort, that is placed upon it. despite the psychological community, or family or friends or partners that could attempt to help. That boundary can be significantly moved or even torn down. Psychologists often don't really understand how to help, so they either ignore it or do other things that may or may not work (or may be harmful). IMHO more writings are needed from those who have made significant improvement in this condition, the clinicians understanding is either too abstract or not correct (SPD is not same as AvPD for example).
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- hackerlight 4y agoWhat should be done to treat it?
- kiicia 4y agoThat’s the neat part, you don’t. Source: I’m decades old, somewhere between SzPD and AvPD. Still officially undiagnosed and not treated for it, despite of years of psychiatrical treatment… I just get antidepressants and anti-generalized-fear drugs (dunno what is proper name) and I’m left alone (literally).
- hackerlight 4y agoDoes having a partner imply not having SzPD? Like would that be sufficient for someone to not qualify for a diagnosis.
- trash3 4y agoSchizoid can be a good partner if compatible. They need solitude though otherwise are significantly more stable than most. A diagnosis proper would require brain mapping. My theory is there is a missing piece of circuitry like a bridge in the reward network of the brain.
- canjobear 4y agoBackground https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder
- DerekBickerton 4y agoWriting or 'stabbing the page with ink' is great and thaws out the ice in your soul, which we all have from time to time. It's ironic and meta that this is a blogpost expressing various feelings, on a matter related to unexpressed emotions. This is why I blog. I feel vulnerable doing so, but my thoughts are not so bottled up. Then I can say: 'I've expressed that already', albeit through a poor channel of a blog, but it's still out there. If it helped at least one person, I've done my job.
- the_only_law 4y agoMy problem with this is that my thoughts are too jumbled and non linear. I can start writing and my mind will jump to something else tangentially relevant and then do that several more times before I realize and struggle to recall where I originally was
- denkmoon 4y agoPracticing writing will help with this. Just write your jumbled thoughts, what you write doesn't necessarily have to be coherent imo.
- elvis19 4y agoThis reminds me of writing „morning pages“. I first heard about it when stumbling upon „The Artists Way“ by Julia Cameron. To get rid of your mental baggage, you should write three pages every morning, she claims. The book is mainly about finding your (lost) inner creativity. But i have generally found that this routine helps to clear blockages in the mind and to become clearer.
- kayodelycaon 4y agoI’m bipolar I’ve spent several lifetimes(1) studying humanity. For many neurotyoical people I’ve interacted with, non-neurotyoical people are an outside context problem. As an asexual person, sexuality is an outside context problem that goes in both directions. Human brains are pattern matching machines. When we interact with other people, we have a mental model for how they think (or should think). That model is built from our internal experience. Without shared internal experience or enough data to imagine it, there will not be true understanding of another’s internal experience. As a result, while I am fortunate to often be accepted for who I am, many people do not understand. Fortunately, I’ve found complete understanding is not required if the other people simply takes what you say at face value. The problem comes in when other people decide they don’t trust you and apply their belief of how you should think instead. Edit 1. For some fun context. :) When I say several lifetimes, I do mean this quite literally. Mania lets one live at a greatly accelerated rate. Mood swings frequently bring extremes of emotion that are experienced only rarely by the average person. It often gives me a deep understanding of how people work. It’s also a curse I’d be very happy trade for ignorance.
- narag 4y agoThe problem comes in when other people decide they don’t trust you and apply their belief of how you should think instead. That is certainly a shared experience.
- Dracophoenix 4y ago> Human brains are pattern matching machines. When we interact with other people, we have a mental model for how they think (or should think). That model is built from our internal experience. Without shared internal experience or enough data to imagine it, there will not be true understanding of another’s internal experience. As a result, while I am fortunate to often be accepted for who I am, many people do not understand. Fortunately, I’ve found complete understanding is not required if the other people simply takes what you say at face value. Doesn't taking people at face value usually result in these misunderstandings in the first place? Many people use language as a signifier of their emotional states rather than as a tool to express objective assessments of reality.
- metacritic12 4y agoI agree that psychologists too readily dismiss people who are weird as having a disorder. Any non-nomrmal behaviour, taken to an extreme, can cause a disorder in the sense that that person can't function (e.g. to keep herself fed and employed). This means unless we literally are the most average person, we all have the starts of a disorder. It does not mean we have a disorder because it's the magnitude that makes it a disorder. Genuine question: in this case, what is in fact the disorder? Reading through the description of Schizoid, they like to be alone, they don't meet people's emotional expectations -- these don't sound like disorders.
- suoduandao2 4y agocommunication becomes impossible in extreme cases - there are too many prior assumptions in a typical conversation between humans for it to occur without the ability to orient in a shared reference frame.
- kayodelycaon 4y agoBehaviors become disorders when they severely affect your ability to function. “In society” is often added. The “in society” is a sticking point for many people because a great many diagnoses are only disorders due to modern society or cultures. Some disorders are largely independent of culture. Severe executive function problems are on par with more visible disabilities. Even if having vision from God are acceptable, a bipolar person will be clearly marked as ”not normal” in any culture.
- GoblinSlayer 4y agoSuch approach assigns disproportionate importance to conformance at the cost of integrity.
- westmeal 4y agoCouldn't have said it better myself.
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
- abhaynayar 4y agoFor some reason I felt that the author was a girl by the writing. And then I checked her other post and it turned out I was right. I wonder what tipped me off. The other post on the blog is also pretty cool. Hard relate. https://eden.bearblog.dev/on-writing/ https://eden.bearblog.dev/on-writing/
- dzink 4y agoCould be the lack of ego. Capitalization is often removed by people who don't want to project a self and instead talk from a point of humility. Inverse of all-caps which is seen as "shouting" and forcing your view on another.
- bckr 4y agoCould it be "eden" was a subtle indicator, as a gendered name?
- GoblinSlayer 4y ago
- Cornelius267 4y agoWhat is wrong with you?
- kuramitropolis 4y agoThat's an obvious one. The more interesting question is, what is wrong with _you_?
- GoblinSlayer 4y agoThat's a meme question, and not even a legitimate one, but forced.
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- sxp 4y agoThe author should have defined the term "schizoid" since it colloquially refers to Schizophrenia rather than Schizoid Personality Disorder. The former involves hallucinations and is also a pejorative used to imply that someone is "crazy". The latter is an extreme form of introversion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder DSM-5 criteria: - Neither desires nor enjoys close relationships, including being part of a family. - Almost always chooses solitary activities. - Has little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences with another person. - Takes pleasure in few, if any, activities. - Lacks close friends or confidants other than first-degree relatives. - Appears indifferent to the praise or criticism of others. - Shows emotional coldness, detachment, or flattened affectivity.
- PuppyTailWags 4y agoSchizophrenia also has disaffected response and reduced emotional affect, btw. Folks who have schizophrenia sometimes considers this more debilitating than hallucinations, because they don't respond to antipsychotics.
- kyleyeats 4y agoIf you're uncomfortable with the term 'schizoid,' you can try medicating the heck out of it and calling it ADHD.
- Cornelius267 4y agoThese are different things. They may share some overlapping symptoms, perhaps even some similar brain changes, but the internal phenomenology of them are quite different. They are not exclusive, but nor are they the same thing.
- kyleyeats 4y agoNo, they're just different words and different times. Schizoids have a false mask they use to interact with others. If we could have, we would have medicated them back then so that they're always presenting with the false mask instead of their "wrong" asocial presentation. That's what ADHD is. We didn't suddenly stop having schizoids and start having a bunch of ADHD people.
- dnfa 4y agoI was diagnosed with spd a few years ago. I shared the diagnosis with a few friends, one of whom is a therapist, and they honestly thought it was a misdiagnosis because I don't always have a flat affect, can show happiness, etc. But honestly I loved being diagnosed because I could really identify with what I read about the disorder. What is described here is something I also struggle with - the obligation to explain my worldview to others. Sometimes there is no way around it, because the more you withdraw to avoid voicing your opinion, the more guilt you can feel for somehow being sneaky or dishonest. I also don't know if sharing the 'why' would really help. What I see as matter-of-fact can make others extremely sad. Either way, it's interesting to think about. Thanks for sharing.
- GoblinSlayer 4y agoEmotional coldness is when you react calmly to inflammatory statements that normies can't withstand.
- intelVISA 4y agoSelf-control is pathological
- GoblinSlayer 4y agoMore like a legitimate failure to react to illegitimate stimulus. It underperforms when not honest. In any case the definition explicitly talks about appearances and expressions, not feelings.
- mikrl 4y agoHow did you start down the diagnosis pathway? My friend feels like the symptoms (clinical and social) fit her to a T, has felt depersonalized for most of her adult life, and often feels the need to explain and rationalize her experience to perplexed onlookers. My friend also passes somewhat well in society but feels like she has ‘generalized impostor syndrome’ ie towards people in general, not just in the workplace.
- gatonegro 4y agoThis was interesting. The writing is hard to follow, but I understand perfectly well what it's trying to say. Sounds like the type of ramble I'd go on inside my own mind when I was younger. I'm still annoyed by the absolute nonsense in which we live in, and I'm thoroughly baffled to see that most people just go with it—or worse, see it as logical—but I'm trying now to be at peace with said nonsense. I figure it's the best I can do, since we're unable to find a compromise.
- openfuture 4y agoThe mind is the sixth sense, I like to call it the nonon because that is how it ideally functions.
- w0de0 4y agoStrikingly absent from the piece, and in my experience from similar memoirs generally, is an explicit attempt at constructing general or specific theories of mind. Much may be relieved by turning one's conceptual skill to the task of modeling another's experience. This is best done with empathy's aid, which is most difficult to find when fixated on one's own emotions. ("Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.")
- closedloop129 4y ago>what is creating this boundary? is it merely the withdrawing of the self My armchair answer is that this is creating the boundary. There is no 'merely'. People want to interact with a self. >within your sense of self, as it’s building, you are being told to take apart, to dismantle, as it is being inappropriately build to their standards. That's how society works. People have adjusted their self to fit in, they expect the same from everybody else.
- gnarbarian 4y agoharsh but true. society, family, culture, work, a baseball game etc. Each of these social structures comes with a whole host of expectations and rules that make that structure work. we routinely sacrifice our internal desires to meet these expectations. generally because we accept that we are all better off when we sacrifice a little for the good of the whole. I think the really interesting thing is that these things can all work when people have vastly different motivations for participating. for an example with baseball, Joe may like the thrill of a well oiled team making a double play while frank lives to score and hit the ball. both Frank and Joe hate getting up to practice. we don't all need to have the same motivations to make the team work, the only thing that is needed is for the participants to understand the team is necessary to get what they want out of it.
- Cornelius267 4y ago> That's how society works. People have adjusted their self to fit in, they expect the same from everybody else. This makes it seem like a personal failing of the person who is experiencing this disconnect, like the author. Neuroscience shows that this is not the case, and that those with schizoid personality disorders have true physiological and neurological differences. I hope that you didn't intend to make this into some sort of judgment on the person for failing to "adjust themselves to fit in," because that is a huge part of the judgment that this author is feeling and trying to describe.
- engineeringwoke 4y ago> Neuroscience shows that this is not the case, and that those with schizoid personality disorders have true physiological and neurological differences. Sure, but you assume that the physiological and neurological differences exist in themselves when you could also say that are causal, due to the abuse/neglect. The effects on ones mind from negative life experiences would have to have a physical manifestation in the brain in order to create the patterns of disordered behavior of course. If they are caused by negative life experiences, then they could also be reversible.
- helf 4y agoAugh! Why the lack of capitalization but intact punctuation?
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- machina_ex_deus 4y agoMake a mental model of which people can understand which things. Understand what topics they are even interested in. Understand how disinterested person reacts and know when to stop, and understand how an interested person react and know when you can share. Ask people if they are interested in what you're saying. Check their attention. Check their understanding. Understand which people simply don't have the mental capacity to understand difficult topics and just avoid discussing it with them. Understand which people are judging topics emotionally and avoid trying to reason with them logically because it's pointless. Don't try to drop everything all at once, understanding is gradual. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. You might have great mental models of the "world" but lack in mental models of other people. Some rational people have really undeveloped emotional reasoning, because they don't use it for themselves, but still use their own emotional reasoning for understanding other people. You can rationally understand other people even if they are irrational themselves.
- nmeofthestate 4y agoI'd never heard about this type of disorder until I did one of those "what personality disorder do you have" and it told me I had this. After reading up on it I reckon the diagnosis, despite coming from an internet quiz, was pretty accurate. It seems virtually invisible compared to the "fashionable" disorders we hear so much about online, that have vocal advocates and even clout-chasing tiktok'ers. When I read about treatment, I got the impression that it's considered to be untreatable and neither doctors/sufferers not are that bothered. But I wonder if that, and its "invisibility", isn't to some extent due to the nature of the problem.
- _k7dr 4y agoPersonally I would think so. Some people don't want to be bothered, but if they aren't bothered then they don't become statistics. It's interesting to think that no matter what TikTok advocacy movements appear, there could be a subset of individuals for whom the advocacy would never reach, and it's supposed to be that way. Hardly anyone thinks of the invisible, mainly what is passed in front of their eyes. If letting their conditions be heard for the purpose of having them fit in only serves to exacerbate the problem, given that the problem is the perception of needing to conform to have any chance of acceptance from the outside, then I can imagine an advocacy movement for such a demographic wouldn't be able to sustain itself. It has been shown that the perception of preferential choices like those of sexual orientation can be changed if the cultural timing is right. Behavioral advocacy stemming from immutable brain structure could be harder, if not infeasible in some cases, especially if you'd be advocating for people who wouldn't want to interact with you after putting in all that work advocating for them.
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- 1MachineElf 4y agoThis is the kind of stuff I obsess over for hours - after vaping too much Delta 9 triggers a long bout of paranoia.
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