Has anything worked?

by **Rob_Roid** » Wed Apr 17, 2013 8:01 am

I have a lot of social anxiety, so my psychologist suggested "Intentional mistake therapy".

The idea here is that you go out into the general public and intentionally make a fool of yourself.

Examples: Intentionally trip in front of someone.

-Make your hand tremble when paying a clerk for something.

-Ask someone where a store is, when you are standing right in front or very close to that store.

-Ask someone for directions...and then ask them to repeat the directions.

-Wear mismatching socks in public.

-Hum or sing loudly to yourself within earshot of strangers.

Well, you get the idea. I was given a list of about 30 to try out.

It was hell for me to try these things. However I did do some of them for about a week (every day).

The anxiety I felt before trying some of these things is indescribable.

After that week, I was more confident, feeling able to cope easier with lifes demands, and generally feeling pretty good about myself.

I stopped doing these excercises thinking that these 'good' feelings would continue.

Boy, was I wrong. After a few days of ceasing these excercises, my default 'schizoid' thoughts came roaring back.

I think persistence is the key. However, I could not put up with the anxieties associated with continually performing those 'excersises'.

Rob_Roid wrote:
Examples: Intentionally trip in front of someone.

-Make your hand tremble when paying a clerk for something.

-Ask someone where a store is, when you are standing right in front or very close to that store.

-Ask someone for directions...and then ask them to repeat the directions.

-Wear mismatching socks in public.

-Hum or sing loudly to yourself within earshot of strangers.

I do all these things all the time without even thinking. Except not intentionally. I once asked a random frenchman for directions to the eiffel tower when I was one block away from it (couldn't see it cause a building was in the way, but i knew I was in the right area). He thought I was joking.
My socks rarely ever match. I don't see why people insist on matching socks. As long as they're the same length and thickness and general texture (so you personally don't feel a difference on your feet) then why does it matter if they're actually a pair? People always feel the need to inform me that my socks don't match. And ask me why I never bother to find matching pairs of socks. I think it's a waste of time, so I tell them that I'd rather spend my time in bed with their mom than in the laundry room pairing socks.

by **jbd** » Wed Apr 17, 2013 9:29 pm

I started therapy once my need to avoid social interaction started having anxiety like effects. Like if I had to go somewhere I would wait to leave until my neighbor would go inside so I wouldn't have to say hello. I found therapy to be useful just because the social interaction was useful.

I seem to have a different experience with emotions compared to some in this thread. I consider myself to actually be hypersensitive. I degrade family and friends in order to deal with that hypersensitivity. If I view everyone the same emotional detachment becomes a vital survival tool. If you view, or more accurately value, all people the same you will deal with never ending grief without the emotional detachment. Every death you see on the news will hurt. The challenge for me is try and bring those emotions back out and deal with the vulnerability that comes with it. I think that idea of intentionally embarrassing yourself in public would actually be really helpful to me for this reason.

by **15407** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 5:02 am

Yes, but it means accommodating something that all SPDs will find distinctly unpalatable: interacting with people.

This method only yields results after years of diligent study, and the moment your purpose begins to flag, the SPD appears again in full bloom.

You know all of the horrible #######4 that norms like to do? All those horrifically unappealing social activities. All congealed together in their odious social settings with gormless expressions of rapture etched into their faces. Well, that’s what you have to do too.

You have to get out there, and get connected.

In ten years time, I’ve progressed from the stage where I was a complete wastrel-almost a feral child-to someone who is now as dashing and as charming as Fred Astaire in “Swing Time”.

by **Obumbrata** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 5:14 am

Thanks for these wonderful new additions to my vocabulary. I'll try to work "gormless" and "wastrel" into a conversation. Or maybe as an insult? "Shut up you gormless wastrel!"

by **A. Minimalist** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 2:58 am

Lots of good advice in this thread, and I also find dealing with people in general to be a royal pain in the ass.

Just having a hard time adjusting to life in general, because of the chaos of the last couple years of my life. I can't seem to find any stability other than how I feel better when I am alone with noone else around to bother or hassle me.

I have been seeing a therapist, about once every couple weeks or once a month and she has been helping me pretty well, but its not going far enough. She has suggested medication, but I've had bad reactions to it in the past and am not really interested in taking it again, but I feel like I have no other options left. Depression and anxiety are all all time high levels for me and have left me almost completely helpless, and the depression used to only bother me every once in a while, but is now happening daily. :cry:

by **Blackthorn** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 4:50 am

The only things that really help me out are group activities.

Not group therapy (that $#%^ was useless).

I use to be in karate growing up, I've been in a dance group (shut up or I'll use my karate to kick your ass dudes), last year I joined a hiking group. Something about being in social situations revolving around something other than being part of the group (I hate parties) makes it easier to socialize when you want to and back off when you don't/can't.

by **pit** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 9:33 pm

flora wrote:I've had 3 months of 2 fulltime days a week of observation and therapy. At first i had no clue if it helped but i have a lot more confidence than i had before that. Almost completely lost my anxiety now. I'm pretty certain i will not change how i live because this is what i want for myself, i need no relationship, i don't want to work in a place with many people and i don't want to live very near to other people. These ae the only three things i need in life, and its a real challenge, i can't deny that. This is what i want for me, not because i think i can't do it, but thats the way i want it. I'm focussing on realizing a life with minimal contact but with a number of things i will be doing that don't interfere with my harmony. In that respect i feel realy lucky i'm not in a relationship or a work situation atm and can pretty much do whatever i like in whatever direction i choose. Therapy was a big help to battle my depression by changing how i look at myself, stopping to see myself as a victim and beginning to see myself as someone who has potential. I have seen for the first time how people see me. I am creative, i am intelligent, i am taking excellent care of myself, i am living absolutely debtfree, i am perfectly capable of living as i want. I am in control. What you GET out of therapy (group in my case) is a mirror and tools to re-engage your life without much help. I highly recommend it to anyone, but if you don't open your hands to receive the tools, they will fall to the floor, no matter how much they try to give them to you. In the end, it all comes down to you to make that choice to be helped and to refurnish your life YOURSELF. No one can do it for you.

As for meds, i've been off antidepressants for 4 months now and i don't feel i need them anymore. I don't feel powerless and i'm not going back to the abyss. The cause is gone, not because the meds cured me, but because i changed my MIND. I'm not putting up with it anymore. The meds pulled me through just enough so i could get back on my feet and carry myself. I'm gonna keep walking.

Love your spirit, Flora

by **wickerwoman** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 7:27 am

I don't think I've come across anyone with SPD who is genuinely happy. I hope I'm wrong, but it seems like the best we can hope for is to be emotionally numb rather than depressed, and it seems like any sort of sustained, long-term happiness is completely out of our grasp.

I've never come across anyone full stop who was genuinely happy for any kind of sustained, long-term period. Maybe normal people have a few highers highs but they also have a lot lower lows.

I'm totally happy in my own world. The only thing that makes me unhappy is having to leave it and deal with other people to earn a living, pay rent and put food on the table. If I had enough money to be a complete hermit, I would be totally happy all the time.

by **inkblotter** » Fri Sep 14, 2018 7:25 am

I was diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder at 17. I started therapy immediately along with medication. Its been 5 years of treatment now and I can say without a doubt that I am not any less schizoid than I was 5 years ago. So in that sense nothing worked.

What therapy did for me was help me understand myself better. Through therapy, I learned more about SPD and learned more about what i like and dislike. I still have SPD in its full bloom but now I have a sort of self confidence that I did not have when i was 17.

My family thinks i can be cured which i find a bit annoying but now i am quite self confident that their inability to understand me no longer fazes or shakes me. I no longer feel like an outcast. I am what I am and I like it. In one way i managed to achieve a sort of peace of mind even though i have SPD livivng in an environment where people think im sick or something.

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