My story.

Hello everyone.

My name is Vlad and while browsing around wikipedia.org I came across "Schizoid Personality Disorder." After inspection, I thought to myself that this describes me quite well and I laughed at the idea that it was acually labled as some type of disorder.

I am currently a senior in high school, I am also attending a vocational school and majoring in computer repair and networking and I have an internship setting up networks at local school districts. Last year during my adolecent development I began to explore the social interactions of human beings, I read a book by Robert Greene called "The 48 Laws of power" and it was a book that was meant to show people the many variables involved in success in society, past and present.

After reading this book I began to explore this social dynamic and used these "Laws" to attempt finding shortcuts to personal gain. After much "exploration" I found myself depressed, and afraid. I did not know who I was. I saw this as a steping stone to human development and thought that everyone goes through this type of phase.

But it was one day that changed me and is the foundation of the person I am today. I was quite upset one weekend that I wasn't in brooklyn where I grew up and hanging out with my friends, and talking online to someone I mentioned that I was quite angry, that anger that someone gets that you can feel in your gut, that same anger that you just want to express any way you can, I felt like a ticking time bomb. This person recommended that I put this negitive energy into something productive like running. I took her advice and I ran to a park at the edge of a lake not far away from my house and sat on the rocks by the edge of the lake and looked out at the water. It was then when I began to think deeply about my current situation, and then I was distracted.

I was distracted by the joy i felt alone on this rock looking into the water and the seaguls flying around me. I began to think about how wonderful this is and how i havent felt this good for a long time, and the only thing that caused this was my solitude. I thought about how ignorant people are about themselves and everything in general, and how they search endlessly for happiness in a materialistic society governed by the idea that success is defined by luxurious attachments, wealth, and attractive partners. I began to feel that all my life ive been trapped in a prison that works to inhibit my ideas and i felt seperated from my soul, I felt as though I was just part of a machine feeding evil into a materialistic society. I felt like all my life I have been a slave trying to escape, and that now I am beggining to see the road to freedom.

I began to look towards buddhism, and from there I saw many simularities to other religions and I began to study them all. I was frequently visitig book stores, and buying religious books like the Lotus sutra, Bhagavad Gita, Qur'an, Tao Te Ching, and more. As I began to unravel this extremly tangled mess of distinctions I could see past sheer ignorance and I was well into the path of self discovery. Ive grown less fond of friends, even though through my studies I believe that I am quite educated in the many aspects of social interaction, I see less and less necesity for it. I began to see the hidden messages in literature and movies and began to explore them.

I was and still am horrible in algebra and when my high school gave me a series of tests they found that my mathamatic ability is quite pathetic, even with a calculator, yet one of the tests was a series of blocks that were colored 2 sides red, 2 sides white, and 2 sides red and white devided along a diagonal border, from corner to corner. The test was that I had to assemble these blocks to match a picture of the red pattern on a paper, the picture did not indicate how the blocks were seperated, this had to be figured out on your own. So they started the test and it started with 2 blocks and moved up to around 20. I thought to myself that this has to be some sort of test for idiots, and I finished the test. My mother later told me that the school psychologist talked to her and said that they have never seen anyone complete all the pictures with no mistakes, and in the fastest time they have ever seen. They said that I'm more of a person that tends to see the big picture.

I believe this is why I chose an occupation involving computers, Im very good with them.

Ive had girlfriends, but they were always 2 or 3 years older than me, I always tended to stay away from sexual activity. Even thou at my age and with the crowd I was with It wasnt that hard for me to have sex with someone, but all the times that something was beginning to happen between me and a girl, I always stopped it. My excuse was that I dont think that I can meet a girl that can relate to me at this age because I see myself at a higher stage of mental development than the rest of my age group and I thought that the girls I know arent yet at the level where I can comfirtably interact with them, and I thought that I would have to wait untill im older and that they had matured to a level of comfirtable interaction and a state of mutual understanding. But as time passed I began to see that I dont think I will simply operate better sexually once I wait for the females in my age group to get to a higher state of human development, Nor do I see the necesity for sexual pleasure, and how I should have to wait for someone to "catch up" with my state of consiousness.

I've grown very uncomfirtable with my friends, and generally social interaction. I believe that it completly inhibits my thoughts and is a lie, and everyone around me is lying to me, to each other, and most importantly to themselves. I cant stand lying to myself and to other people and I know when I do it, And ive been more truthful to myself and to other people and I can read myself and people like a book now, and when im honest with them about myself they dont understand and react with hostility.

I do sincierly yearn for people that can understand me, my ideas, my way of thinking and examining myself. The problem is that there are too few people out there. Ive tried many forums, mostly Buddhist or Taoist, to find people in simmular situations, But everyone takes my opinions for granted given my age of 16 and they dont know themselves at all, they arent who they say they are and they are so caught up with all these delusions that group after group I'm forced to retreat.

After finding out about "SPD" earlier today I looked in on it explained my personality very well, I'm obviously not diagnosed seeing that I have discovered this "label" earlier today, and I could care less if someone who has the authority to to stamp people with distinctions stamps me with "SPD."

My point is that I came to this forum to find people that can relate to me, and I hope I found people. I want to interact with people that I can share ideas with, people that dont raise an eyebrow and when a Belarusian born, Brooklyn Raised, Eastern-Orthadox Christian is carrying a copy of the Qur'an just so he can get some knowledge into his head. I want to know people that if im honest to them they wont respond with fear and confusion, And I hold on to that last ounce of seemingly pointless hope that drives people to do what they do, that I can find that, no matter how long it takes

Thats why im posting here today.

I care to hear other peoples thoughts, and seeing that the posters on these forums are a older, to share their expieriences when they were at the age I'm in now.

I also left my AIM screen name and email available if anyone wants to have a conversation.

Thank you for reading this.
-Vlad

Hello, Vlad. I think it is very good that you are interested in seeking knowledge on your own. I suppose one might call it a path of enlightenment. Of course, when you are prepared to look beyond the bounds of convention, you get to see the big picture, but most people prefer to wear blinkers.

I suspect you will come to see religion as just another blinkered comfort-zone that people cling to.

I suspect you will come to see religion as just another blinkered comfort-zone that people cling to.[/quote]

I can clearly see the reason for such a statement. Religion uninterpreted is in itself used as a comfort-zone as you said. But I do label myself as having any relegion. Through religious texts I found much philosophy that has helped me look into myself. Through these books I can see exactly what is implied, because its not literal at all. Religion for the most part is quite symbolic. I do not go to a place to practice any worship, because I believe that is indeed a "comfort-zone." I also believe that people have completly misinterpreted it so much and has become the mess of distinctions that we see now. What I get out of these texts isnt false virtue, but i get out of these texts what artists get out of art.

Today it is unfourtunate to say that you are very correct in your statement, and I have already seen this. But I tend to have faith, I get the fact. The same fact that you can find in the bible can be found in the tao te ching, which is mostly philosophy.

I believe that if anyone took some real time out to try to figure out what faith is and what all these supposed prophets were trying to say, and look passed the distincions imposed to us by some self-proclaimed authority, we can find ourselves on a road to self discovery. Not seeking to be like these prophets, but to in fact seek for what they sought.

I do not go to a place to practice any worship

Do you worship? If so, why?

I dont worship, I have no reason to pray for anything or to worship, nor do i see the necesity. I dont really want that much. its just false virtue imposed upon people by people as a incorrect doctrine, In fact I see the word religion more as an advanced philosophical interface. I dont get the image of people praying and wearing robes and looking at icons and statues, I see a higher level of consiousness that the majority is ignorant of.

Okay, now I'm interested. To be conscious is to be conscious of something, so what is it that this higher consciousness is conscious of? We are conscious through perception, so what is it that you perceive that others can't?

I perceive what everyone is capable of, but the problem with everyone is that majority is ignorant, and they ignore the truth, they instead of being true to themselves and to others, they live in all of these delusions of what they think is good, and they have all these material desires. They are so seperate from their own souls. They lie to themselves, they lie to other people, their entire life is a big lie. What they fail to see is the truth.

What they fail to see is the truth.

Okay, give me the truth in two sentences.

I have the two best sentences to describe the truth in the words of Lao Tzu

The tao that can be spoken is not the eternal tao
The tao that can be named it not the eternal name

Ok, the language here will be difficult. I think what you are saying is that enlightenment comes when we realise that there is no shared moral truth. The tao cannot be spoken because it is not applicable in a shared context. Everyone has their own tao. Is this a fair characterisation of it?