First post :)

Hello

I have been diagnosed with SP, during therapy, which i started for other reasons (mostly due to my BDD which was quite pronounced in the past).

I am a philosophy graduate, and a writer. Almost entirely introverted, however i also continue my attempt to become a bit sociable, but on my terms.

Keeping a diary, which has reached over 800 pages for the last 1,5 year, has helped significantly, along with my other notes about myself, at least so that i could examine more carefully my progression from early childhood to today (i am 27 years old).

I do not view, however, SP as a disorder. I view it as part of my personality, and i definately need this personality for my writing/philsoophical work. I have the goal to be able to function differently during my work and then during being with other people, without however creating tentions which would ultimately make me feel insecure about my own self.

My literature is mostly symbolic/allegorical, and also has some themes of horror, since i am interested in examining the emotion of horror/fear.

I am not familiar with this forum, but look forward to reading more of it

Welcome aboard! I'm a neophyte here myself.

I was wondering, how much of your need to isolate relates to your BDD? What form does it take? If you don't mind me asking.

You said you liked to journal. Me too. Have you ever kept a dream journal? I've been keeping one for several years. Recording your dreams is a great way to explore you're subconscious. At the risk of sounding wacko, I've also discovered some psychic ability.

I think it is important to realise that there is Personality Disorder and there is personality type. The biggest difference is wether or not it impacts daily functioning. There are some people with such a severe form of SPD that they are misdiagnosed as autistic.
I consider myself to have Schizoid Personality Type. I can function well in social settings, but prefer my solitude.

Greetings. This is the second time since I've been here that I've seen writing mentioned as a possible way for schizoids to coexist with society, though certainly not an easy one, so I hope it works out for you. I've definitely taken an interest in writing before, but like everything else, lost all motivation before I produced anything substantial.

AC

Hi Layered & Acid

A number of artists were schizoid, including Munch, and possibly Kafka as well. Also in essays about SP i have often seen it mentioned that art plays ussually some role or other in an SP person's life.

I had tried to become sociable, to a degree, while maintaining my deeper focus on my art/philosophical theories, but due to the BDD (which triggered more when i wanted to reach that goal of socialising) i was forced to return to my other state. Nowdays i am not that much hintered by BDD (most of the time i see myself as normal/average looking) and at the same time i am trying to organise my writing/thinking in such a way so that it will not be faced with any threats by socialising (i have been living quite reclusively for some years).

I am interested in dreams too, and at some time had tried to examine the dream state so much that i sunk more towards it, which again interfeared with all of my other issues. I record my dreams from time to time and try to analyse them.

I am also currently continuing an essay about my childhood, which is around 400 pages up to now, but is general (i am very analytic, although ussually this does not make me reach any concrete conclusion). Focusing more on the impression my parents had made on me, though, has trully helped, particularly in regards to BDD, since i have been having that at least since i was 8 years old, although i had developed some way of negating it, and later on i also had something a bit like NPD, although not exactly that either.

However at no point did i really want to be left completely alone, although i can be alone. I am sure that in the future, even if i have a social life, i will still be on my own for days, and my end is to be without the BDD symptoms. SP for me is quite pleasant, since i want to create something important for me in my writing, and i think that i already have produced some interesting pieces, despite so many problems.

One main SP/BDD issue for me has been that upon starting puberty i wanted to be sociable, but up to then i had already created a very set way of looking at others, in effect having created an entire world in which their behaviors had been explained, in ways which predoniminantly were false though (possibly the impression other kids had made on me left me thinking that they do not almost at all possess the ability to be introverted, and therefore i had viewed the world of people as something seperated from me by a gap). So i was in a way split between continuing in my own world of thoughts, or moving myself in that other plane, by acquiering qualities that i had thoughts others had. This presented a threat to my previous personality organisation, but it shows just how far away i viewed the world of others to be from me, since i could never accept that i could function in it as i was.

But now my goal is to function in it as i am, without sacrificing my own personality. Thankfully this has allowed me to focus more on my art too, since it is not under threat by the prospect of living with other people.

Here is a pic of me: http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/5825/bddpicxx9.png

In regards to writing: I recently started reading again (havent done so for at least three months!) and am enjoying it very much Being creative is always beneficial, and reading can also be seen as being creative, since you are the one who is giving life to what you read, so in efect you are really walking inside your own self again, using the signs found in the text, but forming your own corridors for movement inside the text. Although in the past i had some aspirations of becomming a mathematician (and still feel a bit dissapointed from how things turned out) i view writing as my work, and the field in which i can create something fullfilling for me.

Also i was wondering if we could have a sort of literary thread, where we could discuss favourite authors, or post own work?

I think starting a literary thread sounds like a great idea. Maybe focus on famous literary SP's?

I am not sure who was SP though

-From some quotes in his diaries, i could guess that Kafka was indeed SP and also had BDD (although my own projection is always a problem in this cases).

-Then there is Robert Walser, but he appeared to be less analytical, and more childish as well, and at least in his work he appears to be a bit extroverted, although monomaniacal all of the time.

-De Lautreamont obviously had some sort of BDD (always goes on about how hiddeous he is) but i am not sure if he had SP (little known of his life).

-Dostoevsky was too involved in his epilepsy and religious explanations of his life, but the sheer volume of his work probably would require him to be SP. But he definately had a lot of interest in the world of others as well.

-There is the opium-eater, Thomas De Quincy. Not read too much about his life apart from the "confessions of an english opium-eater".

-E.A.Poe seems to have been mostly misanthropic/reclusive. Same with Baudelaire, and to a degree also Flaubert, but none of these three seem to have been as introverted as other authors in this list, at least in my view.

-Hermann Hesse, again, was very involved in metaphysical theories, and it is even more impressive because his work was published after the rise of Psychoanalysis (moreover one of his novels, Demian, was writen in direct reaction to his own psychoanalysis sessions).

This is mostly a list of some of the authors i read from time to time, although i do read also authors who clearly were not SP, like Guy De Maupassant for example.
Perhaps the thread could be about arguing whether or not they really were SP!

Some of my guesses would be Jack Kerouac (spelling?), Emily Dickinson, and Isaac Asimov.