Another generic 'Am I Schizoid?' post. (It's long folks.)

I feel certain that I have SPD and I can relate VERY strongly to over 95% of your post and the other posts in this thread.
I hear what you are saying on relationships too. Knowing that you couldnt put up with anything less than a near-perfect match for you, and at the same time feeling that such a person does not deserve to be subjected to your cold emptiness. The dull sense of loss you feel after being around people with whom you think a relationship could possibly work.

I went out with a girl a few times. After a short period of time I became a bit of a prick toward her. Reverting to my usual self, trying to drive away the annoyance of social contact. I've felt bad about it, but when I met her again a good while later, I reacted in the same cold prickly manner.

I do this to some degree to everyone in my life. With the ones closest like my family I try much harder not to be too harsh, but without down time away from these people, I get more and more agitated, and shorter and shorter of temper with them.

Birthdays, Christmas, and gift giving/receiving are all right there too. Even good gifts or things I wanted make me uncomfortable.

At parties or get-togethers I rarely do more than sit and stare at a wall until whoever dragged me there takes my cues to leave. Or if I'm not with anyone, until I can sneak out. 21 is the drinking age where I am. I took my birthday off but still went into work when they called because they were short people - I had nothing else to do and no one I wanted to do it with.

I have one friend - who I suspect may have the same or similar personality type/disorder as me. And a very small handful of acquaintances with whom I will hang out but never call or talk to without being invited. Even then it's a chore. I often go weeks without contact with my friend or acquaintances.

Something I would have thought would have nothing to do with this, but maybe it does. I too play first person shooters online and am quite good. One of the best if not the best on the servers I frequent. I wont join a clan though. I wont even associate with the one all my local buddies/acquaintances set up. The same thing, nice at first, being non committal about it, then just ignoring, as if I didnt see the messages to me.


I too have things about myself that I dislike. I always thought that these things might be the source of my issues. Holding me back, keeping me inside my shell. I figured one day I would overcome these issues and be "normal." Well now I know better. There is no shell for me, only SPD. I havent been hiding from anything, and I've been suppressing far less than I had imagined. I always thought I couldnt cry because I suppressed my emotions too much. I no longer feel that this is the case. I havent been able to cry since I was a kid and cried about things like a scraped knee or getting yelled at by parents.

One thing that sticks out in my mind that makes sense now but previously made me feel like a bad person or that something was wrong with me was my aunts diagnosis with cancer and eventual death. Everyone in my family encouraged me to go visit her because she may not be around for much longer. I didnt want to because I knew I would feel nothing and have to fake caring about her. She passed away a short time later. I knew I should be at the funeral to give support to my family, especially my dad who lost his little sister. I couldnt sympathize with him or support him in any meaningful way. Not only that, but I stayed home from the funeral simply because it was my only chance to have the house to myself for 3 days. I used the excuse of not wanting to miss class so close to finals. It felt so selfish then, but I understand better now why I did it.

Praise makes me uncomfortable. I shrug it off like it was nothing. Same with criticism. I can take insults directly meant to rile me up and blow them off like werent even talking about me. Or I'll chuckle and say "whatever" and look at them as if they just made the most pointless and childish insult one could think of.

Like so many others here, I have struggled to find myself throughout my entire life. Never finding more than tiny shards of understanding amongst other people or through self reflection or minuscule bits of writing that you can truly relate to. It's a little mind blowing to stumble onto this forum and read the posts, feeling an instant bond with the members here, as if nearly every post could have been written by your own hand. Knowing exactly what is being conveyed by each and every person, having lived the experience a thousand times over.

Joel Overbeck wrote:Don't beat yourself up, man. If someone discovers he only can get it up thinking about little boys, but he restrains these urges and raises a family and becomes a respectable citizen, is he a bad person?

Yes, this is an issue I mull over often. The example I use when thinking about this idea is a man who strongly desires to murder people, but is able to keep himself in check due to a sense of duty in terms of the society he lives in.

So, is morality about doing what you think you ought to do (or what everybody says you ought to do), or is it about being a certain type of person? To put it another way, how do the ethics of virtue and the ethics of duty relate to each other? One could argue that in an ideal world, what you do would be a direct expression of your character as a person. However, as you’ve already stated, it's obvious that people sometimes restrain themselves from doing certain things (or force themselves to do certain things) in order to meet the norms of society.

I heard the other day that the ideal person would be one who has developed their character in such a way that they naturally and easily follow the rules. I pondered this for a while, and although I'm appreciative of the fact that it might be a blissful existence, knowing what I know now, I would probably be unwilling to embrace this form of 'ignorance' (is that the right word?) if it was somehow offered to me in the form of a new personality. And who gets to decide what the rules are anyway? But I’m sure you get the point; it’s likely that I’m preaching to the congregation here.

Anyway, it's obvious that morality is a horribly complex and contentious issue, so I won’t waffle on much more except to say that I accept your point. My only problem is that whilst I understand what you’re saying (I have had similar ideas myself), I can't seem to apply this knowledge to my own life and use it to accept myself. However, having said that, I believe I can finally reconcile with myself on this topic due to my SPD 'enlightenment'. Does that make sense?

Joel Overbeck wrote:When my sister came home one night so drunk she almost died of alcohol poisoning, I remember I thought "damn it, now I’ll have to stop reading to help her".

I've had an amazingly similar experience. A while ago my Aunt and Uncle were staying with me because my Aunt had come to town for an operation on her wisdom teeth. In the middle of the night she woke up and started to complain about having trouble breathing. It turned out that she had experienced some form of delayed reaction to an anaesthetic and her oesophagus was severely swollen. In the end, I had to drive them both to the hospital because I was the only one who knew the way. My instant reaction (in my head of course) was, 'What does this have to do with me? I’m trying to watch a movie on my computer here.' At the time I felt little or no sense of concern or urgency; I only experienced annoyance and anger because my night was interrupted. Thinking back, I was also quite awkward and uncomfortable in the face of my Uncle's maudlin concern.

Anyway, it was only days after the fact that I learned of her well-being via second-hand information. The conclusion I draw from this is that I obviously didn't care enough to think about ringing anyone and asking how she was. Moreover, later that week my Mother made a point to thank me for driving them in, but I was dismissive and short with her.

Joel Overbeck wrote:…but you can choose to do good or bad things, and those will define you.

I agree, but I am resentful of the fact that I appear to face more of these choices than 'normal' people do, if only due to my seeming preference for supine behaviour. This comes with the territory of course, but that doesn’t make it any less arduous.

Joel Overbeck wrote:We can’t help it. We could force ourselves to deliver hugs and smiles to everyone we care about, but in the end of the day we would feel so fatigued we could end up hurting them more. There's a limit to how much you can do having good intentions. In a couple of weeks you’ll feel so drained that you’ll convince yourself that they deserve to put up with your cranky self because you wouldn’t feel like that if you hadn't sacrificed for their well-being. I know what you mean though, and I felt like you for a good amount of years. But if we really care about these people, they don’t deserve a 'fake' us, nor acted emotions. We can’t change our core being. If you force yourself to live like the 'normal' person you should become, you won’t be neither him nor yourself. There’s only madness down that path.

Sage advice.

The thing is, I don't even try to be normal around my family anymore. Actually, I never really tried in the first place. The old saying 'you always hurt the ones you love' seems to be applicable. My original comment is accurate in that I do sometimes feel guilty about treating them this way, but for me, this guilt has yet to effectively influence me and produce a measurable change in my behaviour.

Joel Overbeck wrote:…because normal people use emotions to win an argument. They just have to cry, or to tell you they can’t help it, to throw every reason out the window.

Indeed. I especially hate it when people become all indignant and declare that it's only their opinion.

Joel Overbeck wrote:Before I got involved with my now ex girlfriend, I never cried. I can’t remember when I did it for the last time, at least. I've cried for the loss of the connection, but mostly I cry when a work of art touches me. That is, when I contemplate beauty. I can get wet-eyed when I think about the 'truths' of life, when I adquire some knowledge I’ve had to try hard to understand and such. But almost never out of sadness. I don’t think I really know what that is.

I’ve experienced 'wet eyes' a few times when the lead roles in a TV series I used to watch finally ending up marrying after years of struggling to be together. (I sometimes re-watch it to torture myself. I’m masochistic like that.) These types of scenes usually do not affect me all that much, but at that moment, it really hit me that there is a very good chance I will never have a comparable experience. A part of me desires some form of meaningful connection with a woman, but the other part knows that I am largely incompatible and intolerant when it comes to relationships. There is a distinct, internal conflict within me that will be difficult, if not impossible, to ameliorate.

I call this entire experience 'sadness'. Would I be correct in assuming that 'little affectivity' does not imply that experiencing emotions is in direct conflict with SPD? That’s how I interpret it anyway. I can feel sad when I think about the aforementioned scenario, but not many other things as of yet have affected me in such an intense way.

Joel Overbeck wrote:It's a matter of interpretation, I think. I like beautiful women, but I don’t like being in front of them. It could be because they might ignite an emotional reaction in the form of libido, and I hate not being in control of myself. But if those people yelled, laughed and such around me, I would need to get out of there. Not because I don’t feel I deserve it, but because my brain can’t stand that unpredictability. It leaves me empty, completely drained, dizzy even. A low self-steem would suggest that interpretation, but I’ve had a higher self-steem than the "if you don’t like me, leave me the hell alone" attitude I have now and even then I wanted to disappear whenever I fell among these kind of people.

For me it is low self-esteem. But I can work on that now.

Of course I’m not saying that if I had high self-esteem I would still want to be there, because I probably wouldn’t, but my feelings of worthlessness can definitely play into it how I perceive the situation.hanks for replying.

Hi CVD,

I don't have it in me to write much more (I've used up most of my quota for a while), but I just wanted to say that I read your post and I recognise a lot of similarities.

CVD wrote:I went out with a girl a few times. After a short period of time I became a bit of a prick toward her. Reverting to my usual self, trying to drive away the annoyance of social contact. I've felt bad about it, but when I met her again a good while later, I reacted in the same cold prickly manner.

I've never come close to involving myself with a girl, but I can see myself doing exactly as you have done. I almost innately know that's how I would behave, and it probably wouldn't even matter if the she was the most understanding and decent woman in the world.

I crave and push away at the same time. (And let's not forget that I'm yet to factor in how my partner - as a separate individual with her own needs and wants that should be fulfilled - would react to my subdued emotions, seeming indifference, and regular need for solitude.) It's a real double-whammy.

CVD wrote:I too have things about myself that I dislike. I always thought that these things might be the source of my issues. Holding me back, keeping me inside my shell. I figured one day I would overcome these issues and be "normal." Well now I know better. There is no shell for me, only SPD. I havent been hiding from anything, and I've been suppressing far less than I had imagined. I always thought I couldnt cry because I suppressed my emotions too much. I no longer feel that this is the case. I havent been able to cry since I was a kid and cried about things like a scraped knee or getting yelled at by parents.

It's very liberating and somewhat disheartening at the same time, at least for me.

CVD wrote:One thing that sticks out in my mind that makes sense now but previously made me feel like a bad person or that something was wrong with me was my aunts diagnosis with cancer and eventual death(...)

I really identified with what you wrote in this paragraph.

CVD wrote:Like so many others here, I have struggled to find myself throughout my entire life. Never finding more than tiny shards of understanding amongst other people or through self reflection or minuscule bits of writing that you can truly relate to. It's a little mind blowing to stumble onto this forum and read the posts, feeling an instant bond with the members here, as if nearly every post could have been written by your own hand. Knowing exactly what is being conveyed by each and every person, having lived the experience a thousand times over.

That's a very nice way of putting it, thank you.

Misanthropy wrote:I’ve experienced 'wet eyes' a few times when the lead roles in a TV series I used to watch finally ending up marrying after years of struggling to be together. (I sometimes re-watch it to torture myself. I’m masochistic like that.) These types of scenes usually do not affect me all that much, but at that moment, it really hit me that there is a very good chance I will never have a comparable experience. A part of me desires some form of meaningful connection with a woman, but the other part knows that I am largely incompatible and intolerant when it comes to relationships. There is a distinct, internal conflict within me that will be difficult, if not impossible, to ameliorate.

I call this entire experience 'sadness'. Would I be correct in assuming that 'little affectivity' does not imply that experiencing emotions is in direct conflict with SPD? That’s how I interpret it anyway. I can feel sad when I think about the aforementioned scenario, but not many other things as of yet have affected me in such an intense way.

I know exactly what you mean here. I often latch on to books, shows, movies, or songs that make me feel sad. It seems to be one of the only things I can feel more strongly than other emotions, so I seek it out because it's at least something. However I can never really feel this way towards other people, except as previously mentioned, due to the loss of a relationship I'll never have. That may be the SPD, or depression, or both combined.
Still though, I cant really cry. I know I'll find something that does it, but for now it seems just out of reach. In the last 10 years I have had a single tear roll down my cheek. And that was while watching a sad movie, trying to cry.

I was going to make a thread about it. I think a lot of us revert to books, movies, music, etc. while we are alone, because that is the only way we can really feel much, through fantasy. I think I will make a thread on the topic tomorrow night when I have some more time.

Anyway, I cant tell you that you have SPD, but I can certainly tell you that you're one of us and you belong here.

CVD wrote:I know exactly what you mean here. I often latch on to books, shows, movies, or songs that make me feel sad. It seems to be one of the only things I can feel more strongly than other emotions, so I seek it out because it's at least something. However I can never really feel this way towards other people, except as previously mentioned, due to the loss of a relationship I'll never have. That may be the SPD, or depression, or both combined.
Still though, I cant really cry. I know I'll find something that does it, but for now it seems just out of reach. In the last 10 years I have had a single tear roll down my cheek. And that was while watching a sad movie, trying to cry.

this kind of relates too - i actually cry at things on telly or in films quite a bit. i realise it's pathetic and i don't mean to do it but if i see someone on tv who's crying, it sets me off. i don't *feel* anything, it just happens spontaneously.

when i cry at tv or fllms, it's more a physical thing than an emotional connection, but at least i can cry at those. real life is a totally different story.

In the last 10 years I have had a single tear roll down my cheek. And that was while watching a sad movie, trying to cry.

I was going to make a thread about it. I think a lot of us revert to books, movies, music, etc. while we are alone, because that is the only way we can really feel much, through fantasy. I think I will make a thread on the topic tomorrow night when I have some more time.

I can have a few tears rolling down my cheeks if I let myself, but I can stop quite quickly if I want to and I can suppress this emotion if there are others in the room. I personally define 'true' crying as becoming a sobbing, wailing, and hiccuping mess, and that is a state I am unable to reach at all.

As to your last point, this is something I was trying to get at when I outlined the scenario in which I was able to feel emotion. Most, if not all, of the emotions I do experience are triggered by reading books, and watching television and cinema. I am rarely aroused in an emotional sense by things that happen directly to me; I rely on other people who are isolated from my life, as well as fantasy and fictional characters for the bulk of this 'feeling'. I can be made to feel 'upset' (or whatever) for people that have no connection to me at all (especially if they're fictional), but I am rarely 'upset' about my own life.

It's hard to explain. I know what I want to say in my mind, but I can't transfer it into the written word.

It's like experiencing life and emotion vicariously, but never fully appreciating it in the context of yourself as your own person. For example, even in the relationship fantasies that I sometimes conjure up in my head, the male protagonist is never actually me--it's always some other guy.

I cry a lot actually and i am male... I mostly cry when i hear or see someone else cry too. I remember once at 5th grade during class when a kid started crying a lot. Although i hardly knew him, although i had no idea why he was crying, i started crying too.. It was so embarassing but it was completely automatic..

Nowdays i dont think that something like this would have happen, but i definately cry a lot often than other males during movies. It doesnt mean anything though.

I also cry very often when i laugh a lot. It must be something with my eyes.