Schizoid's "lack" of emotion

So after just recently finding out that I am a schizoid, I've been trying to better understand myself and my personality. During the holidays my focus has been on what people call an emotional "detachment" or "lack" of emotion in schizoids. I think most schizoids would agree that it's not that we don't feel emotions or are incapable of feeling emotions. It's difficult to explain how we feel. So I've been trying to figure out how to describe how I personally feel.

After a lot of thought, I think the best way to describe it is that I'm like an observer. I feel emotions, but I feel emotions as if I'm watching through a TV, if that makes any sense. For example, if I see something horrible on the news, I feel sad and empathetic towards people who got hurt. However, I have no relation to those people who got hurt. I feel empathy towards them, and I feel sad for them, but most people wouldn't dwell over the deaths of people whom they don't know personally. The "problem" is, that I feel the same way for people who I do have personal relationships with. For example, my family, my friends, etc. I feel emotions, but I'm disconnected in terms of emotions in relation to myself. I exist but I feel like an observer, a camera. My body is a camera, my eyes the lens in which I observe the world. It's like I'm content just being an observer. I don't want nor require interactions with other people. (Which brings an interesting question, if I were to be stranded on an island by myself with no connection to the outside world, with no person in sight and no way to see a person through a TV screen, would I go insane like most "normal" people would in such isolation?)

In a sense, I believe my emotions are stronger in many cases because I have a much stronger sense of empathy and consideration for others due to my tendency to think about the perspectives of all people. The difference between me and a "normal" person is that my emotions always seem to be felt in third person.

I'm still wondering if this description is the right one. I'm unsure because the way I feel is so difficult to explain. What do you guys think? How would you describe how you feel?

i think we are all slightly different in how we feel.

what every shizoid seem to have in common is that all feelings are missing that are releated to "relationship". i mean this in the widest possible way.

there is no love, no hate, no jealousy, no envy, no homesickness, no sadness. basically all feeling that require an emotional connection to something.


but yes that "observer" status seems to be very common with shizoids. "like standing one step aside from everything watching how things are unfolding without th e possibility that those things will affect you" is a quote from me from a few weeks or month ago.

also what seems to be very common is that things that are directed on the mainstream of people have a 100% fail chance for shizoids. advertising, social media stuff, sales conversation and other things that try to target on certain emotion. that is one thing that may make you feel "strong" or "better", some sort of "superpower", combined with a very rational way of decision making.

There's a disconnect with emotions. Schizoids have them...it's just there's a disconnect there...a blockage of sorts.

I know that I don't like emotional stuff. I don't really enjoy feeling most emotions. We, naturally, tone them down a notch. It's not that we are shutting them off or anything. We're merely toning them down a notch...and it's this toning down a notch that causes others to think we don't have any emotions. Because in comparison to most, we don't function at quite the same level of emotion. It is this SLIGHT differential that can cause "problems" for us in the greater society's eyes...or can cause positive attributes in the greater society's eyes. Depends on how you see it.

revenat wrote:In a sense, I believe my emotions are stronger in many cases because I have a much stronger sense of empathy and consideration for others due to my tendency to think about the perspectives of all people. The difference between me and a "normal" person is that my emotions always seem to be felt in third person.

I'm still wondering if this description is the right one. I'm unsure because the way I feel is so difficult to explain. What do you guys think? How would you describe how you feel?

As schizoids we are different in degree and variations in a million different ways. It's senseless to try and put us all in a box with a label that defines us. You are who you are and I am who I am and nobody has the right to tell any of us that we are wrong to feel how we feel.

I've always had empathy and consideration for others but schizoid aside I grew up in an era when men didn't show their emotions so in public I hold it in, but in private I can easily be moved to tears. by the plight of others, particularly children. Your being able to consider the perspectives of all people is an admirable trait. So just because as schizoids we don't openly show our feelings doesn't mean that those feelings don't exist for us or that we don't feel them inside, we just don't express them but that's also true of many other than schizoid.

I think the camera metaphor is good. Sometimes I feel like I'm more alive when other people confide in me. It's not that I become too involved in their life, but for some reason when I listen to their troubles I become more focused and more insightful than normally. From an emotional point of view I'm sort of uninspired in my everyday life really. I mostly exist and procrastinate and when I do something to relax, be it exercise, gaming, eating or having a bubble bath, it's more like some kind of inner mechanism, an instinct that tells me to do something which will make me feel less uncomfortable for a while. Exercise can give me a high, but almost any reward from any activity is bound to be transitory. Sometimes I manage to find a hobby that entertains me longer, which basically means I can repeat it many times without feeling bored. Listening to music is probably the only thing that gives me the sort of emotional space and intensity I really miss in real life.

I avoid many things that people generally find gratifying, like travelling abroad; I've tried it and I think it's mostly troublesome and tiring. However, if someone tells me about their trips to distant places, I can enjoy "with" them. You could almost say I use people as substitute observers/participants; I simply get more out of many things by hearing how other people have experienced it.
I guess this is why I find reality TV shows entertaining, I just feel more connected to human emotions when I see other people's drama from a safe distance .

I feel very few emotions beside anxiety and anger. Or I'm not aware of them. I think it's just difficult for me to let go and allow myself to feel something. I feel strong emotions when I dream, but hardly ever when I'm awake. I can feel some other emotions in my daydream worlds. I get very involved with my imaginary objects. I have a million different fantasy worlds in my head, and they are more satisfying to me than my real life.

I think being disconnected from emotion can be a strength at times. My family members confide in me and ask my opinion because I can be more objective about it and I'm not likely to spill secrets. I'm a vault. I stay calm when things are hectic. I just do things by rote.

Some emotions are easier for me to experience. Mostly negative ones.

I feel disappointed, angry, frustrated, annnoyed, embarassment, quite easily. I usually express it in a passive aggressive way though, like sulking or silent treatment.

I don't often get excited or happy or enthusiastic. I probably come across as very wooden and stoic. When I get a gift or someone does something nice for me its hard for me to express my excitement and appreciation. I try but feel like its obvious I'm faking it. I intellectually experience the appreciation, but I just don't feel or it and its not natural for me to openly get animated and excited about things.

I see sometimes when a girl gets proposed to by her boyfriend and she starts screaming and crying with excitement and happinesss, jumping up and down and kissing him, getting all flustered. I guess that is how normal people act when they are happy and it comes naturally to them. I've never been moved to act like that because I just don't feel any good emotion to that intense degree, I guess.

^Negative feelings are easier for me too, at least some of them. Not anger though. I also have negative feelings that just float there without any reason or focus. They are hard to describe, other than they vary from "I don't feel good" sort of feeling to "I'm being punished" kind of feeling. Spending time with people can sometimes make it a lot worse, especially when people are dumb. It's rather confusing that sometimes stupid people can make me feel more alive in a positive way and other times the opposite.

Actually, now that I think of it, fake people make me feel the worst.

^ I didn't really feel anger for a long time. I just felt frustrated or annoyed. Anger would happen only rarely.

Now its easy though. It comes out as a lot of aggressive energy I have to vent in some way, esp. physically. Not sure why I didn't used to feel it though, it was probably suppressed or I was afraid to feel something that intense.

I like the camera analogy too. With a camera, you shoot some pictures, but you usually wait until you get home or have a quiet moment to look at them. That's how I deal with most social interactions, whether they're emotionally charged or not. I block them out, let them simmer in the back of my mind, and come back to them when I'm comfortable with it.

I always question my emotions. Are they appropriate? Why am I feeling them? Good or bad, they frequently come with some discomfort, as if I'm expected to act on them, even if only internally, and I always doubt my ability to do so appropriately.

On rare occasions, especially in the mornings, for a brief period of time I will feel an emotion acutely. Sometimes it's a feeling of doom, sometimes empathy. Not for anyone/anything in particular, which makes them even more puzzling. Sometimes I fear that they're prescient, as if I know something subconsciously and I'm trying to block it out. As if my subconscious is trying to tell me something I should have figured out already. (oh I'm sorry Slim, was that redundant?) It's always a little scary.

slimsally wrote:I feel very few emotions beside anxiety and anger.

We should hang out.