Suffocating Mothers, Absent Fathers

I saw somewhere that the combination of suffocating mothers and distant fathers is posited as a reason, if not the reason, for someone to have turned out schizoid. It so happens that the same situation has been blamed for some, if not all, homosexuality.

Well... Speaking as a homosexual by orientation & a schizoid personality-wise, I have to ask: how many of you fall into this category? One is, you might say, especially primed to accept the explanations above! so the prevalence or not of this dynamic intrigues me.

Can you explain what you mean by "suffocating mother", how do you define a suffercating mother.

I don't see any abnormal behaviour, in homosexuality, and i wonder why it would be a result of childhood trauma. Schizoid might be, yes, but homosexuality, no, i don't see the connection.

Do you have any source, where you have this information from. Please tell where you optained, this information.

Growing up, my mother was very volatile and in some ways abusive. My father was always distant or as you say it, absent. I feel that this definitely contributed to who I am today.

depend what you mean by Suffocating Mothers it is true in my case
though if you told me what schizoid mean when i was 5 i would say that is me i always had some schizoid traits as long as i remember i know back then that i am differnet like really different though others mostly thought i am just very shy and never give it to much thought

Logonaut wrote:Speaking as a homosexual by orientation & a schizoid personality-wise, I have to ask: how many of you fall into this category?

I do. My mother wasn't exactly smothering, maybe controlling is a better word. She was extremely authoritarian. Any perceived resistance or lie on my part was perceived as a direct slight, and, I assume, a blow to her ego. She was obsessed with maintaining fake fronts.

My father was alcoholic, distant, always hidden away in the basement drinking and reading.

I was bullied in grade school and had a physically and emotionally abusive uncle, who, unfortunately, was always around.

By the time I was sixteen or so, I had had it with people. Adults, other kids, everyone. I was diagnosed with depression. I had always been somewhat introverted with a tendency to enjoy solitude, but it was around this time that I embraced it. I realized that being in the company of other people was more of an option than I had previously thought.
Presto: schizoid.

I'm not sure what to think about the homosexuality. I remember knowing I was somehow different in this way long before I hit puberty, and, years later, I had very few problems accepting it. It just seemed natural; the way I was. The most difficult aspect of it was social. I didn't want anyone else to know. The bullying had more or less ended, and I was terrified that if it got out that I was gay, it would start again. More reasons to isolate.

I should note that in my late teens and early twenties I was moderately social. Maybe it was experimental. Maybe the freedom from bullying and, once I moved out of the house, my oppressive family felt so freeing to me that I was able to relax a bit and enjoy the company of others.

My first big relationship ended on a bit of a cruel note. I retreated back into my shell after that and pretty much haven't come out since.

I don't remember much from my childhood. But i would not descripe my mother as sufforcating, authoriarian yes, psychotic yes, but but not sufforcating. i don't know. I always thourght she was strange, and reacted strange on things. She was also very emotional unstabil, and she would often break down and cry, saying she could not handle it any more, and one time she said she would go to the bathroom, and hang herself, because i was such a pain.

I think she could not care less about me, or she was just to much "white trash", to have any idea on how to deal with her children.

She was abusive, but that was restricted to a slap in the face, from time to time. I don't recall her, very much, when i think about her in my childhood, i must have forgotten.

She was very dedicated to here boyfriends, they were more inportant than me.

My farther and mother was devorced, soo i did not see my farther very often. He was not a rolemodel, and neither was my mothers boyfriends, so i tried to create my own identety, in my teens, and tweentys. I really hated grown up's. I started living on the streets in my teens. I was a real mess.
My farther was not very strong in my eyes, he used to live at a homeless shelter with my younger halfbrother. And he never had any authoriaty on women, wich he could have used, to deal with the crazy types, he got involved with.

I was never bullied in school, i was the popular boy in class, and never had problems, with girls. Only i had no interest in girls, i was numb about feelings, like girlfriends or scoring at partys.

Still im not sure, since i don't know how other families have it

Logonaut wrote:I saw somewhere that the combination of suffocating mothers and distant fathers is posited as a reason, if not the reason, for someone to have turned out schizoid. It so happens that the same situation has been blamed for some, if not all, homosexuality.

My mum was pretty good about giving me space. She was controlling though, in a more passive-aggressive way. She had definite ideas about what she wanted me to do/how to be and if I tried to go against it she would passively express her displeasure. It was a strange dynamic but I did feel I had to be cued in to her needs and wants more than my own, even though on the surface she appeared to respect my privacy, almost made a big show of it.

My bio father was out of the house, so, absent, physically, but he was also very controlling. More blatantly so than mum. He'd have rage fits and criticise and even cruelly emotionally abuse me if he didn't approve of my actions or choices.

My stepfather was kind of an oppressive presence. He was the main financial support so we had to pander to him and what he wanted. His needs and wants took priority most of the time.

I had to fade into the background. I also had quite a few siblings around. I really had to appease everyone else and couldn't really ask for much of my own.

Well... Speaking as a homosexual by orientation & a schizoid personality-wise, I have to ask: how many of you fall into this category? One is, you might say, especially primed to accept the explanations above! so the prevalence or not of this dynamic intrigues me.

I'm not homosexual although I have some mild gender issues.

I didn't have much privacy at all in my childhood. My mother often complained that I shouldn't bother her ("can't you see I'm tired" and that kind of thing), but she also wanted me to show affection somehow. She seemed to expect "unconditional love" from me while only offering me "conditional love" instead ("reversed roles", typical of families with PD's afaik).

My father is schizoid himself. Even from a child's point of view, he was visibly clueless and uncomfortable in any situation that involved anything beyond a predefined routine. In any situation, if in doubt, my mother was his priority.

At home I was pretty much always between being bored out of my mind (because my parents refused to give me anything interesting to pass the time with, and I "wasn't supposed to bother them" with questions or requests), and furious (usually because my parents were punishing me for whatever I found on my own to pass the time).

My parents would tell me that "they love me", but I wouldn't respond, because to me it just didn't add up, and they would usually say it in situations where they were already making me uncomfortable. It felt like I wasn't supposed to exist, like what they wanted was actually a storefront mannequin rather than a live-action child.

zeno wrote:My parents would tell me that "they love me", but I wouldn't respond, because to me it just didn't add up, and they would usually say it in situations where they were already making me uncomfortable. It felt like I wasn't supposed to exist, like what they wanted was actually a storefront mannequin rather than a live-action child.

It was very important to my mother that I appear as the "perfect child". In my teens, when I started using drugs and getting into trouble, she went into full commando mode. I often felt like her overwrought punishments were due to me just being me. My parents were very straight laced and by the books, and I think having a drug abusing delinquent child was not what they had in mind. I actually think they stopped liking me. Later in life when they found out I was gay, I think they just gave up. Kind of wrote me off (they were bigots I grew up listening to them, especially my father, complain about the blacks and the homos). Luckily, by then, I was out of the house and away from them.

I appreciate the replies, and indeed I am going to reread them and consider them further, because there's a lot of food for thought there. It's a no-brainer that those who develop abnormal personality styles and/or disorders would have abnormal family dynamics and the like, but I find it eases my own pain to learn more about how that process has worked out in practice with other people. I see from fallenman's response that he feels the same difficulty in disentangling whatever innate detachment we may have vs relationships from upbringing issues.

It certainly appears from the responses that the dynamic fits enough people that it is not just some localised, personal thing. I regret not remembering exactly where I saw the link between suffocating mothers and distant fathers linked to the schizoid personality, but I am searching for it. It may be that the original reference was on Wikipedia and has since been effaced by edits. I don't expect that the same suffocating mother/distant father dynamic would make everyone schizoid, or everyone homosexual, or both, because people are so unique, but it sure looks like a strong link.

Motherrussia, your response is certainly different from this mould, although I can see similarities in the way your mother behaved. It's probably too difficult to disentangle how you would have reacted to a family dynamic where it was just you and the biological parents, but even so it sounds like with you it was the reverse -- a strong father and more passive-aggressive mother -- with the same schizoid 'destination' (pit stop?) in the end.

Runestone, I would say that what I call "suffocating" might be understood by you as "authoritarian", or perhaps by controlling, and these are all terms that fit her quite as well. The same is true of perplexedman's comment that his mother was "volatile", which again fits. I know that being around her was like being... around some kind of police state hall monitor, which is apparently called hyper-vigilance, a word which is scary in itself. Naps, I see, knows the same snafu by the name "full commando mode"; yes, that sounds about right!

I'm glad to get some perspective on this stuff in other people's lives, thank you.