Another introvert wondering if they miight be Schizoid

I don’t know if I fit the Schizoid label, I haven’t been diagnosed by a professional, but reading about it online has hit home for me. In a way, it would be a great relief to have an explanation for the way that I am. This is a long post:
I’ve had a good upbringing, in a decent family environment, but for as long as I can recall, I’ve been different from my peers. Both my parents have wondered if there was anything wrong with me at some point or another. Most social conventions just wouldn’t stick, it took me a while to understand basic courtesy, such as “thank you”, “please”, “good morning” … I’ve had friends when I was younger, but it made little difference to me whether they were there or not, as I was also content on my own. I rarely experienced any “normal” emotions until I started having anxiety as a teen. There have been moments when I wished I could meet people that I would consider relatable, but as I age, I’m realizing the issue might be with me and not with others. Maybe I have unrealistic standards for people, and if they don’t meet them, which they rarely do, I don’t bother trying. I don’t relate to people’s display of emotions. For example, if I see someone being angry, exited or crying, I can’t truly believe their emotions are authentic, considering I would never feel this strongly about anything. Not to say that I don’t have emotions, I do, but it takes a lot to make them come out. When it does happen, it happens in private. Sharing emotions, good or bad ones, make me deeply uncomfortable. I care about some people, like my family, seeing them is something that I do like I follow a routine. I have a few friends who I don’t see very often. When I do, it’s a way of distracting myself from whatever I am doing, if I feel like I need a break. I care about a few of them, but like in my childhood, it doesn’t really matter if they are around or not. It’s as though I can objectively say that a person is decent but will lack any emotional connection. I feel uncomfortable approaching anybody just for the sake of friendship. When I do approach someone, it’s for pragmatic reasons. If someone else approaches me for the sake of friendship, I might go along with it, but like everybody I’ve ever had in my life, I know the friendship will eventually die. I lack the will to entertain connections. Human interactions are incredibly draining for me, even simple ones. Spending a day at school or at work is effort. The only thing that makes it tolerable is that I am very focused on what I do. I enjoy being the best that I can be. Sometimes I wonder if this is a defense mechanism I’ve developed with time. Maybe people will see me as a weirdo, but a very competent and useful weirdo. Everything that I know about social interactions, I’ve had to make a conscious effort to learn, as a survival tool, or else I would never have bothered. I can interact properly, but I do not enjoy it. There are things I will never be able to do. I can recognize facial expressions very well, but I cannot reciprocate them. In fact, I think I have a very good insight on other people’s motives and personalities, probably due to years of observing them in an attempt to understand. I’m a MBTI enthusiast, as it provides me with a systematic tool to evaluate people. I know humans aren’t systems that can be reduced solely to cognitive functions, but I have nothing else.
I don’t consider myself “dead inside”. I have a variety of interest that I am very passionate about, none of them involve other people. My internal world is very deep and complex. I would never expose it to anybody, it belongs to me. I often make up stories in my head as ways of entertaining myself, I suppose this is the equivalent of watching a T.V show or movies. I am very confident in myself. I don’t really care what others think. I might appreciate praise and constructive criticism, only if it relates to my profession. I feel very normal when I’m alone, it’s when I compare myself to others that I feel weird. In fact, I believe I am more emotionally stable and healthy than the average person. I don’t have emotional outbursts, I don’t have heated arguments, I don’t have any emotional dependencies on anybody, I don’t have low self-esteem.
I do not have issues with intimacy, but it is reserved for very few people. I currently have a partner. He is very introverted and understands that I need a lot of personal space. He isn’t emotionally demanding. He does his own thing, as I do mine. I enjoy having at least one person to come home to, after a day of being drained and feeling like an alien. Interacting with him is not an effort to me. I have a sex life with him. I do not feel uncomfortable with physical contact. We rarely discuss emotional matters and we never get emotional in front of each other. If he were gone, I would miss him. I don’t know if it’s simply because building relationships is so demanding, that I will probably not put in the effort again. Having someone is a good thing for me, as it keeps me from isolating myself. It forces me to keep my apartment decent, wash the dishes, make food… It forces me to talk to someone on a daily basis. The least I interact with others, the more it becomes difficult. As though I easily forget something that took me years to pretend I understand. I can easily see how I could spiral into complete isolation. I do not think this would make me happy. Intimacy is something I can enjoy a lot, in the right context. I am uncomfortable with physical contact with anybody that is not my partner. I hate hugging others as a greeting. I do not say “I love you” to anybody except for him. Not my friends, not my family. It took me a very long time to be comfortable saying it even to him.
The bottom line is that I live in a world populated by people that I do not understand. I do not feel bitter our frustrated about it, I don’t really care. It happens to be an inconvenience for professional reasons, but so far, I have managed it well. I don’t think I ever feel lonely, more like alienated. I do not have an aversion to friendships or relationships, I’ve enjoyed them before, but the effort it takes to create and maintain them is often not worth it compared to the feeling of reward it will bring me. Often, I simply do not know how to even begin a friendship. All the ones I’ve had, with no exception, have been initiated and maintained by the other person. If I am a Schizoid, I would like to get a diagnosis, so I could have something to relate to. But I do not really feel like I need help, I am functional, I am content with my life and myself. For now anyways.

I can really relate to pretty much everything you said, especially the part about being more emotionally stable and in control than the average person. I find people frustrating though because they try to pressure me to be more like them, not sure why exactly, maybe they just want to bring me down to their not so secure level. I find that most people are no different from crackheads: they say "in life, there are ups and downs, highs and lows," so they think this is actually normal, to go from Point A to Point Z, excited and ecstatic, then outraged, then deeply saddened and upset. That's the same as the pleasure/excitement of a drug high and then the withdrawal suffering crash. So they're all drug addicts.

Meanwhile, I prefer stability and like you said, contentment or ataraxy, an ongoing inner peace. That's more like a tea drinker than, say, an alcoholic.

Definitely I identify with quite a lot of what you say about yourself. I really liked this line: "Everything that I know about social interactions, I’ve had to make a conscious effort to learn, as a survival tool"

I'm pretty impressed that you don't have intimacy issues. I wish. I mean, I talk to people all day, and while it's not unpleasant, I spend most of my time thinking how we will never share the same headspace about anything, like I can't even share what I'm thinking most of the time because the preamble required to just get to the page I'm on is a gargantuan task. I have no psychic shorthand with people. Unless you meant just physical intimacy.

smirks wrote:Definitely I identify with quite a lot of what you say about yourself. I really liked this line: "Everything that I know about social interactions, I’ve had to make a conscious effort to learn, as a survival tool"

I'm pretty impressed that you don't have intimacy issues. I wish. I mean, I talk to people all day, and while it's not unpleasant, I spend most of my time thinking how we will never share the same headspace about anything, like I can't even share what I'm thinking most of the time because the preamble required to just get to the page I'm on is a gargantuan task. I have no psychic shorthand with people. Unless you meant just physical intimacy.

I'm very close with my partner, I'm lucky enough to have found someone I can identify with. He did all the work to get to know me, and I'm glad I didn't resist. He's very easy going and has simple needs, so it's a good fit. Oddly enough, I find intimate relationships much easier than friendships, family relationships or work relations. You only have to focus on one person at the time, and only if you feel like it. There is no external pressure.

Myrsky wrote:There have been moments when I wished I could meet people that I would consider relatable, but as I age, I’m realizing the issue might be with me and not with others. Maybe I have unrealistic standards for people, and if they don’t meet them, which they rarely do, I don’t bother trying.

Me too. I wonder if I knew precisely why I have such unrealistic standards, then it might be easier for me to connect with others.

The only thing that I can come up with is that I expect people to conform to me and not the other way around, the latter being a social skill I just don't have. It is said that "to have a friend you must be one", but when I think about trying to apply that, it seems I'm completely clueless as to what the first few steps would be.

I do not have an aversion to friendships or relationships, I’ve enjoyed them before, but the effort it takes to create and maintain them is often not worth it compared to the feeling of reward it will bring me. Often, I simply do not know how to even begin a friendship. All the ones I’ve had, with no exception, have been initiated and maintained by the other person.

Yes. And I fear that whatever it was that I had that used to attract people to me is waning. Maybe accepting that I am the way I am has shut off whatever tiny bit of approachability I once had.

Do you lose the efficacy of your social skills if you don't use/practice them?

naps wrote:
Yes. And I fear that whatever it was that I had that used to attract people to me is waning. Maybe accepting that I am the way I am has shut off whatever tiny bit of approachability I once had.

Do you lose the efficacy of your social skills if you don't use/practice them?

Yes. Just a week of no interactions makes it difficult for me to start talking again. Its like I forget how. And for the approachability, the fact that I am a 23 year old female makes me very approachable in the eyes of society. In a way I'm lucky, as I enjoy some friendships, at a certain distance, but I know that the approchability will fade and I will not have the desire to put in the effort myself when it happens.

Any issues or periods of depression or anxiety? That's usually what brings a Schizoid in for a diagnosis. Of course, it depends on your life situation. I have made it long periods without succumbing to issues but it will happen. That's usually what separates an introvert from a Schizoid. Schizoids are different enough where it usually creates some distress per the criteria.

C. The enduring pattern leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Myrsky

Did a pretty good job of describing my life up until now,
I don't have issues with anxiety anymore though because My depression has made me stop caring, social interactions don't bother me as much because I have no more interest in trying to leave a good impression even though for my entire life I always tried to go out of my way to be polite with everyone.

Iv'e had to worry about how I acted towards people my entire life because of the social backlash It might have and now I have next to no reason left to care anymore.

People told me over and over that they understood me and I wanted to believe them, yet every single time I came close to opening up about my true feelings, people were always dumb struck and never had anything to say, just silence for almost half a minute, then I would have to back track because I didn't like where the conversation was going and how they would react If I continued and we would pretend the conversation never went there, Every time that has happened.

They told me they understood me and they were all WRONG, and I'll be honest, after years of this, it has left me a little bit resentful and I was already resentful to begin with for different reasons.

At times a small part of me wished I could be emotionally intimate with others but it would always make me feel unnatural inside and the more I thought about it the angrier it made me and my fantasies would always turn to violence and making others turn against me and strangely enough these fantasies are the ones that made me happy and feel at peace, well that and the fantasies where I'm completely alone.

I know this paints a scary picture but these are just my feelings, I've always tried to make logic the priority in my decisions and I've stayed out of trouble for the most part in my life, I've had friends I've lived very normally up until now and I wasn't abused or traumatized, I'm just tired of it all and pretending and being expected to care when I've gotten VERY little in return for any of it.

If I wanted to get along with people better, I would have that's it, the desire was just never there and faking it for this long getting THESE results for it and then being told by people who care about me to keep going is kind of scaring me.
It all comes down to what you want in the end, and what I want I can't have and that's the end of the story, everything after that just seems to be an awkward meaningless journey.
Its funny but I've always found the depressing stuff is what usually turns out to be true in life for the most part and I was always okay with that, It was just other people that always gave me a hard time with that because they had their own fantasies they wanted to protect.

When I hear other people say ''I don't like people'' I don't think they mean it the same way I do, they WANT to be with other people enough to put up with all the bad

I DON'T, AT ALL I want NOTHING to do with 100% of you and I'm not at all interested in putting up with any of you and I'm not changing,

I don't really care what that makes me anymore because that's always been who I am, the best I could do was seem genuine about things and fake it, I'm so very tired of that