Schizoid, Anhedonia and Flat affect

Hello guys. I'm new, so please be kind. Does Schizoid personality disorder blunt emotions to the point that the sufferer can't feel anything for their relatives both first degree and other degree? To explain the situation, when my father was dying, I didn't feel anything. When my relatives on his side started dying, I couldn't feel anything.

Have any of you had experience with that? Bear in mind, I have had traumatic experiences from childhood to adulthood. So my schizoid personality disorder might've started developmentally since I was a child. But it manifested when I was a young adult and got diagnosed immediately.

Well, it depends what you mean by feeling "nothing". Maybe you just did not show the socially expected emotions like grief, but indifference. As humans we are always emotional and social beings. We did not come from those humans who were not. Have a look at the emotional connection you had to you parents and relatives, when they were still alive. A schizoids we tend to avoid people who do no good to us. We don't hate them as this would mean doing no good to ourselves. The result is the "feeling" of indifference as we feel neither love nor hate for them.
And the cause of being schizoid lies in our families, most of all our primary cargiver (mother) causing an early childhood trauma/covert trauma. I recommend Shelley Uram, Bruce D. Perry and Bryan Post for further information e.g. lectures and interviews on youtube.

Follow up question: Is it possible for Schizoids to feel some resentment, but it manifests as indifference as a way to protect one's self? I'm guessing Schizoids can hate, but when they are called to interact, their outward appearance manifests as indifference.

What about a safety person--a person the schizoid trusts? I'm guessing Schizoids can love and trust that person and show appreciation behind closed doors, but not in public.

orinoco wrote:Well, it depends what you mean by feeling "nothing". Maybe you just did not show the socially expected emotions like grief, but indifference. As humans we are always emotional and social beings. We did not come from those humans who were not. Have a look at the emotional connection you had to you parents and relatives, when they were still alive. A schizoids we tend to avoid people who do no good to us. We don't hate them as this would mean doing no good to ourselves. The result is the "feeling" of indifference as we feel neither love nor hate for them.
And the cause of being schizoid lies in our families, most of all our primary cargiver (mother) causing an early childhood trauma/covert trauma. I recommend Shelley Uram, Bruce D. Perry and Bryan Post for further information e.g. lectures and interviews on youtube.

Can hatred for a schizoid manifest as indifference? Can schizoids show love and appreciation behind closed doors to their safety person? Sorry. I don’t know how to use the reply function, guys. Please forgive me if I posted twice. This is my first time posting on this site. I forgot to quote when I replied.

I've lost relatives already and felt very distant to them dying. I did, in this distant way, felt sorry fore them, because I — in parts — liked them in a manner pf speaking. Yet I didn't go through the known stages of grief, as all others around me did. So yes, it is not unheard of.

MisterElusive wrote:Can hatred for a schizoid manifest as indifference?

I think so. Someone called it an ice curtain.

MisterElusive wrote:Can schizoids show love and appreciation behind closed doors to their safety person?

Possible, but very rare.

Somehow I don't get notified when I get a reply, only new threads appear in my RSS feed.

MisterElusive wrote:Follow up question: Is it possible for Schizoids to feel some resentment, but it manifests as indifference as a way to protect one's self? I'm guessing Schizoids can hate, but when they are called to interact, their outward appearance manifests as indifference.

What about a safety person--a person the schizoid trusts? I'm guessing Schizoids can love and trust that person and show appreciation behind closed doors, but not in public.

I think "tolerate" is a better word than "love" or "trust", although "tolerate" might be too strong a word. "Feel comfortable with" might be better. And there is never any love, at least for me, although I suspect such emotions are so deeply buried or guarded that attempting to access them is too arduous or potentially painful.

I feel lots of resentment and occasionally a little hate, but expressing this opens one up to further engagement with people and worse, the possibility of verbal or physical altercation. It's easier (read: more comfortable) to suppress such emotions. I don't think schizoids are as prone to suffering the consequences of repressed emotions as regular people, because those emotions go that deep access place that's more unreachable than the subconscious.

I do not have schizoid personality disorder (atleast not diagnosed) I do have personality disorder diagnosis and I do have a pretty flat affect it’s been pointed out many times I believe that in my case it is a product of hiding my feelings from everybody. It probably goes beck to childhood where I felt I had to hide myself and it just became who I was eventually, I wouldn’t know how to change this or that I’m even doing it. It’s just ingrained in my DNA at this point,

I can also say that some things I’ve learned from different therapies is that emotions among people who have personality disorders are often very mixed up and confused for instance you may be feeling extreme anger at someone who calls you out or embarrassed you but that anger or rage is an emotion that is overriding the real emotion you are feeling in this case humiliation or embarrassment, those emotions are to painful to experience because of deep trauma that your inherent response is to go into a rage and drown those feelings of vulnerability out completely.

I was on a concoction once of SSRIs and Mood stabilizers to help with my anger issues or help “even me out”, I kept complaining that I felt really flat and I wasn’t experiencing many emotions and it was making life so bland that I couldn’t take it anymore. And the therapist theorized that the drugs were actually working and they were evening me out and I was experiencing my emotions more like a normal person would where as my normal cycle was more like a raging river than a tranquil pond. I eventually got off the meds because it didn’t feel right to me, i didn’t like it and couldn’t imagine going through life like that. Essentially my internal world is turmoil but it’s all I’ve ever known so it’s normal to me