Would you rather be Schizoid or Borderline

I think I might be a little bit of both.

easy answer: schizoid.

Perhaps borderlines are schizoids that haven't given up and let the numbing take over. It sounds like at the base of both disorders the problem is the exactly the same.

Or the same base problem that is being dealt with in 2 drastically different ways.

Both are clearly horrible at knowing how to resolve what's inside them, what's inside them underneath it all is the same.

Acinorev wrote:Perhaps borderlines are schizoids that haven't given up and let the numbing take over. It sounds like at the base of both disorders the problem is the exactly the same.

Or the same base problem that is being dealt with in 2 drastically different ways.

Both are clearly horrible at knowing how to resolve what's inside them, what's inside them underneath it all is the same.

I agree on this. I believe all cluster A and cluster B personality disorders are ways to deal with basically the same problem, the same underlying defect state, in psychoanalytic terms.

Both schizoids and borderlines have a borderline personality organization, as defined by Kernberg. I would say the difference between schizoids and borderlines is that borderlines have weaker ego functions compared to schizoids, or at least other weaknesses in ego functions, most notably impaired affect regulation and impulse control. Borderlines also inherently use other defense mechanisms as schizoids do. Therefore, a schizoid and a borderline personality can never co-occur in the same individual in my opinion. It's all possible in modern psychiatry of course, which tends towards an atheoretical approach of personality disorders.

everything is the same at some level, just as much as everything is different at some level. that's never a real question. everything in the world is part of the same tree

the assumption that sharing something fundamental in common is a particular property of only a limited set of concepts will lead you to any arbitrary conclusions that you may already be inclined to believe

Borderline = politically correct female hysteria

Isik: If that was a question for the word 'borderline' means, they are using it as a short form for borderline personality disorder, also known as BPD. The term borderline is only used nowadays in conjunction with the actual diagnosis. It does not surprise me that the term 'borderline' may have been used in the past for things like calling women hysterical, but it is not, I think, something that most people think of when they hear the term 'borderline'. The history of mental health problems and what society has done to deal with them is scary.


ganbaru: As someone who, apparently, meets a lot of criteria for being borderline but still feels very much schizoid, of course I see a connection. My schizoidness involves me feeling empty, being borderline involves feeling empty. Both can be explained by poor bonding when one is younger, or some other trauma. Both involve emotional disregulation, since over-regulation is still very much disregulation. Both often involve dissociation, often to deal with traumatic or overloading experiences, which also affects memory and concentration. Both have crap for therapeutic options, and BPD therapy generally involves just changing one's actions, not fixing the enduring issues underneath. (I mean, that's useful for helping out impulses which end up creating more problems, but it does not actually fix the emotional disturbances in the first place.) They both scream of inability to properly interact with the world and people around them, because they cannot emotionally deal with it properly, and it very much seems to be an innate symptom.

The key difference, as mentioned already, seems to be that the emotional is under- instead of over-regulated. You might be thinking 'but wait, there's impulsiveness and all that self-harming behaviour too', but I think those are a direct result of the internal emotional state being messed up. During my mood swings, there is so much...something that I feel rather like a trapped animal. I do not often engage in impulsive self-harming behavior, but it has happened and there are always urges and thoughts of 'I don't know what to do but I need to feel better'. For me, those moments also involve isolating myself, because what is not really very destructive behavior while alone is very much destructive in public. It seen as attention-seeking behavior, because it is totally unacceptable socially to do pretty much any of those things I do, from masturbating to crying to pinching or slapping myself in public or even just pacing. (I have the past couple of years of my life developed stimming as a way to deal with moments like this, just like ASD people seem to, but it is not in response to having too many senses disturbed, but by having my emotions too disturbed.) As mentioned in the wikipedia entry about this, if you take away pain meds from people who have very painful conditions, they will act in similar, 'attention-grabbing' ways.

The other difference is a fear of abandonment. Schizoids cannot fear this because they do not have bonds to break in the first place usually. Because of the emotions that are usually lacking instead of having too many of them, schizoids have no need or desire for a bond. But for a borderline, I would imagine that bonds are incredibly strong but are apt to get lost to anger and fear due to the jumping from one negative emotion to another. I in fact, I suppose, regularly have fear of losing my partner through my own faults and being, like I will stop loving him, stop having the capacity to love him, so it will end. I do not fear he will abandon me though, so I never considered this description as fitting me properly.

Now, let's take someone with AvPD which is supposed to be quite similar to schizoid. I would think they would be more different internally because there is a strong conscious, cognitive component to it. It is based on something concrete, fear which is does not come up from nowhere, but which is mindfully, consciously grown. The root of the problem is the mind consciously hurting you. That is very unlike borderline or schizoid, where the problem seems to be rooted in an inability to interact on a proper emotional level with the world around you.

Both are emotional dysregulation. Do no say that it's because schizoids are more in control, they are not, people here continually cite the lack of emotions as out of their control and as often being unwanted. And I think I could explain everything else that crops up in schizoids as stemming upon that fact; social isolation, lack of activity, lack of focus...because emotions are necessary for these things.

They are both emotional dysregulation that is not explained by poor cognitive processes, which seems to stem from a lack of proper bonding/interaction at crucial emotional developmental periods in one's life.

Thinking more about it, both seem to also have far more problems with experiencing any sort of positive emotions. Quite unsurprising really, since even in moments when either a borderline or a schizoid could potentially feel emotions on a regular level, the problems they encounter daily are still known to them; depression seems inevitable unless they are literally so cognitively lost that they cannot remember their lives. Oh look, I can even tie this into the zoning out and dissociation both have; the knowledge that your emotions and body are beyond your control is maddening. Whatever one can do to keep from properly understanding that interaction is beneficial for sanity. And trust me, it is...the aggressive hopelessness that comes when I'm mentally alert on rare occasions leads to serious 'I can do nothing' and it feels like I am literally descending into madness, then followed by tiredness and brain fog so I fall asleep and forget it all. The brain fog is a defense.

ZonedOut wrote:Both schizoids and borderlines have a borderline personality organization, as defined by Kernberg.

I didn't know what this was. I've just read a few paragraphs, but the therapy for such things is very similar to the therapy ideas that I have found that I think can help me. Of course, the theory behind gerlach's work is that literally everyone has multiple personalities that will differently be in charge of someone at varying points in time, even mentally health people. The difference is that people who are mentally healthy pick and choose properly which personalities to help them but will still maintain their True Self personality (which we all innately have) in charge, so as to not have a different subself take control and run amok.

Acinorev wrote:ganbaru: As someone who, apparently, meets a lot of criteria for being borderline but still feels very much schizoid, of course I see a connection. My schizoidness involves me feeling empty, being borderline involves feeling empty. Both can be explained by poor bonding when one is younger, or some other trauma. Both involve emotional disregulation, since over-regulation is still very much disregulation. Both often involve dissociation, often to deal with traumatic or overloading experiences, which also affects memory and concentration. Both have crap for therapeutic options, and BPD therapy generally involves just changing one's actions, not fixing the enduring issues underneath. (I mean, that's useful for helping out impulses which end up creating more problems, but it does not actually fix the emotional disturbances in the first place.) They both scream of inability to properly interact with the world and people around them, because they cannot emotionally deal with it properly, and it very much seems to be an innate symptom.

in other words, both are personality disorders. which is no coincidence or discovery, but an effect of the definition itself. there's no special connection between one and the other beyond that

One more thing, I do not think acting impulsively on emotions is necessarily a lack of conscious control. It certainly could be, someone making a poor choice, but my experiences with actual bursts of anger for instance, there is no time between anger and letting it go. To consciously think 'no don't do that' is not a result of my mind discarding that option, it is a result of there actually being an impulse in the first place. When someone like a schizoid has no impulses, one cannot accurately then say they have better impulse control.