Schizotypal

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Schizotypal personality disorder is a serious condition in which a person usually has few to no intimate relationships. Such people tend to turn inward rather than interact with other people, and experience extreme anxiety in social situations.
People with schizotypal personality disorder often have trouble engaging with others and appear emotionally distant. They find their social isolation painful, and eventually develop distorted perceptions about how interpersonal relationships form. They may also exhibit odd behaviors, respond inappropriately to social cues and hold peculiar beliefs.
As a result, people with schizotypal personality disorder often find themselves drifting from one activity to the next, failing to connect with people as they meander through life.
Schizotypal personality disorder is a chronic condition. The pattern typically begins in early adulthood and endures throughout life. There's no cure for schizotypal personality disorder, but psychotherapy and some medications may help alleviate symptoms.
Classic schizotypal personalities are apt to be loners, having few to no intimate relationships. They exhibit extreme anxiety in social situations, often associated more with distrust and an inability to communicate with others than with a negative self-image. They view themselves as alien or forlorn, and this isolation causes pain as they disengage more and more from relationships and the outside world.
People with schizotypal personalities often have odd patterns of speech and ramble endlessly on subjects tangent to a topic of conversation. They may dress in peculiar ways and have very strange ways of viewing the world around them. Often they harbor unusual ideas, such as believing in the powers of ESP or a "sixth sense." At times, they believe they can magically influence people's thoughts, actions and emotions.
In adolescence, signs of a schizotypal personality may begin as a gravitation toward solitary activities or a high level of social anxiety. The child may be an underperformer in school or appear socially out-of-step with peers, and as a result often becomes the subject of bullying or teasing.
Symptoms of schizotypal personality disorder include:
Incorrect interpretation of events, including feeling that external events have personal meaning
Peculiar thinking, beliefs or behavior
Belief in special powers, such as telepathy
Perceptual alterations, in some cases bodily illusions, including "phantom pains" or other distortions in the sense of touch
Idiosyncratic speech, such as loose or vague patterns of speaking or tendency to go off on tangents
Suspicious or paranoid ideas
Flat emotions or inappropriate emotional responses
Lack of close friends outside of the immediate family
Persistent and excessive social anxiety that doesn't abate with time
Schizotypal personality disorder can easily be confused with schizophrenia, which is characterized by intense psychosis, a severe mental state characterized by a loss of contact with reality. While schizotypal personalities may experience brief psychotic episodes with delusions or hallucinations, they are not as pronounced, frequent or intense as in schizophrenia.
Both disorders, along with schizoid personality disorder, belong to what's generally referred to as the "schizophrenic spectrum." Schizotypal personality falls in the middle of the spectrum, with schizoid personality disorder on the milder end and schizophrenia on the more severe end.

wow, sounds like me.

I hate mixing with people, and i constantly feel anxious.

I also fit all the criteria for schizotypal personality disorder, but, I also have obsessive interests and communication problems.

If I'm not AS, I'm schizotypal.

There might be a genetic connection between AS and Schizophrenia... there is a high rate of A- blood in both populations.

Einstien had a schizophrenic son.

This sounds alot like a friend of mine...(not me)....but the lead singer of my band...who I often refer to as bi-polar with schitophrenic tendancies (rather than being deeply schitzophrenic all the time)...alot of this stuff sounds just like him. Fortunately for him he has a fair amount of friends..because we sorta hang with a group of people who are very accepting or who would normally have alot of alot if difficulty having friends under "normal" circumstances..He is more social than I am in fact..

Everytime I take a personality disorder test,I get Schizoid personality.


-SpaceCase

I so do not get the misdiagnosis of Schizotypy as AS and vice-versa. A lot of people with ASDs are such strong realists and fact-bound people, whereas a schizotypal person is so "away with the fairies" they are barely able to tell what is real and what isn't. Also paranoia and social phobia are not the same as having bad social skills or not "getting it" socially!

I do believe there are a fair few people misdiagnosed though, at least that is what the literature seems to imply. Personally yes I have grown to appreciate fiction etc. but people who mix reality and fantasy scare the heebie jeebies outta me. I'm confused enough by most NTs!

Mind you a lot of the time it is my own literal interpretation and my ADD that makes me THINK someone is fantasising or psychotic. My ex once told me about this guy who went through a portal and it turns out he is psychic and then aliens came etc. etc. and I was freaking out thinking "OMG he's lost it, what the hell am I supposed to do now?". I hadn't realised he was talking about a BOOK!

Noetic: I did a poll here asking people if they had any degree of delusional thinking. Most said they did. A lot of people with AS are somewhat paranoid, which can look "delusional" to an outsider.

Another reason I think I have AS and not schizotypal p.d. is that I stim, and did even more so as a kid. I banged my head, bit my arms, etc. as a child.

Autism in children sometimes used to be called "childhood schizophrenia."

Also schizotypal does not account for higher than average IQ, which I have been tested to have.

I think I'm somewhere in between AS and Schizoaffective; it's been something I've wanted to read more about and haven't gotten around to. There's so much that's weird about my personality that isn't explained by what I've read in these forums and there are some pretty fundamental differences.

Just an example of the kind of ways schizotypal patients express themselves, there is a huge difference between that and autistic language quirks. Also the kinds of beliefs that are genuinely delusional (yeah I see the connection with some modern-day religions...).

Noetic (I almost wrote el-or ) I know that AS doesn't cause high IQ or vice versa. High IQ is just a somewhat typical trait.

Well here's my question... it is often said that people with Asperger's lack imagination (probably a misunderstanding of our tendency to take things literally) and that we don't daydream.

I however have a very rich inner world and have a vivid imagination (and many others here seem to as well, just look at the games in random discussion).

I was not able to play in imaginative ways with other kids as a child, though, I could only play alone. So probably again, the lack of social imaginative play is interpeted as "lacks imagination." Even though I had plenty of it inside myself.

So what degree of imagination can be a determinant of autism? Is it a trait or something that would exclude one from AS?

I often wonder if my paranoia is the result of real-life threats i.e. bullying which I endured to a severe extent.

-----------^ That sounds like full blown schizophrenia.

I think, when considering the differences between the two conditions, you have to keep an open mind as to what causes what. Negative experiences with other kids when you're young could result in social paranoia, for sure, but negative social experiences could just as easily have resulted from a paranoia that was already there. To figure out "which came first," I'd consider exactly how far paranoia and delusion extends, and if it exists in isolation, which for me it does and since my mother has a similar condition and is definately NOT AS, I'm compelled to think it's organic.

Paranoia in AS is due to bullying and social difficulties first and foremost, whereas Paranoia in Schizotypal PD is due to a reduction in a person’s ability to think logically and clearly, demonstrated by their tendency to form paranoid eccentric ideas about global conspiracies and UFO’s. People who are Schizoid and AS are logical loving sceptics.

Schizotypal PD is “mild” Schizophrenia. Like Asperger's is "mild" Autism. People with Schizotypal PD are the ones who wear tin foil hats to beaming UFO’s sending them messages. No seriously...

There are more similarities between Schizoid PD and ASDs then there are differences (they may be part of the same spectrum; I read that Schizoid people are more sensitive to criticism, don’t seek social relationships and their interests are hobbies rather then obsessions). There is no relationship between Schizotypal PD and autism, though there may be overlap in a minority, they could have both. People with Schizotypal PD are more likely to develop Schizophrenia.

It is getting very windy out right now! Hope the electricity does not go off.

We had a thread that had a link for an online test that screened for personality "disorders". Schizotypal personality scored high with many of those that took the test. Trying to pin point some precise diagnosis of your condition is utterly pointless people. There is no way to quantify the degree one has certain traits in a statistically meaningful way.

One guy with aspergers maybe highly functioning head of a large computer software company and another maybe living in a card board box under a bridge. Both may have the precise list of traits on any number of screening tests.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... chizotypal