Schizoid= Asperger with mask?

Post Reply New Topic

I've been getting confuse with my contidion, if whether it's asperger or schizoid PD.
So today I came out with something that made a lot of sense to me and will probably help other people who are asking themself the same question or getting confuse diagnosis from professionals.


A bit of my story:
My clear signs of asperger started to show at age 5 or 6, when somehow I started to feel different from other kids. Today I can realise that this feeling was probably caused by the fact that they were growing up and developing their social "selves" while I was stuck in a more imature state of mind, at least emotionally and socially.
My parents were very busy and they were just like "he's a good kid, we don't need to worry", well kinda absent and being so they never seeked a diagnosis for me.

Anyway, I remember to be a more classic asperger until my teenage years. After that I couldn't be just a quiet kid (I didn't had impulses to flirt with girls or anything as teenager, so basically I was still just a child), on this stage of life I couldn't be so autenthic or I'd be victim of bullying (which I was during two years), and so I had to create a mask. At first i tried things like trying to smile when around people, etc.

But this mask never worked very well and so I made a second mask, which is more distant, aloof, looks a bit more confident and don't need people at all. I invested so much energy on this mask that at my early adult years I completely became this mask and my old asperger self was totally repressed by this.
Sometimes I still use my "nice guy mask" but it's much more difficult because it's so distant from my true self. The "schizoid mask" is at least closer to who I truly am.

And well, schizoid PD is know as a defense mechanism, and being so, the schizoid PD in me is a mask that protects my vulnerable and imature asperger self.


Well, this is my "conclusion" about my situation so far. Just thought I should post here to keep it to myself and maybe help other people. If you have something to add, feel free to do so. Thanks for reading.

I was diagnosed with "schizotypal personality traits" and schizoaffective disorder before I was diagnosed with asd.

I think this part of your opening post is probably the core issue:

And well, schizoid PD is know as a defense mechanism, and being so, the schizoid PD in me is a mask that protects my vulnerable and imature asperger self.

Trauma and rejection often lead people who have been hurt by those experiences to construct a false self (not just AS people); it's very common in trauma survivors generally, whether NT or AS. The real self can get lost in that process (but not always). In psychotherapy, the false self is generally understood to represent a state of unhealed pain in a person's past.

Hey TW if you don't mind me asking , I'm curious about the fantasy aspect of Schizoid PD. If it's not too personal could you explain how your fantasy world works ( If you have one ) , is it just like daydreaming?

I too had to create a mask of being a very confident man. One who is very outgoing and voicetrous. Since my diagnosis of being AS I have been easying up on it and letting the real me come out. I am much more happy being myself. I love jsut being at work being quiet and not talking to anyone. Well I can't say I don't talk to no one. I do talk to a voice in my head. It keeps me company. It is the only one I have allowed into my world. I did so many things as an adult because I thought i was supposed not because I wanted to. Yes I have a world that I created among the clouds and I go there when I need to get away. I gives me a sense of peace and relaxation. Well I thought I would share.

People with a schizoid personality disorder don't display repetitive behaviors and special interests.

^ good point

I have a psychiatrist who doesn't believe I'm autistic despite two professionals dxing me with HFA. He thinks I have bipolar but I only had one manic episode due to starting a medication (Geodon/Zeldox) and that lasted three weeks.

Anyway, I was in hospital due to depression in 2013. I had self harmed and I think it was due to this that I was dxed by the doctors there with borderline PD. After I left the hospital, a psychologist from there called me from her office, asking me to come in for a psychological test called the The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 (SCID-5). So I did and found it to be a very long test, it was in a huge folder. A few weeks later I was called by another psychologist nearer to where I live to discuss the results of the SCID.

The results were that I had schizoid PD, not borderline PD. The kicker was that they said they couldn't treat it because it would take too long!

So I do wonder if one can have schizoid PD and autism at the same time.

You know, medicine is supposed to be based on empirical science, not any personal belief system. But reading feedback on this and many other threads, reporting experiences of doctors making dismissive comments based on really ignorant grounds eg "I have an autistic relative and you can't be autistic because you're not like him" is an increasing concern to me.

Thank you for that example Biggles. It's a farcical one really, because people in scientific fields are trained at an early stage to beware of the fallacy of "generalising from a single case". But it seems to me that re autism, doctor prejudice and ignorance may be a much greater factor in their decisions than medical science is. And I am fed up to the back teeth (as we say in New Zealand!) with this ignorance and the negative impacts of it on AS people.