Anyone Here Diagnosed Schizoid?

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I was, yesterday.

There are a couple of schizoid forums that I signed up on in the past, but I don't relate well to the other members or their topics and so I stopped posting shortly thereafter.

Then again, I suppose a schizoid couldn't be expected to relate well to anyone.

I have been thinking about not posting here anymore, too.

What are those symptoms of Schizoid that you don't relate to ? And those of autism that you relate to ?

Why do you want to stop posting here?
Unless you do not like posting here anymore.
What symptoms were decisive that you got diagnosed with schizoid PD instead of autism?

It's not really that I don't relate to the symptoms; it just seems like the schizoids on those forums have more severe problems. I don't relate to the serious anhedonia and avolition they talk about; I don't relate to their apathy, the lack of interest in sex or wanting to be completely alone. There is a sort of "NTness" in the way that they post and interact that makes me uncomfortable, like the conversations are more about social dynamics than the topics themselves, even though they are not very interested in socializing.

I don't think that I'm diagnosable as on the spectrum, but I do relate to being socially and sensorially (is that a word?) overwhelmed, having people misread my thoughts, feelings, and what I'm doing with my body, to having been clueless about what other people were thinking when I was younger and then finding them strange as I learned more about them, to seeing things so differently from other people that communication seems hopeless, to being more interested in things and ideas than people, to needing alone time and not being able to work in a group. Maybe there's more than that, I don't know.

You have to remember Schizoids are NTs. They can read social cues etc, but choose not to deal with humans. They don't need them.

Why did Schizoid rather than Autism for your doctor? What was the deal breaker? Did you get any testing done?

I don't REALLY want to stop, but I get really frustrated with interacting online in general. People don't really know each other online, and I think that's what leads to so many misunderstandings and sometimes even flame wars, or sometimes just start ignoring each other, and I ruminate about these things, become bitter, feel unfulfilled when I ask a question and the poster to whom it was directed doesn't answer and anxious because I don't know everyone's different temperaments and how they are going to take what I say.

My way of coping with that is to expect less of people and withdraw because I know that I can't have the conversation I want, so I just end up more schizoid-like. So I don't think that it's healthy for me to be socializing with strangers (on the other hand, if I stopped posting on WP I would have no social interaction at all).


I was told that my verbal IQ score (136) was too high because people with autism usually have language problems, that I scored average on recognizing emotions in pictures of faces, and that I scored below threshold on the Gillian Asperger scale (not sure what it's called).

The examiner didn't say anything about it, but I also scored highly on the executive functioning tests (Wisconsin Card Sorting and Tower of London), although there was a huge practice effect on the former because they messed up the test administration and had me take it twice. I haven't received the paper copy of my report yet, so I don't know all of the details.

Last edited by starkid on 10 May 2015, 12:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Yes, the ones I remember are:

Wechsler IV
Wechsler Memory scale
Wisconsin Card Sorting Task
Tower of London
MMPI-2 and MMPI-RF
Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory
Gilliam Asperger's Disorder Scale
Rorschach

And there were about three social skills tests I don't recall the names of:

recognizing emotions from pictures and audio recordings (I scored moderately to severely impaired on the ones with voice, but average on the visual ones)

a short-term memory thing, selecting pictures of faces from a pile and arranging them in a grid to match the pattern I had been shown

Being shown a bunch of pictures of children, given their names and hobbies, and having to remember them.

neither wants nor likes close relationships, counting being part of a family
based on the fact that I want a romantic relationship, but no friends. She didn't ask me about how I felt about being close with family, but I said that we weren't close (mainly because they seem disinterested, are dysfunctional, too different in personality and live far away)

almost constantly picks introverted activities

seldom derives pleasure from any activities
The examiner assumed this to be true, but I don't agree.

has no close friends other than immediate relatives
I've no friends at all.

appears apathetic to the admiration or disapproval of others

I'm not totally apathetic to disapproval, but I didn't respond to the compliments they gave me.

shows emotional coldness, detachment, or flattened affectivity
I smiled and laughed few times, but I guess that wasn't enough. I always arrived more zombie-like than usual due to being overwhelmed by the sensory experience of being on public transportation, but my usual affect is rather flat, according to what other people have told me.

Also, I said that I don't like talking about my emotions.

Also, I said that I don't have routines (though I was not 100% sure what constitutes a routine).

I may be wrong, but I think that you have more of aspie traits than schizoid traits. Plus your unique identity as an individual. Now, that sums up into something which we cannot put a label to.
It is not uncommon to have a few schizoid traits for an aspie. But in your case, the major schizoid traits are missing-for example, schizoids are indifferent to either pain or pleasure, praise or criticism. You seem to have more wide ranging emotions ( reading from your posts/ the quote above) compared to a schizoid.
You may belong to the high functioning autism type. Some of the high functioning ones have "schizoid like" episodes/phases appearing in their life often and in those phases, they withdraw themselves totally, goes into a shell and become extremely detached/unemotional /apathetic which may compel them to think that they are schizoids but not quite.

I do not think that it is good for a human being to have no social interaction anymore.
You should keep in mind what you did write yourself, that people do not really know each other online and when you start ruminating or feeling bad about these things, just remind you back that people do not really know each other online and "leave it to the person in question".
And flame wars: just step out of it.



I did never hear before that the verbal IQ can be too high to get diangnoesd with autism, here are so many people on WP who have such high IQ's and VIQ > PIQ.
Did you have a parental interview?
Because some people on here reported to be good in the reading the mind in the eyes test or having no executive dysfunction.
Autistic symptoms must be present in the early developmental period, but that does not mean that skills can not be gained in the later development or adulthood.

No. I just asked my mom if she had noticed anything weird about me as an infant, if I'd reached my developmental milestones on time, whether she had any problems with pregnancy or delivery, and whether or not I'd been exposed to alcohol or drugs.

She didn't quite seem to understand the concept of developmental milestones, and I don't fully trust her memory because she tends to get me and my sisters mixed up, but she seemed certain that I'd walked and talked on-time and I generally believed her when she said that there had been nothing unusual about me.

I wonder if that is a symptom of Asperger's, PDD-NOS, and classic autism being combined into one diagnosis (ASD). When I got my testing feedback, the examiner started off saying Asperger's, then she corrected herself and changed it to autism. Like maybe the more severe communication deficits of classic autism are being expected of people who would have been diagnosed Asperger's before, which is inappropriate because Asperger's involves more subtle communication deficits (pragmatics, prosody, etc.) that would not be reflected in the WAIS verbal index, and people with AS tend to excel in the academic uses of language, which is mostly what makes up the WAIS verbal subtests. The examiner did say that I had trouble expressing myself in the interview portion of the assessment, but only this verbal iq score was mentioned to have been the determining factor in my language assessment.



The thing with executive functioning is that, on the Tower of London test, I scored Superior or Very Superior in terms of finding the correct answers, but I scored Average in terms of the amount of time it took. This sort of mirrors real life: I can get by with executive functioning, but I'm kind of slow. I use lists and I usually limit myself to a few errands per day, otherwise I become overwhelmed. My poor sense of time, however, is still largely unmanaged, and I need to check and re-check schedules and either be constantly looking at a clock or watch to get to places on-time, or end up being late or too early (I'd missed busses to my assessment appointments twice).

Also, I don't even count the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task. I had no idea what was going on the first time I took it; the scoring or something got messed up, they gave it to me again, and I zoomed through it because the examiner had told me the trick to it.

When I was going through the diagnosis process, I was on the fence about whether I would get diagnosed with Schizoid or Asperger's. My examiner (a clinical psychologist) said something about me "not displaying the tendencies of Schizoid behavior". I still wish I understood precisely what that means.

Anyhow, that was > 2 years ago. I thought that Schizoid was since excluded from DSM-V.

In any event, the tests administered during your diagnosis looks quite similar to mine. I think the fact that you knew “the trick” (i.e. what to look for) with the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, nullifies the results from that particular test. Personally, I am not that fond of the Tower of London test. As I remember learning how to solve that particular puzzle when I was younger (possibly as early as elementary school).

I am curious – how did you do on the Wechsler Memory scale? Did the examiner say anything about memory issues? Also, you didn’t say anything about early childhood development. Was this discussed during your assessment?

By the way, I hope you stick around (on WP). I always look forward to reading your posts.

But the Gillian Asperger scale is to asses Asperger's, so why did she change to autism?
There is something not clear to me.
Do you live in an European country, because in the US Asperger's is no more diagnosed I guess.
To parental/childhood interview: if it is assessed by a professional it is not globally asked if there are delays in developmental milestones, but they ask for specific things like for example if the child has an extreme fear of loud noises or the vacuum cleaner and other things.
Or if it was competitive. Or shared with the parents (eg archievments in school or stuff they need).
I did never share anything, if we had to bring things to school for handcraft or something I never had it because I just could not make the connection to tell my parents things from school.
I think experts in autism are aware of the fact that a parent would not always really be able to identify autistic symptoms, especially high functioning/Asperger's symptoms.

I don't know. I guess because all the spectrum diagnoses are officially called Autism Spectrum Disorder now (I'm in the U.S.), but the test names haven't changed, so it's still Gilliam Asperger scale.


My mom didn't get interviewed. Information from my childhood was given in a rudimentary and impromptu fashion: The examiner called me a couple of weeks before I got my results and asked me about my developmental milestones, exposure to drugs, and my mom's pregancy/delivery. I asked my mom and called her back with the information. Besides a few details from my life history (such as experiences at school), that's the only childhood information that was involved. They didn't ask me for anything else.