Any other aspies with a lot of schizoid personality triats?

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder

I take a lot of psychotherapy theories with a grain of salt but I felt pretty intrigued while reading through this article. In particular I strongly identify with pretty much all the traits listen on the chart half-way down the page, the one comparing "overt" and "covert" personality features.

I've also noticed that along with my autistic traits I have a very strong need for personal privacy that impairs me socially. I have these strange fears/inhibitions about sharing certain personal preferences, interests, etc. I get uncomfortable outwardly advertising anything about me. I frequently feel a strong sense of internal embarrassment over my own thoughts, as if they could be permanently imprinted and judged by some phantom observer. I feel like I have no personality or identity, like I should be a disembodied observer. I feel like there are parts of me that not even my closest family members know or understand.

I don't seem to fit the aspie stereotype of being blunt and oblivious to other people's emotions. Instead when I'm in a social situation I'm sometimes paranoid about what people are thinking and over-interpret rather than under-interpret hidden meanings.

I feel I definitely match both AS and a schizoid personality myself. I think my schizoidness has come about later in life, while I was born with AS of course.

Yea. I feel like some of my AS traits diminished over time while the co-morbid traits associated with schizoid personality have only increased over time.

Being on the autism spectrum doesn't alone explain my social difficulties. There's also an extreme lack of motivation and feeling of disappointment/emptiness/unfulfilledness in my social interactions. People constantly bore me with their topics of conversation and I don't ever feel like I have much empathy even when I notice and analyze the emotions in others. I can tell myself that I don't care about people yet I'm still a very lonely person.

Same here.

I think after a lifetime of social failure due to aspie traits, we lose the ability to be comfortable being ourselves around other people.

I have some schizoid traits, but not enough to consider it as a condition in itself, but maybe as part of AS...

I was in therapy both in elementary school and in high school for being so socially withdrawn among other things. I found out recently from my mother that they had tentatively diagnosed me with schizoid personality disorder. This was many years before Asperger's was a recognizable way of being. If you were autistic you were moderately or severely autistic. I can understand now why they wouldn't diagnose someone under a certain age as being schizoid. Personally I would say as a child I avoided social interaction because I didn't know how and feared rejection. After many years I would say I avoid social interaction because people make me tired. I don't dislike people, I can only take them in small doses before I start feeling overwhelmed. Still, if I did not have my son I would probably be making some kind of effort. I wonder if they're not going to change their view on what schizoid really is (or isn't).

I get more anhedonia with age, I don't seem to 'feel' as much emotionally.

I sometimes lurk at this schizoid forum http://schizoids.net/forum/ because it's nice to get away from all the dating/whining/ego threads here. Ultimately they're a rather grim lot though, dry humour. I'm not one of them although I can relate to their 'sentiments'. It's an intelligent discussion forum without the 'lovelorn'.

Last edited by Postperson on 19 Jun 2009, 6:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I definitly have SPD-traits. My only doubt is if I am schizoid or an aspie-with-schizoid-symptoms:

- looking for the descriptions of Schizoid PD, it seems a perfect description of me

- looking for the descriptions of AS, it seems a moderate description of me


Since 6-7 years I had the habit of spending my time alone in my room, living imaginary adventures in my head or reading. In elementary school, with other kids I was not much reclusive: I usually had 2 or 3 friends and, when the kids of my class had playground "battles" against the other classes I joined them.

Only in 5 grade (when I change of school) I become a "daydreamer loner" both at house and at school: I did not talk with the other kids and they teased/bullyed me (I don't know what was the cause and what was the efect - I suspect that my social withdrawl was the beginning of all, but after there was much mutual re-inforcement between the two things)

DSM-IV-TR criteria

neither desires nor enjoys close relationships, including being part of a family. I don't dislike or like having close relationships, even with my family. I'm indifferent because we aren't very close anyway.
almost always chooses solitary activities. Very true and I've been this way my whole life.
has little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences with another person. Very true, in fact I'm pretty sure that I'm Asexual.
takes pleasure in few, if any, activities. This is true, although it could be caused by my reoccuring depression and lack of motivation.
lacks close friends or confidants other than first-degree relatives. I don't have any friends in real life and would never confide in my family, ever. I don't meet this criteria as I talk to my counsellor about things.
appears indifferent to the praise or criticism of others. Not true. I hate it when people tell me I'm doing something wrong and even more so, when I know I'm right.
shows emotional coldness, detachment, or flattened affectivity I often feel very detached from everything in life, but I don't know about the other two things.

The problem with all that is that schizoid personality, as I understand it anyway, predated (well maybe not Hans Asperger) but common dx of Aspergers. Also I pretty much think that you would only have a dx of that if you did not have a dx of Aspergers or some other developmental condition.

I, in fact, was dxed that before they decided I was schizophrenic (which i am not) and before I was dxed any other thing (borderline was another). Most of them are developmental dead ends with terrible prognoses.



--des

Getting DXed with personality disorders IS pretty pointless IMO. I'm only curious about it because I want to find other people who are similar to me.

There are certain things about my personality that AS alone doesn't explain. Not wanting to share with anyone the books I read, the websites I look at, or the music I listen to for instance. I have a real fear of sharing things about myself and need for extreme privacy in most of my activities. Online is the only place where I share a lot about myself. Even my own family doesn't understand why I'm like this and I can't explain it.

Aaahh personality disorders.... yeah, probably the most pointless diagnosis you can get. A psychiatrist thought I had borderline and schizotypal (which is similar to schizoid). I have the characteristic lack of interest in people and relationships, but I can gain great enjoyment out of the things I am interested in. I can relate to schizoid people, but I'm probably not one of them.

Why?

Yes, but what is really the "correct" diagnosis?

Imagine 3 groups of people:

A - have the symptoms of AS, don't have the symptoms of SPD

B - have both the symptoms of AS and SPD

C - only have the symptoms of SPD

Today, the rule is that A and B have AS and C have SPD. But joining B with A instead of with C, in the end, is simply a convention of the psychiatric community.

Some people argue that a diagnosis of AS is more useful, in terms of accomadations and services, than a diagnosis of SPD - but this is, in great way, a circular thing: because "schizoid disorder of childhood" was abandoned (or is included in PDD/NOS?) as a distinct diagnosis, the children with schizoid symptoms need a diagnosis of AS (or "mild AS") or PDD/NOS to have accomodations. But if SDC was recovered from the dust, these children could have services perhaps more in tone with their needs than with a general label of AS (or the alternative label "he don't have any problem, is only a little shy").

An exemple: me!

According to the DSM-IV description (yes, I know that is not intended to be interpreted by us, but by professionals...), I suspect that I have AS (with some caveats: my special interest in childhood was natural sciences - I don't know if this count as a "restricted interest"; and I was more of the kind of giving small monologues about my interests, not long monologues).

However, reading the strategies recomendend for studentes with AS, I think that most of them will be useless to me:

- I hate to be told what to do, then, classes about "social skills", "social stories", etc. will a lost of time with me (I know - when my parents tryed to teach me how to behave correctly - talking with people, etc -, my reaction was to do even more the things that they did not want me to do)

- I don't have any particular need of a structured, predictable environment, or to be advised with antecipation of changes

- I did not have also any need of extra time during exams (much the opposite - in the subjects that I like, I used to do the exams in half of the time)

In contrast, reading the sugestions that Sulla Wolff made for "schizoid" children (smaller classes, flexible curriculum, schools with large areas and few students), it seems the heaven for me.

However, I remember that I have no formal diagnosis (it is possible that I am simply hipochodriac...), then perahps you should not give much importance to my opinions.

Last edited by TPE2 on 20 Jun 2009, 11:25 am, edited 2 times in total.

what does it mean to take an idea with a grain of salt?