I have been asked if schizoids were conscience they were hurting people, not just buy not giving enough attention, but more especially while leaving their close ones…I can’t answer for them, but I can tell you this about me: Yes I am conscious I “hurt” people’s feelings (I would not hurt a fly), and that I will hurt my wife and daughter if leaving them.
As going as far as to living your family, well, I believe once gone, it is hard to come back. See most people will get tired of the loneliness; figure what they are missing after a few days away (and after having partied all their soul. Basically they get it out of their system then realize they just can’t live alone). But not me… The sad truth is the longer apart, the longer alone, and the best can I appreciate being distant from my family.
Being alone is extremely liberating, and when it happens, I forget my family almost instantly… I enter my bubble, I am all alone with my schedule and activities, most of the time I don’t hear the phone anymore and easily enter into a timeless state where a day can go by without me noticing it: that’s how deep I can introvert and be in my thoughts with no one around.
But conscience there is, yes. When comes the time to go back to the real world (eating, shopping, etc…) It’s like waves of conscience, coming and going. Personally, I can even feel guilt (like putting 4000 miles between me and my mom who lives alone), but I quickly rationalize it, dismiss it, put it under wrap until the next wave…
Of course at some culminant points, the adding of it all could make some waves pretty hurtful. Then extreme melancholy (which I cannot express, even if all alone by myself), sadness, guilt… it all turns into an hurtful ball in my chest, then comes the emptiness, and at that point the line is very very thin and slippery to fall into clinical depression…
So the choice is dealing with conscience of hurting people or dealing with feelings to not hurt pepople, and I am way more equipped to deal with conscience issues than with feelings and proximity. I can dissect my conscience, play with it, turn it around, understand it, and justify it, so that with enough work it will not wake any dormant feelings on the next wave… So yes, there is clear conscience on my part, and I do understand that I “hurt” others in the process of being distant, or worst; leaving. Yet I cannot care much (understanding and caring are two different things) because I know the others don’t have any conscience of what I go thru…
That is my plague: I know I am “the villain” (by common standards), but I cannot change it (by my standards), cannot explain it especially to those I hurt (because they of course are emotional about it, and I just can’t go there), and very few people can understand it… (It will be like an atheist trying to convince a theist to lose faith or a theist trying to convince an atheist to have faith… pointless…)
I have been alone (usually 1 or 2 weeks while my wife and daughter go on vacations earlier than me), and I have felt the urge to stay that way, terribly!
But I am pretty balanced, and it’s like a switch I flip: “Alone/Family”. So when the time is up, I flip the switch, get in the plane and join my family (I usually need the trip to readjust properly).
It’s the “getting the switch to work” part that is tricky, and I understand perfectly why it will not work for others. There is a degree of knowing oneself implied, and I think I was lucky, from my education, to be able to look at and criticized myself constructively at a young age. Aside from that, probably only therapy could bring that degree of understanding and control…
I do walk a very fine line while putting myself into the position of being alone, or more exactly I put my family on a very fine line, every time there is a chance the switch won’t flip back… Yet, I truly believe I need those moments too, it’s part of my neutral self and perpetual paradoxical personality: I need to flirt with it, just enough to know I am right not to fall completely…
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