Apr 2421:18

The D word

Familly, Inner thoughts, Moods 7 Comments »

Here we are at that crossroad again… I have picked-up witting, and noticeably those past two weeks I have put a few urban poetic texts together (mostly in french, sorry).

 In one of them called “double nationality” I express my trouble coping with the changes to come, like “double nationality, feels for me like being a stranger in two countries“. Or ” Why can’t we have to hearts, one for your home town, and one for the magical city that welcomed you in your exile“…

My wife read it and even if the text by itself does not speak about family or me wanting or not to go back to France (it’s really just about how I feel I got no roots anymore, which is actually not even a bad feeling for me, ironically enough).

Then her reaction was: “It’s over! Since you seem more at ease writing the depth of your thoughts instead of speaking of it with the one that shared 14 years with you… I can’t take it anymore… Stay in you “magical city” alone I will go back with our daughter, you don’t need us as we are evidently a weight for you every single day…”

What can I say? She nailed it: YES it IS easier for me to WRITE my feelings down rather than TALK about them. And YES I don’t NEED anyone… When she’s right, she’s right…

And what did I do? I wrote another poem called “15 years”. How many women out there can say they are truly a muse for their husband like mine is? Too bad I can’t tell her…

And my thoughts as I write those lines are exactly: “what a bad timing, I have no more house end of June, the car is sold, and I have announced my departure at work, I wish she would have established that a little earlier while I had still something to keep me in my “magical city”, so next on my list: being a writer or leave for Sydney or for New-York… I guess I could write in both… Though I feel like writing in French, so maybe I’ll go back to Paris after all…”

Welcome in the thoughts of a schizoid…

Related posts

Feb 2522:43

Consciousness

Familly, Inner thoughts 9 Comments »

 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…

Related posts

Feb 071:50

The fear of going crazy

Inner thoughts 6 Comments »

(Nancy, this one’s for you)

camisole.jpgIt’s time for me to post about something that I think even professionals are underestimating. There is little reference about “the fear of going crazy” for schizoids. And yet it is of capital importance, at least for me, I’ll explain why…

My mind is like one of those little spring toys that once wind upped won’t stop doing what they are meant to do. Even when they do stop, you just barely touch them and they go at it again.
Well my mind is meant to think and is wind up by thoughts. So you can imagine my mind like always thinking. And the more it thinks, the more it’s wind upped, and the more it’s wind upped, the more it thinks… That’s 24/7, every second of every minute of my life, restless… You can’t really understand what it means. My wife is the most empathic person I have ever known, and she can’t even start imagining what it’s like…
I mean, I am at the dinner table, talking, I get up to go pee, by the time I am upstairs I have travelled 3 million light years away thru a vortex that sucked me right from the stair case, I sit on the toilet and I am now peeling plantains in the 1750s on a remote island. As the drips fell done the bowl I wonder what will happen if the ballasts of a submarine were filled by an uncompressible gas instead of air, could it be released at a slower rate, smoothing the ride? I am back at the table exactly when the first computer more intelligent than any human being becomes aware of himself. I pick up the conversation around the table like nothing happened, realize that I probably did not flush, or did I? Can’t remember… Well my hands are misted, so at least I washed them… which makes me think: did I close the faucet? Well, let’s finish eating I’ll check discreetly after, why will a dog jump thru a hoop?…

Read the rest of this entry »

Related posts

Jan 300:27

BIG mistake

Familly 6 Comments »

We humans, never learn it seems…. Ok picture this: My wife and I are a bit on the fritz because I was particularly “distant” those past 3-4 weeks. (Imagine that).

I do have some of those streaks where it is “worse” than usual. I mean there was the decision to go back in France, I already forsee hordes of stranger visiting my home for sale (yark!)… Sure, I went a bit deeper to cope with all that.

It’s not the first time, and usually I resurface, we reconnect slowly and are back on tracks after a bit of a discussion about why obsessed me lately. Tonight we had that reconnection process well on the way when I totally fucked it up… I told her!

Shit man, after 14 years together, and at least 20 passed introverting, you would think I’d know better!!!

Read the rest of this entry »

Related posts

Jan 2720:12

How schizoid?

Inner thoughts, Society 17 Comments »

schizoiddb.jpgI’ve read a post on PsyForums where a teenager was wondering if he had SPD. A nice, definitively on the good side of the fence young man (not saying that because he is obviously a bit introvert). Made me wonder how many people think they could have a SPD…

So here is how schizoid I am (again it’s just me) so you can compare:

Read the rest of this entry »

Related posts

Jan 240:44

Pitfalls, common mistakes and misunderstandings about SPD

Uncategorized No Comments »

WarningOutside of the medical interdependences shown previously, SPD and its syndromes are also typically misinterpreted by the general population.

Schizoid v/s schizophrenia: Only thing they have in common is their Greek roots. “schizo” meaning “split”. Other than that they have nothing in common, The schizoid is “split from the society” when schizophrenia is “split from reality” ( the fantasizing part of the schizoid does not even compare to schizophrenia, the schizoid never doubt for a minute that he is day dreaming and nothing of it is real). I have read an interesting post where someone suggested to change the term schizoid to “souls of solitude”. Not very clinical, but very poetic indeed.

Introverts (it’s not just the schizoids) are egoist and narcissist: Faceit the general population thrives in an extrovert society, so as soon as you look at your shoes and keep quiet you are egoist (for not sharing your life), if on top of it you seem the slightest at ease being alone (like the schizoid will) then you are a self absorbed narcissist. Funny when medically, the narcissism disorder is actually an extrovert behavior… Those are more due to ignorance and vocabulary misunderstanding than anything else but they were worth mentioning as they do sent the wrong message about introverts.

Introverts are always shy / timid: Seems obvious right? Yet it is not ALWAYS true. Shy and timid people are not necessarily introverts either… An introvert is someone interiorizing things, bottling up things tightly inside (could be feelings or emotions for the schizoid, could be fears for the paranoid, or delusions for the shizotypical) but not necessarily himself. Yes in most cases an introvert will display shy or timid like behaviors, but not always. Which bring me to the last part.

The “secret schizoid”: Shattering some bases of the DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10 heavily focusing on the avoidance and reluctance side of the schizoid towards the external world and interpersonal relationship, the concept of “secret schizoid” (I like to call it “the social schizoid” or “The ubber impersonator”) first rose in the 40’s while a study conducted by psychologist Fairbairn made him cross path with a diagnosed schizoid showing sign of nothing less than “impressive social contacts”.
Who is that “secret schizoid”? Well it is a schizoid who mastered his tools of defense mechanism to a whole new level. He can actually “act” like social, appear socially appealing, and even engage in group activities… But the toll to pay is heavy to achieve the level of detachment implied (trust me on that one: The show is good, but don’t try to get backstage).

Previous

    

Related posts

Jan 240:41

Relations between SPD and the other Personality Disorders

Uncategorized No Comments »

refresh.pngLike shown in the previous table, medically speaking, SPD is a disorder of the cluster A “Odd, Eccentric” (no kidding) Along with Paranoid and Schizotypical personality disorders, all of them also happens to produce introvert behaviors.

But it also shares some aspects with another personality disorders from cluster C “Anxious/Fearfull”, the Avoidant personality disorder, as well as with other conditions that are not categorized as personality disorders: Depression, Asperger’s Syndrome and the Hikikomori phenomenon (to recent to have a medical classification yet).

If most psychologists will not be confused between a Schizoid, a shyzotypical and a Paranoid personality disorder while pulling a diagnostic. They might however get fooled by certain types of schizoid individuals and wrongfully diagnose depression, avoidant personality, asperger’s syndrome, and now the newbie Hikikomori. We can’t blame them, schizoid is the rarest of personality disorders (not the rarest of all mental disorders) and one with symptoms spreading all across the chart at that, and depression is so very trendy now days, so why look somewhere else?…

Keep in mind that a schizoid can also double with a second personality disorder (the combination schizoid + Avoidant is not unheard of) or be having a clinical depression as well. Nonetheless, several indicators can help in the medical diagnostic:

SPD v/s clinical depression: Unlike depressed people, persons with SPD generally do not consider themselves inferior to others, although they will probably recognize that they are different. (Again keep in mind the individual might actually have a depression on top of being schizoid, or doubling with an avoidant that have strong depression traits).

SPD v/s Avoidant Personality Disorder: Unlike avoidant personality disorder, those affected with SPD do not avoid social interactions due to anxiety or feelings of incompetence, but because they are genuinely indifferent to social relationships. (however, in a 1989 Canadian study, schizoid and avoidant personalities were found to display equivalent levels of anxiety, depression, and psychotic tendencies. And as a matter of fact some schizoids are ALSO avoidants).

SPD v/s Asperger’s Syndrome: Unlike Asperger’s Syndrome, SPD does not involve an impairment in nonverbal communication (e.g., lack of eye-contact or unusual prosody) or a pattern of restricted interests or repetitive behaviors (e.g., a strict adherence to routines or rituals, or an unusually intense interest in a single topic). Instead people with SPD are typically more indifferent with regard to their activities. More over SPD does not affect the ability to express oneself or communicate effectively with others, and is not believed to be related to any form of autism like Asperger’s Syndrome is.

SPD v/s Hikikomori: Little is yet established for the diagnosis of Hikikomori, but it is a COMPLETE withdrawal from society. Where the schizoid still maintain some outside activities (like a job), the Hikikomori never leaves his house, generally not even is room. The schizoid thrives on autonomy and self sufficient, but the Hikikomori is totally dependent from is family for is support and rapidly loose all social skills. A point of origin seems to be the refusal of school, but since the phenomenon started in Japan where the education system is very different that might not be relevant for the occidental individuals.

Previous

  

Next

Related posts

Previous Entries
Powered by WordPress, design forWP Theme & Icons by N.Design Studio Personal Top Blogs
Home Entries RSS Comments RSS