I was diagnosed with spd a few years ago. I shared the diagnosis with a few friends, one of whom is a therapist, and they honestly thought it was a misdiagnosis because I don't always have a flat affect, can show happiness, etc. But honestly I loved being diagnosed because I could really identify with what I read about the disorder.<p>What is described here is something I also struggle with - the obligation to explain my worldview to others. Sometimes there is no way around it, because the more you withdraw to avoid voicing your opinion, the more guilt you can feel for somehow being sneaky or dishonest. I also don't know if sharing the 'why' would really help. What I see as matter-of-fact can make others extremely sad. Either way, it's interesting to think about. Thanks for sharing.
Writing or 'stabbing the page with ink' is great and thaws out the ice in your soul, which we all have from time to time. It's ironic and meta that this is a blogpost expressing various feelings, on a matter related to unexpressed emotions. This is why I blog. I feel vulnerable doing so, but my thoughts are not so bottled up. Then I can say: 'I've expressed that already', albeit through a poor channel of a blog, but it's still out there. If it helped at least one person, I've done my job.
I’m bipolar I’ve spent several lifetimes(1) studying humanity.<p>For many neurotyoical people I’ve interacted with, non-neurotyoical people are an outside context problem.<p>As an asexual person, sexuality is an outside context problem that goes in both directions.<p>Human brains are pattern matching machines. When we interact with other people, we have a mental model for how they think (or should think). That model is built from our internal experience.<p>Without shared internal experience or enough data to imagine it, there will not be true understanding of another’s internal experience.<p>As a result, while I am fortunate to often be accepted for who I am, many people do not understand. Fortunately, I’ve found complete understanding is not required if the other people simply takes what you say at face value.<p>The problem comes in when other people decide they don’t trust you and apply their belief of how you should think instead.<p>Edit 1. For some fun context. :)<p>When I say several lifetimes, I do mean this quite literally. Mania lets one live at a greatly accelerated rate. Mood swings frequently bring extremes of emotion that are experienced only rarely by the average person. It often gives me a deep understanding of how people work. It’s also a curse I’d be very happy trade for ignorance.
I agree that psychologists too readily dismiss people who are weird as having a disorder.<p>Any non-nomrmal behaviour, taken to an extreme, can cause a disorder in the sense that that person can't function (e.g. to keep herself fed and employed). This means unless we literally are the most average person, we all have the starts of a disorder. It does not mean we have a disorder because it's the magnitude that makes it a disorder.<p>Genuine question: in this case, what is in fact the disorder? Reading through the description of Schizoid, they like to be alone, they don't meet people's emotional expectations -- these don't sound like disorders.
The author should have defined the term "schizoid" since it colloquially refers to Schizophrenia rather than Schizoid Personality Disorder. The former involves hallucinations and is also a pejorative used to imply that someone is "crazy". The latter is an extreme form of introversion: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder</a><p>DSM-5 criteria:<p><pre><code> - Neither desires nor enjoys close relationships, including being part of a family.
- Almost always chooses solitary activities.
- Has little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences with another person.
- Takes pleasure in few, if any, activities.
- Lacks close friends or confidants other than first-degree relatives.
- Appears indifferent to the praise or criticism of others.
- Shows emotional coldness, detachment, or flattened affectivity.</code></pre>
Make a mental model of which people can understand which things. Understand what topics they are even interested in. Understand how disinterested person reacts and know when to stop, and understand how an interested person react and know when you can share. Ask people if they are interested in what you're saying. Check their attention. Check their understanding. Understand which people simply don't have the mental capacity to understand difficult topics and just avoid discussing it with them. Understand which people are judging topics emotionally and avoid trying to reason with them logically because it's pointless. Don't try to drop everything all at once, understanding is gradual. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.<p>You might have great mental models of the "world" but lack in mental models of other people. Some rational people have really undeveloped emotional reasoning, because they don't use it for themselves, but still use their own emotional reasoning for understanding other people. You can rationally understand other people even if they are irrational themselves.
>> this boundary will always exist, regardless of the amount of therapy, or effort, that is placed upon it. despite the psychological community, or family or friends or partners that could attempt to help.<p>That boundary can be significantly moved or even torn down. Psychologists often don't really understand how to help, so they either ignore it or do other things that may or may not work (or may be harmful). IMHO more writings are needed from those who have made significant improvement in this condition, the clinicians understanding is either too abstract or not correct (SPD is not same as AvPD for example).
This was interesting. The writing is hard to follow, but I understand perfectly well what it's trying to say. Sounds like the type of ramble I'd go on inside my own mind when I was younger.<p>I'm still annoyed by the absolute nonsense in which we live in, and I'm thoroughly baffled to see that most people just go with it—or worse, see it as logical—but I'm trying now to be at peace with said nonsense. I figure it's the best I can do, since we're unable to find a compromise.
Strikingly absent from the piece, and in my experience from similar memoirs generally, is an explicit attempt at constructing general or specific theories of mind. Much may be relieved by turning one's conceptual skill to the task of modeling another's experience. This is best done with empathy's aid, which is most difficult to find when fixated on one's own emotions. ("Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.")
I'd never heard about this type of disorder until I did one of those "what personality disorder do you have" and it told me I had this. After reading up on it I reckon the diagnosis, despite coming from an internet quiz, was pretty accurate. It seems virtually invisible compared to the "fashionable" disorders we hear so much about online, that have vocal advocates and even clout-chasing tiktok'ers. When I read about treatment, I got the impression that it's considered to be untreatable and neither doctors/sufferers not are that bothered. But I wonder if that, and its "invisibility", isn't to some extent due to the nature of the problem.
For some reason I felt that the author was a girl by the writing. And then I checked her other post and it turned out I was right. I wonder what tipped me off.<p>The other post on the blog is also pretty cool. Hard relate. <a href="https://eden.bearblog.dev/on-writing/" rel="nofollow">https://eden.bearblog.dev/on-writing/</a>
I think part of the difficulty is that there is an assumed notion of an objective reality when it comes to motivations, relationships, and anything else relating to internal experiences. Neurotypical people will find significant overlap with other neurotypical people's internal experiences and therefore assume that's objective fact, and are only exposed to radically different internal experiences in the context of "Crazy", "Psychopath", etc. In fact, as a fellow non-neurotypical person, I see different neurotypical people differ in internal experiences from other neurotypical people all the time (see: introverts vs extroverts, love languages, other pop psychology) but they're just not categorized the same for seemingly arbitrary cultural norm reasons, aka popularity.
>what is creating this boundary? is it merely the withdrawing of the self<p>My armchair answer is that this is creating the boundary. There is no 'merely'. People want to interact with a self.<p>>within your sense of self, as it’s building, you are being told to take apart, to dismantle, as it is being inappropriately build to their standards.<p>That's how society works. People have adjusted their self to fit in, they expect the same from everybody else.