[HN Gopher] The Schizoid Difference
___________________________________________________________________
The Schizoid Difference
Author : memorable
Score : 82 points
Date : 2022-10-03 14:54 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (eden.bearblog.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (eden.bearblog.dev)
| phkahler wrote:
| >> 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.
|
| 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).
| [deleted]
| hackerlight wrote:
| What should be done to treat it?
| kiicia wrote:
| That's the neat part, you don't.
|
| Source: I'm decades old, somewhere between SzPD and AvPD.
| Still officially undiagnosed and not treated for it, despite
| of years of psychiatrical treatment... I just get
| antidepressants and anti-generalized-fear drugs (dunno what
| is proper name) and I'm left alone (literally).
| hackerlight wrote:
| Does having a partner imply not having SzPD? Like would
| that be sufficient for someone to not qualify for a
| diagnosis.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| No, you can have SzPD and also a life partner. It can be
| as easy as getting married due to societal pressure,
| going with the flow of a relationship can often be
| significantly easier than fighting off questions about
| being a permanent single person. Relationships don't have
| to be lovely, loving things of deep attachment. They can
| also be points of stability, pooling resources, and
| taking advantage of societal carve-outs.
| 2devnull wrote:
| Must be a wonderful experience for the other person!
| Being someone's point of stability for "societal carve-
| outs" instead of having your love and affection
| reciprocated.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| I mean, the other person might also just need a point of
| stability and can otherwise get much of their social
| enrichment elsewhere. Your partner can just be a person
| you get along with that you live with like a good buddy
| that you might have sex with (if you enjoy sex). Your
| partner doesn't have to be your spiritual guru, your
| therapist, your life coach, your obsession, your reason
| to live, etc.
|
| It's not like Schizoid people go around sneakily
| pretending to love people only to turn off once the
| relationship is secured. Like any healthy relationship,
| open communication is expected. A schizoid person can
| simply say, "hey, I can't have a Hallmark Movie marriage"
| and their partner can just accept that. Maybe the partner
| is schizoid too. Maybe the relationship is an open one.
| Maybe the capacity to meet a schizoid person where they
| are is, in fact, the deep emotional validation that they
| share with each other that is the bedrock to the
| partnership (the schizoid person is _finally_ accepted
| and can let down their guard a little, the partner gets
| an insight into their schizoid lover that no one else
| ever sees and revels in the intimacy and beauty of it).
| There are an infinite number of ways to have two adults
| enter an emotionally healthy relationship even if one of
| them is neurodivergent.
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| I don't necessarily believe it would be impossible to
| reciprocate, but that there would be an atypical
| representation of love and needs disparate to what
| culture has inculcated (which itself leads to many
| misapprehensions).
|
| Depending on the literature chosen, SzPDs can have
| "lively internal states" and be "exquisitely sensitive"
| it's just a question of expressing such things.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Context, I'm bipolar, not SzPD, so may not fully
| understand.
|
| Relationships don't need to be based on love. You could
| seek out someone who is looking for someone to share
| responsibilities with. Imagine them as a coworker or
| roommate.
|
| If the relationship works well, you might want to
| formalize it to get the societal benefits marriage can
| provide.
|
| Most people can't imagine this working out because they
| don't want or function well in that kind of relationship.
| trash3 wrote:
| Schizoid can be a good partner if compatible. They need
| solitude though otherwise are significantly more stable
| than most.
|
| A diagnosis proper would require brain mapping. My theory
| is there is a missing piece of circuitry like a bridge in
| the reward network of the brain.
| arbitrage wrote:
| Probably doesn't rule it out outright. It would depend on
| the level of relationship attachment.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Treatment follows diagnosis, "omnipotent barrier" is a
| shallow diagnosis. Once the nature of the barrier is known,
| solution should be fairly obvious.
| tcrisco wrote:
| I have placed myself in therapy dozens of times up until now.
| Ultimately nothing has ever worked out up to now. There was
| always something that prevented further introspection, like the
| author describes. I am not sure that it is surmountable. Past
| therapists have told me that my relationship with them was not
| viable.
|
| At some point I only went to therapy on someone else's
| insistence. At some other point I realized that I was only ever
| in therapy because I was terrified of those other people's eyes
| on me, insisting that I go or I can't reasonably integrate with
| their company based on becoming a person changed to their
| expectations. When I realized that, I lost interest entirely. I
| also reported my experiences with therapy to the other party,
| and predictably, they shunned me.
|
| So there were two conclusions I could make: that maybe therapy
| isn't ever going to be as effective with me than with an
| average person, and that if someone's acceptance of me depends
| on my acceptance of therapy, then they are a lost cause.
|
| At the same time, I can understand such a response. There are
| probably hundreds of comments on this site directed towards
| depressed engineers and others where the advice essentially
| amounts to "go to therapy." What would those people say if your
| response was "no, it doesn't work?" But the fact is, it doesn't
| work. At the same time, common sense surrounding therapy is too
| strong a force to be reckoned with on an average advice thread,
| and the culture is not going to overturn it. So your only
| option is to stay quiet, and be left alone.
|
| This I think is one example of the "boundary" that the author
| describes, in trying to address that boundary with action.
| wruza wrote:
| In my own experience, therapy works (and I'm not an easy case
| either). It's more like not all therapists work, and the
| depth of your issues may be too big to even comprehend in a
| couple of years. I can't tell for my hardest issues, but
| relatively small ones like a bunch of situational anxieties I
| successfully fixed. (The great finding was that once I
| eliminated the first algorithm, I realized that they are not
| situational, but remarkably generic. Lots of thoughts like
| "hmm, this is the same pattern, let's give zero fucks and get
| new experience in return".)
|
| It's still a well full of mud nonetheless, but hey I've been
| filling it for 35 years. I score around 6/7 on the above
| definition, also failed a socialization test.
|
| I hit the wall a few times too. Questions not responding,
| nothing in my head to answer them. This wall is _hard_ , hard
| on a level of debugging a binary without any debug info. I
| decided to relax a little and just accept and explore
| "theories" of my therapist and my own (e.g. just make an
| extreme statement about me and accept and therapy _it_ , as
| if it was true). Also, some ideas don't work because you may
| be trapped between an objective situation and your core
| character. While unsolvable, it e.g. gave me ~1.5x raise and
| benefits as a result. Nice. Also, when in a complete dead
| end, I just went on a session anyway and "started a new
| thread". Most of them merged eventually in surprising ways
| and gave more clarity on previous ones.
|
| I wish you to find what works for you eventually, if you are
| willing to continue.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| You don't need to overturn whole culture. See Ash
| experiments: conformism has a funny feature - it works only
| if there's no disagreement. One disagreement can be enough to
| instill doubt in assumptions.
| nmeofthestate wrote:
| 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.
| sxp wrote:
| 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:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder
|
| DSM-5 criteria: - 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.
| lofatdairy wrote:
| I assumed that it was a reference to D&G's Anti-Oedipus, that
| definition seems to make a bit more sense.
| [deleted]
| rnxrx wrote:
| The dilemma with these sorts of discussions always seems to
| come back to where the line is drawn between the personality
| and the disorder. Clearly there are some pathologies whose
| features manifest in ways that are dangerous (..to one's self
| and/or others) but it's not clear to me which of the criteria
| above rise from being facets of ordinary personalities and
| become truly pathological.
|
| This seems to also coincide with other literature that
| describes those with SPD as being among the least likely to
| seek treatment.
| wooque wrote:
| That sounds like advanced depression
| uoaei wrote:
| I see it as "depression with an onset in early life, probably
| from neglectful parenting".
| elliotec wrote:
| The author did not need to define schizoid because:
|
| 1. It is their blog, and they probably assume their audience is
| educated in what schizoid means or is capable of looking it up.
|
| 2. Schizoid does not colloquially refer to schizophrenia, and
| schizophrenia is not a pejorative for "crazy," these are both
| real and distinct (but related) disorders that do not require
| anyone talking about them to dichotomize them from what you
| might assume people misconstrue their false definitions as.
|
| Also, it's not an "extreme form of introversion" - it's much
| more than that, and putting it that way minimizes the serious
| nature of the disorder.
| belkarx wrote:
| You're incorrect on point 2. In many communities,
| schizoid/schizo does refer in a derogatory/shorthand manner
| to schizophrenia and many more people are familiar with
| schizophrenia than schizoid disorder, so that is more likely
| to be the immediate assumption.
| kyleyeats wrote:
| If you're uncomfortable with the term 'schizoid,' you can try
| medicating the heck out of it and calling it ADHD.
| hosh wrote:
| SPD shares more similarities to Narcissitic Personality
| Disorder than it does with ADHD -- not in terms of effect and
| imposition on other people, but rather in the lived
| experience of self and other, self and world. I don't think
| SPD (or NPD) are something you can medicate.
| kyleyeats wrote:
| They're also kinda opposites. The cure for NPD is isolation
| and the cure for SPD is being around people (agreed--
| neither are in pill form yet). They both have immutable
| internal status, but the narcissist's is very low while the
| schizoid's is very high.
|
| The best example IMO of a cured narcissist is Larry Lawton,
| who faced a long period of isolation in prison. He's on
| Youtube.
| plutonorm wrote:
| Perhaps long acting oxytocin.
| hosh wrote:
| If we're going that route, I think it's more likely we'll
| see clinical outcomes with therupeutic use of psilosybin
| or MDMA.
|
| I don't think it is so much that the brain needs to be
| tweaked, but that experiencing self, other, and world in
| a different ways can transform those in a way that does
| not require ongoing medication.
| Cornelius267 wrote:
| These are different things. They may share some overlapping
| symptoms, perhaps even some similar brain changes, but the
| internal phenomenology of them are quite different. They are
| not exclusive, but nor are they the same thing.
| kyleyeats wrote:
| No, they're just different words and different times.
| Schizoids have a false mask they use to interact with
| others. If we could have, we would have medicated them back
| then so that they're always presenting with the false mask
| instead of their "wrong" asocial presentation. That's what
| ADHD is. We didn't suddenly stop having schizoids and start
| having a bunch of ADHD people.
| Cornelius267 wrote:
| No, they are different things. I am honestly quite
| confused as to how you could think that they were the
| same thing. They both exist as a constellation of
| separate diagnostic criteria, for example, and the
| internal phenomenology of both is different. You can have
| one, but not the other, or you could have both.
|
| For example, here's a quora where someone with both talks
| about it: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-
| between-ADHD-an...
|
| Or if you prefer a more 'scientific' source, here's one
| examining the comorbidity of ADHD and certain disorders,
| among which Schizoid Personality Disorder is one:
| https://www.elsevier.es/en-revista-revista-psiquiatria-
| salud...
|
| They find a correlation, yes, but they are certainly not
| one and the same.
| kyleyeats wrote:
| I mean, do you think ADHD is new? Did it just not exist
| before 1990 or whenever it was made up? Do you think
| _any_ medical condition before then covers what ADHD is
| /was?
|
| Lance Armstrong when he is biking and Lance Armstrong
| when he is recovering are not the same either. But Lance
| can take drugs to get more of the biking time and less of
| the recovering time. This is how SPD and ADHD work. ADHD
| is just a medicated false mask that a schizoid person can
| maintain for longer periods of time than usual, without
| episodes of hermitude to recharge. They're doping.
|
| Failure to maintain the mask looks like a breakdown in
| attention/focus. People do long, focused work because of
| the expectations of others. Schizoids don't experience
| that, but instead basically run on obsession. They stop
| working when that fizzles out. On pills, though, they can
| work forever.
|
| The 'scientific' people serve the people making the pills
| and nobody else. They rename everything every few years
| to sell more pills. If you want a proper take on SPD,
| look up Millon and his subtypes. Most of the "knowledge"
| of conditions in the zeitgeist comes from prescription
| drug commercials.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| Millon's subtypes of schizoid don't at all resemble ADHD.
| Millon's subtypes are:
|
| * aloof
|
| * lethargic
|
| * barren (intellectually)
|
| * flat
|
| * complacent or lifeless
|
| None of these reflect ADHD, which is a dysregulation
| disorder resulting in the inability to form socially
| expected task-reward feedback loops. This means
| forgetting to do small chores once they leave one's sight
| even under the strong desire to do those chores, having
| strong emotional responses, needing higher levels of
| stimulation, and strong sense of impulse. None of ADHD
| has anything to do with whether or not one is displaying
| apathy or lack of interest in engagement broadly.
|
| SPD is not a disorder of obsession. You might be thinking
| of the related-but-very-different Schizotypal, whose
| strange beliefs, sensory disruptions, and emotional
| impropriety I can see as potentially looking like ADHD.
| Cornelius267 wrote:
| I don't think that your assertion makes sense in its own
| context. What you are saying is that "SPD" exists, and
| "ADHD" is just a modern rebranding of it. But why do you
| decide that "SPD" is the spot at which scientists got it
| right? Were they free from the corruption that you imply?
|
| I agree with a general skepticism of the pharmaceutical
| industry. I disagree that all of neurology and
| pharmacology have been completely subsumed by that
| industry. It is not entirely free of it either, but there
| is more nuance here than you seem to be allowing.
| kyleyeats wrote:
| The first prescription drug commercial aired in 1983. I
| discard everything after that.
| Cornelius267 wrote:
| I suppose that's one way to do it. I don't think that it
| makes any sense, but you're entitled to it. I do believe,
| however, that you are disregarding tens of thousands of
| principled researchers who have spent their life on this,
| and substituting outdated knowledge for it.
|
| If you are at all interested in testing your belief, a
| highly accessible discussion can be found here:
| https://www.alieward.com/ologies/adhd
| intelVISA wrote:
| I'm rusty but ADHD was HKD (hyperkinetic disorder) in the
| olden times and had a much, much tighter criteria pre
| DSM-5? Think incident rates in Europe is approx. <2%
| under ICD-10 vs >10% in America due to DSM.
|
| The major diff. iirc was no comorbidity in the case of
| HKD. If you were depressed or anxious you couldn't also
| have ADHD whereas in America we can just top up
| amphetamines with benzos and treat them both.
|
| Make of that what you will $$.
| diputsmonro wrote:
| I think you're being overly cynical. Of course over time
| as science advances we will recognize more subtle
| distinctions between things which we used to perceive as
| the same. That's how science works. Just because two
| separate things are similar and sometimes found together
| doesn't mean they are identical.
|
| Whether something is a "disorder" or not is somewhat
| subjective and opinionated, for sure. But as someone
| diagnosed with ADHD, I often find that the expectations
| of modern society can be debilitating. Whether the
| disorder lies in me or in an unaccommodating society is
| an interesting question, but it is a separate one.
| kyleyeats wrote:
| Please email me and take my personality test! Please.
| Y'all are like Bigfoot. You drop a wonderful comment like
| this and then disappear into the ether.
|
| SPD has the worst outcomes of anything in the DSM. Only
| someone with SPD could possibly ever see it as the non-
| broken state, or as not a disorder. You're exactly the
| type of person I'm talking about. Do you _see_ your
| vocabulary? Please contact me! I 'm a philosopher working
| on a new model and could really use your point of data.
| [deleted]
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| Schizophrenia also has disaffected response and reduced
| emotional affect, btw. Folks who have schizophrenia sometimes
| considers this more debilitating than hallucinations, because
| they don't respond to antipsychotics.
| canjobear wrote:
| Background
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder
| metacritic12 wrote:
| I agree that psychologists too readily dismiss people who are
| weird as having a disorder.
|
| 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.
|
| 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.
| gatonegro wrote:
| It's been described as "the personality disorder that lacks a
| personality". It's a deficit disorder, because the person
| _lacks_ certain traits that you 'd expect to see in a "normal"
| person.
|
| It meets the requirements for a disorder, since it's a
| deviation from social norms and can interfere with a person's
| life to various degrees. SzPD doesn't get a lot of attention,
| so the diagnosis itself isn't desperately well developed. It's
| more of a baffling psychological curiosity to many. Something
| they don't quite know how to deal with.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Conformance is personality now? Your normie lens are too
| thick.
| gatonegro wrote:
| I'm talking about a clinical definition of a "personality
| disorder".
|
| _> A personality disorder is a way of thinking, feeling
| and behaving that deviates from the expectations of the
| culture, causes distress or problems functioning, and lasts
| over time.[1]_
|
| What I personally think wasn't stated and is not relevant
| to my point.
|
| [1] https://psychiatry.org/patients-families/personality-
| disorde...
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| First line at your link:
|
| >Personality is the way of thinking, feeling and behaving
| that makes a person different from other people.
|
| So tell me how SPD lacks a personality. A person without
| a personality would be indistinguishable from other
| people.
|
| If you read the definition of SPD, it doesn't quite
| satisfy the definition of disorder, nothing there implies
| distress or problems. Deviations are expected alright,
| because people are different. Seems to not care? It's not
| an expectation of the culture that you're entitled to be
| relevant everywhere, you're relevant only where you
| earned it, and care about praise is deeply personal.
| q-big wrote:
| > Genuine question: in this case, what is in fact the disorder?
|
| To quote from Appendix B of the Jargon file
| (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/weaknesses.html):
|
| "Many hackers have noticed that mainstream culture has shown a
| tendency to pathologize and medicalize normal variations in
| personality, especially those variations that make life more
| complicated for authority figures and conformists. [...]
| [T]hus, any social system that depends on authority
| relationships will tend to helpfully ostracize and therapize
| and drug such 'abnormal' people until they are properly docile
| and stupid and 'well-socialized'."
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| It's bad for marketing too:
| https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/adults-
| wi...
|
| Oh, wait, pharma marketing, waaaaiiit... So, a mortal enemy
| of big pharma.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Behaviors become disorders when they severely affect your
| ability to function. "In society" is often added.
|
| The "in society" is a sticking point for many people because a
| great many diagnoses are only disorders due to modern society
| or cultures.
|
| Some disorders are largely independent of culture. Severe
| executive function problems are on par with more visible
| disabilities. Even if having vision from God are acceptable, a
| bipolar person will be clearly marked as "not normal" in any
| culture.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Such approach assigns disproportionate importance to
| conformance at the cost of integrity.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Disorders aren't intended to dismiss, they diagnose based on a
| standard criteria and can provide a toolset for care (if
| desired).
|
| And unfortunately in the US, a diagnosis is often required to
| continue seeking therapy (due to insurance requirements).
|
| Schizoid personality disorder disorder is a set of criteria
| that can probably be described as "extreme introversion" --
| it's a disorder in the sense that this isn't the norm in
| society. What someone decides to do with that information is up
| to them; some choose to do nothing and that's ok.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| No, Schizoaffective disorder is when someone displays the
| symptoms of schizophrenia and also the symptoms of a mood
| disorder (bipolar, depression). You're likely thinking of
| schizoid personality disorder, which is characterized by
| solitary behavior and lack of attachments.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Ah yes you're right, my mistake. I've edited my post. Thank
| you.
| suoduandao2 wrote:
| communication becomes impossible in extreme cases - there are
| too many prior assumptions in a typical conversation between
| humans for it to occur without the ability to orient in a
| shared reference frame.
| abhaynayar wrote:
| 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.
|
| The other post on the blog is also pretty cool. Hard relate.
| https://eden.bearblog.dev/on-writing/
| dzink wrote:
| Could be the lack of ego. Capitalization is often removed by
| people who don't want to project a self and instead talk from a
| point of humility. Inverse of all-caps which is seen as
| "shouting" and forcing your view on another.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| The writing's cadence feels similar to Serial's narration, and
| that style has been getting a lot of use in the podcasting
| world lately.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Maybe due to victim mentality. But if it's a schizoid girl,
| that's hot!
| Cornelius267 wrote:
| What is wrong with you?
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| That's a meme question, and not even a legitimate one, but
| forced.
| kuramitropolis wrote:
| That's an obvious one. The more interesting question is,
| what is wrong with _you_?
| bckr wrote:
| Could it be "eden" was a subtle indicator, as a gendered name?
| dnfa wrote:
| 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.
|
| 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.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Emotional coldness is when you react calmly to inflammatory
| statements that normies can't withstand.
| intelVISA wrote:
| Self-control is pathological
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| More like a legitimate failure to react to illegitimate
| stimulus. It underperforms when not honest.
|
| In any case the definition explicitly talks about
| appearances and expressions, not feelings.
| boole1854 wrote:
| > What is described here is something I also struggle with -
| the obligation to explain my worldview to others. [...] What I
| see as matter-of-fact can make others extremely sad.
|
| Hopefully I'm not making the struggle worse by asking this --
| but can you explain what you mean? That is, what is it about
| your worldview that causes others to feel extremely sad?
| FLT8 wrote:
| A personal example: if the conversation ever turns to
| children, or why we don't have any, the real answer is that
| we (my wife and I) strongly believe that any children we
| might have had would have a (much) worse experience growing
| up than we did. They would almost certainly not be able to
| dream about affording housing, they will be dealing with
| fallout from the ubiquity of
| PFAS/PFOS/pthalates/microplastics/..., probably getting
| dragged into war(s), dealing with a polarised society and
| lack of civil discourse, they will have every move they make
| from birth tracked by companies that will be telling them
| what to buy and when, their ability to hold a political
| opinion that is their own will be severely compromised by
| social media and advertisers, they will be dealing with the
| fallout of climate change/ increased atmospheric pollutants,
| the list goes on. It seems that on so many measures the world
| is getting objectively worse, and much harder to navigate. So
| I censor myself when taking to friends, particularly friends
| with kids, because it's not fair on them to cause them to
| start worrying like I do.
| uoaei wrote:
| I have a similar experience. It is the emotional detachment
| from otherwise emotionally salient things that catches people
| off guard. Sometimes it is interpreted as "dark humor" or
| "deep cynicism" when the person offering the insight means it
| only in a realist/stoic sense.
| [deleted]
| mikrl wrote:
| How did you start down the diagnosis pathway?
|
| My friend feels like the symptoms (clinical and social) fit her
| to a T, has felt depersonalized for most of her adult life, and
| often feels the need to explain and rationalize her experience
| to perplexed onlookers. My friend also passes somewhat well in
| society but feels like she has 'generalized impostor syndrome'
| ie towards people in general, not just in the workplace.
| dnfa wrote:
| Just went to therapy because I was depressed. I was lucky to
| have a really good therapist.
| mikrl wrote:
| How do you define good therapist? Obviously it's not
| straightforward and YMMV, but are there heuristics you use,
| red flags, green flags etc?
|
| My friend has avoided mental healthcare for her entire life
| (pathologically stoic) and thinks that she shouldn't but
| feels out of her depth.
| daggersandscars wrote:
| In my experience, finding a good therapist depends on
| establishing a good rapport in a short period of time. To
| help the odds, I find looking at therapists' profiles[0]
| for what one finds important helps.
|
| LGBTQ+? Religious? Strongly religious? Polyamorous? An
| athlete? Willing/unwilling to take medications? Drug use?
| Etc.
|
| Anything you do not want to be a part of your therapy is
| something to check profiles for.
|
| If you are a part of a group, talk to local members of
| that group on-line or in person. They likely will have
| inside information on what therapists are considered
| friendly.
|
| I'd also read up on the different types/styles of
| therapists/therapy. You may find you're fine with any of
| them. You may find some of them horrifying. This info is
| likely to be on their profile.
|
| Edited to add:
|
| Go in with an idea of what you want out of therapy. If
| you're not sure, you can talk to the therapist about
| what's possible. Do you want coping strategies / a change
| in behavior / someone to talk to / someone to help
| determine why you're depressed / etc?
|
| If it isn't working with a therapist, you can pick a
| different one. It may be worth talking to the current one
| about what's not working for you, but you always have the
| right to see someone else.
|
| [0] Searching the web for the therapist's name and
| location is a good place to start. If you have insurance,
| insurance profiles may also provide information.
| dnfa wrote:
| Honestly just chose one at random and ended up building
| trust with them because they were professional and
| academic. I kept going back because it was interesting to
| me to talk about my experience and have them weigh in
| with what the DSM says, what academics are saying, etc.
| pc86 wrote:
| Feel free to define SWIM.
| mikrl wrote:
| SWIM is often used in online discussions on sensitive
| topics to avoid self-identifying as a member of a
| stigmatized or criminalized group: Someone Who Isn't Me.
|
| However, I have a friend called SWIM, who is the referent
| in my posts. I'll update the posts to refer to the friend
| explicitly.
| DerekBickerton wrote:
| 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.
| helf wrote:
| Augh! Why the lack of capitalization but intact punctuation?
| [deleted]
| closedloop129 wrote:
| >what is creating this boundary? is it merely the withdrawing of
| the self
|
| My armchair answer is that this is creating the boundary. There
| is no 'merely'. People want to interact with a self.
|
| >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.
|
| That's how society works. People have adjusted their self to fit
| in, they expect the same from everybody else.
| gnarbarian wrote:
| harsh but true. society, family, culture, work, a baseball game
| etc. Each of these social structures comes with a whole host of
| expectations and rules that make that structure work. we
| routinely sacrifice our internal desires to meet these
| expectations. generally because we accept that we are all
| better off when we sacrifice a little for the good of the
| whole.
|
| I think the really interesting thing is that these things can
| all work when people have vastly different motivations for
| participating. for an example with baseball, Joe may like the
| thrill of a well oiled team making a double play while frank
| lives to score and hit the ball. both Frank and Joe hate
| getting up to practice. we don't all need to have the same
| motivations to make the team work, the only thing that is
| needed is for the participants to understand the team is
| necessary to get what they want out of it.
| Cornelius267 wrote:
| > That's how society works. People have adjusted their self to
| fit in, they expect the same from everybody else.
|
| This makes it seem like a personal failing of the person who is
| experiencing this disconnect, like the author. Neuroscience
| shows that this is not the case, and that those with schizoid
| personality disorders have true physiological and neurological
| differences.
|
| I hope that you didn't intend to make this into some sort of
| judgment on the person for failing to "adjust themselves to fit
| in," because that is a huge part of the judgment that this
| author is feeling and trying to describe.
| closedloop129 wrote:
| With a withdrawn self, how can there be a personal failing?
| My point is that people don't attack her specifically, it's
| just the way society is. Criticism works for society because
| people with a self choose which criticism they accept and
| which they ignore.
|
| People cannot imagine her withdrawn self and thus cannot
| adjust their criticism and she cannot imagine a self or bring
| back her self for now and thus doesn't understand most
| people.
|
| >which is: they cannot hear me, and i cannot hear them. and
| funnily enough i'm trying to hear them and i'm trying to
| listen but no one's trying to listen to me, so why should i
| keep trying?
|
| Question remains: How can a withdrawn self be brought back?
| engineeringwoke wrote:
| > Neuroscience shows that this is not the case, and that
| those with schizoid personality disorders have true
| physiological and neurological differences.
|
| Sure, but you assume that the physiological and neurological
| differences exist in themselves when you could also say that
| are causal, due to the abuse/neglect. The effects on ones
| mind from negative life experiences would have to have a
| physical manifestation in the brain in order to create the
| patterns of disordered behavior of course. If they are caused
| by negative life experiences, then they could also be
| reversible.
| Cornelius267 wrote:
| This is true, as a broad statement at least. I can claim no
| expertise in the area, so I can't comment on the potential
| to reverse any such changes.
|
| It is also possible that they are not caused by negative
| life experiences, and are somehow inherent in the
| organization of a particular person's brain.
| engineeringwoke wrote:
| Of course. But I think it's quite common to claim that
| one's problems in life are incontrovertible when they are
| not. You stated it as a fact when we really don't know
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Normies have more negative experiences as they are more
| susceptible to manipulation to their detriment. So why not
| reverse them?
| gatonegro wrote:
| 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.
|
| 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.
| [deleted]
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| 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.
| helf wrote:
| Tbh, the more I have to deal with NTs the more convinced I am
| that the majority of them do not have much of an inner world or
| defined personality.
|
| There seems to be a complete inability for real introspection
| or even "third thoughts" as Pratchett liked to call them;
| thoughts about thoughts.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| I would give more of the benefit to NTs; they simply don't
| have to develop the skill of explaining their own inner
| workings to the level of neurodivergent people at a complex
| level. Often times they can speak in a generality and assume
| the vast majority of their nuance will be captured by their
| audience, which is a strategy often validated by other
| neurotypical people.
|
| There are plenty of neurotypical people talking about their
| thinking patterns in the form of pop psychology, horoscopes,
| MBTI, meditation, YouTube/TikTok cultural commentators, etc.
| It's just not viewed that way because it's viewed as
| "normal". But earnestly I don't see a difference between a
| neurotypical person saying their love language is acts of
| service and an ADHD person telling me that when they talk at
| length about their special interest with me it's a sign of
| psychological safety.
| foobiekr wrote:
| A more likely explanation is that they may choose not to show
| those thoughts to you.
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| Should we even be using the term "neurotypical"?
|
| Like, I don't know a single person that actually suits some
| magical mean. The term can only possibly represent some
| abstract, non-existent, unidimensional person. And you can't
| extract hypothetical expectation sets from the public reliably
| because they're in constant flux.
|
| Maybe social and private dysfunctions, with some degree of
| overlap, but there's a pretty wide band, which appears to be
| ever-growing in which a huge variety of internal morphologies
| can operate.
|
| I do think though, that we all too closely observe psychology -
| itself an instrument with two cutting edges. On one half, you
| offer support and vindication to some extent, and on the other
| stigma and hopelessness. If we excised our newfound habit of
| wanton prognostication - what we're left with is "they're a
| peculiar sort" and I wonder if that's not - at least in less
| extreme cases - preferable as it forces us to assess from the
| ground up the individual rather than some categorical
| definition which to me reads as something much more just. An
| end unto themselves.
| larve wrote:
| I think of "neurotypical" as an idealized version of what
| society expects a person's thinking to be. In a similar way
| to society defining gender roles. Not only does it not apply
| to any single person (but rather, people will conform more or
| less to that neurotypical construct), but it will vary based
| on country, social class, etc... Being neurodivergent means
| that you significantly diverge from said ideal, leading to
| all kinds of problems.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| I think neurotypical accurately describes people who don't
| have neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD, Schizophrenia,
| or Autism. There are distinct brain architectures involved
| here; autistics generally have statistically significant
| reduced brain activity in response to the human face compared
| to neurotypical people. This is a bit like arguing that
| because some people learn to read slower than others, or
| learn to read by sounding out the words vs memorizing
| consonants, that dyslexia shouldn't be differentiated from
| non-dyslexic people.
|
| Of course you can be varied and neurotypical. There are
| neurotypical people who focus well and some who struggle with
| that a bit more. There are some people who struggle to read
| facial expressions and others that can accurately guess
| nuances. But that doesn't mean that they're not neurotypical,
| and that their internal experiences aren't more widely
| represented and reflected in the cultural norm.
| w0de0 wrote:
| 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.")
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I'm bipolar I've spent several lifetimes(1) studying humanity.
|
| For many neurotyoical people I've interacted with, non-
| neurotyoical people are an outside context problem.
|
| As an asexual person, sexuality is an outside context problem
| that goes in both directions.
|
| 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.
|
| Without shared internal experience or enough data to imagine it,
| there will not be true understanding of another's internal
| experience.
|
| 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.
|
| The problem comes in when other people decide they don't trust
| you and apply their belief of how you should think instead.
|
| Edit 1. For some fun context. :)
|
| 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.
| mikrl wrote:
| >Mania lets one live at a greatly accelerated rate...It often
| gives me a deep understanding of how people work
|
| My friend experienced this for the first time recently and can
| relate, although she does not think it helped her understand
| people better.
|
| However, the burst of confidence, creative (and sexual) energy
| did lead her to more prosocial behaviours but in retrospect she
| was as awkward as ever, without the usual stabilizers of self-
| consciousness and social anxiety. My friend did some silly
| things, has regrets and may have overwhelmed people, but she
| does not think it was necessarily pathological.
|
| My friend got really scared of herself when she realized what
| she was doing. She felt like she was experiencing the energy of
| a stimulant high for a few weeks, despite being sober. My
| friend is not sure if it was worth it, nor did she prefer it to
| being depressed, because of that fear of herself.
| nvrspyx wrote:
| Mania is often accompanied by quite a few negative aspects:
|
| - Irrational, grandiose ideas (i.e., delusions)
|
| - Increased susceptibility to believe ideas (e.g., more
| likely to fall for a spam marketing scheme)
|
| - Hallucinations
|
| - Impulsive and/or risky behaviors
|
| - Easily distracted
|
| - Difficulty sustaining attention
|
| I imagine the parent commenter more likely experiences
| hypomania associated with bipolar II disorder rather than the
| mania associated with bipolar I disorder. The former is much
| less likely to exhibit the listed negative symptoms and
| general disinhibition tends to be lesser as well.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I'm pretty firmly diagnosed Type 1. My psychiatrist said
| I'm "high functioning".
|
| I've had many manic episodes lasting 9 months, with a least
| two psychotic breaks. The latest lasting 4 months. Still
| managed to work in an office as a developer throughout it.
|
| You can read about that one on my blog:
| https://kayode.co/blog/4106/living-with-psychosis/
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I should have clarified.
|
| The mood swings in general give me insight into internal
| state. Mania does not.
|
| Mania gave me the energy to do a lot of things I would never
| have done or experienced without. The variety of lived
| experience means I know what many people's jobs are and the
| general strategies used to do them.
|
| The combination makes understanding people easier.
|
| But mania isn't worth it. It is a terrible monster I never
| want to see again. One episode broken me so completely I lost
| all self-identity.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| > 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. Without shared internal experience or enough data
| to imagine it, there will not be true understanding of
| another's internal experience. 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.
|
| Doesn't taking people at face value usually result in these
| misunderstandings in the first place? Many people use language
| as a signifier of their emotional states rather than as a tool
| to express objective assessments of reality.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I should have been more specific. It's about making
| assumptions.
|
| If you don't have the context to understand the other
| person's motivations, treating them as if they think like you
| causes problems.
|
| The biggest example of this is telling someone with ADHD they
| are lazy and just need to try harder.
| narag wrote:
| _The problem comes in when other people decide they don't trust
| you and apply their belief of how you should think instead._
|
| That is certainly a shared experience.
| machina_ex_deus wrote:
| 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.
|
| 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.
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| This is the kind of stuff I incessantly think about after vaping
| too much Delta 9 triggers paranoia.
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