Schizoid: The enlightened personality disorder

[Sapius]

sexuality is a key element of our world.

So is lying, murder, delusion, suffering, etc. But that's no reason for them to continue.

No, but personal preference is.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I attempted a simple search, but was unable to find those quotes. If he could tell me in which Chapter(s) the quotes are found, it would be helpful.

Clyde, I found the verses quite easily so I decided to list them for your convenience:

As you already saw David/Kevin used translations of two texts:

- The Dhammapada, translasted by F. Max Mullers
13, 99, 226, 284, 226, 372, 379, 856-860

- Translation of Sutta Nipata by V. Fausböll.
Book 01 Chapter 03, Book 3 Chapter 12 (762)

Source: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/sbe10/index.htm

[David Quinn]

Thanks, Diebert. I didn't know that. Are the two texts related?

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[Diebert van Rhijn]

Thanks, Diebert. I didn't know that. Are the two texts related?

Good question and I'm not sure. The first is known as more popular, central to mainstream Buddhism and the second one is regarded as being one of the oldest Buddhist writing known ('primitive' Buddhism... there's an interesting phrase). There's a case to be made that the Dhammapada contains quite an amount of original 'primitive' material intersected with later additions. The Sutta Nipata would be more consistently 'raw', closer to the original Buddha arising. A bit like the Gospel of Thomas compared with the rest of the NT? I rather talk about Judeochristianity you see :)

[David Quinn]

I could have sworn that I'd seen editions of the Dhammapada with the Rhinocerous chapter in it.

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[xerox]

...

[divine focus]

sexuality is a key element of our world.

So is lying, murder, delusion, suffering, etc. But that's no reason for them to continue.

When I say our world, I mean physicality in general. What you mention are not base elements of our reality. The blueprint, so to speak, does require sexuality. It's a very large concept, sexuality, and it plays a role in all aspects of life. Beyond simply gender, it shapes your whole perception, how you look at yourself and the world.

[Cognition]

So, is a person a schizoid because he is enlightened, or is he enlightened because he was born a schizoid?

It would work both ways in a sense. If you are born schizoid (that is it shows in you say in early adulthood), you have already some aspects or at least important predispositions for enlightenment in you.

On the other hand, if you gradually become enlightened you'll have good chances of looking like a schizoid to a psychiatrist.


I was diagnosed when I was 17. Just got around to reading about it.

Hello. I am came across this topic when looking up information about the schizoid disorder. I have this disorder myself, but I wouldn't say that I "suffer" from it because I feel glad that I can focus more on my personal and intellectual interests. People devote a great deal of their time and lives for the explicit purpose of forming intimate relationships. I do not enjoy intimacy so I feel that I benefit from excluding that sphere of function from my life. It doesn't seem like there is much good documentation, so I will share my experiences of this disorder with those of you who are interested. In a lot of ways, I believe my schizoid disorder has allowed me to look at the world and reality more objectively.

Three years ago when I was 16, I was in a relationship. I could not become intimate with this person and felt frustrated and weak. I began to feel different, but not in the unique sense.
When I was 17, I began largely developing my social skills. I even attended large high school parties and had a decent base of friends. But it seemed that with this came a decline in my cognitive abilities. It's said that a mild form of autistic-like thinking exists in schizoids. At a few different times in my life I have wondered if I am autistic, but I don't meet the criteria. The more I interacted with people, the less creative I was it seemed. It seems that the further I forced myself away from my comfortable schizoid tendencies, the more it had a negative impact on my well-being. The peak of my social interactiveness and acceptance correlated to the peak of the humming and droning thoughts of suicide that are a soft overtone to isolation.

I spent the entire eighteenth year of my life in close quarters with other people. Fighting between my mother and myself culminated in me having to move in with various others. I still have schizoid feelings but suppressed them. I had found out about Myers-Briggs testing by then and diagnosed my eccentricities as "INTP behavior". And though I am an INTP, it didn't occur to me that being INTP wasn't the origin of my distinct alienation. Toward the end of me being 18 I became greatly interested in science, a world that I find myself obsessively attracted to (especially biology).

When I became 19 (I am still 19, but almost 20), I found myself interested in realities and altered-conscious states. Before being 19 I had smoked pot occasionally, and found it a very intense and strange experience. One time when I had smoked it with friends, I felt more strange than usual (it was laced with PCP). The strange chopping rhythms of the passage of time, the tranced sensory experiences and the perceptual distortion lead me to an interest in drugs.

Then the most strange thing of all happened. I took LSD last summer and began to notice body language. I had been completely ignorant/devoid of understanding body language before that point. The most I have ever understood body language was under the influence of LSD. Every little fidget someone made...every expression, all had such obvious meaning to it. It was effortless to interpret every action. I think that I may be using a different visual area of my brain for analyzing body language information which manifests itself in the schizoid disorder.

After taking LSD, I became more self-aware than ever. I felt that I had been out of touch with reality in how I perceived myself. I made a lot of changes to how I acted and presented myself, and became a socially acceptable person, minus the occasional eccentricities I had in high school. But there was always the anxiety/fear of social interactions and intimacy that faintly held in the background. A few months ago I started working a full-time job. By then I had been studying biology for a year on my own, and was becoming more interested in it than ever. I found that I couldn't stand small talk anymore. I would be at home reading about how synesthetes and autistic savants use different areas of the brain to process information, and I'd come to work and have to hear people talk about their new car or the time they drank and drove or how some kid in whatever area vandalized something. I couldn't care...and despite my obvious flat emotionless face, my flat monotone speaking, my lack of any emotional response to anything at all...they feel compelled still talk to me (some have given me the nickname "Sunshine") even though I have obviously no interest in talking. The last two weeks have drove me pretty deep back into my schizoid self, and I took the liberty of cutting communications with almost everyone I know. This includes my family. I feel guilty but I cannot help myself...I do not love my family. I do not love anyone.

Hopefully someone will find this insightful. If anyone has reasonably intelligent questions, I may answer. For now I am disappearing.

[Cognition]

I apologize for any bad grammar. I don't find errors well when I proof read (I'm very left-hemisphered).

[Cognition]

Hmm. Two problems with that:

1). Personality disorders are generally not caused by organic brain differences, malfunctioning chemistry, etc. Rather, they are persistent patterns of "maladaptive" learned behavior - thus the term personality disorder.

Wrong.

[Cognition]

I get to the conclusion that its because I just don't see the need or reason for it. And I see those whose behavior is predictable and usual, deemed as normal that is, as being unaware of some things.

I agree. I am direct and do not complicate things any more than they need to be. I find the predictability and repetition in people disturbing.

[David Quinn]

I still have schizoid feelings but suppressed them.

What are "schizoid feelings"? Are you referring to social anxiety here?

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[Cognition]

I still have schizoid feelings but suppressed them.

What are "schizoid feelings"? Are you referring to social anxiety here?

-

I'll go back to a few months ago when I had the interview for my 4th job. I go into the store and the place is real busy. I need to talk to one of the workers there to tell them who I am and why I am there. Right about then a flight response kicks in. I realize that I will need to exert my presence to this person. I am thinking about what they will say and what I will say back. I am vividly visualizing myself speaking to the person who will interview me. I am psychologically preparing myself to act calm and socially acceptable. When I talked to the worker and the interviewer, they both made a lot of small talk. I find nothing about small talk remotely interesting, so it is difficult for me to come up with a normal response. I can never really think of how to respond, and I try to say something that they will perceive as a normal.

Schizoid disorder is, at its roots, characterized by an autistic-like perception. I say autistic-like because it isn't autism...it's like you can't look at a situation the same way someone else could. Deep inside some eccentric subconsciousness is guiding everything I do, every decision I make. When I was a kid, I couldn't stand watching two people kiss. That was normal, but this continued into adolescence. I still can't stand seeing highly intense emotional moments, even in movies. I feel like I am imploding, I feel embarrassed, intensely angry and disgusted at once. When people casually/socially touch me at work, I instantly recoil if I wasn't expecting it, I flinch. Because I've created such an intricate social facade for the disorder, people are often startled by that. When my relatives touch me or try to hug me or kiss me, I become highly agitated. The closer they get to me, the more I start having visualizations of physically busting away and running. These are just limited examples of how this deep-seated thinking mechanism surfaces itself.

[Cognition]

When people casually/socially touch me at work, I instantly recoil if I wasn't expecting it, I flinch. Because I've created such an intricate social facade for the disorder, people are often startled by that. When my relatives touch me or try to hug me or kiss me, I become highly agitated.

But the emotional origin of these reactions is not fear...it is a disgust and rejection of such emotions. I do not feel sad or unhappy. But since everyone associates such emotional control with depression or high eccentricity, I am not taken seriously unless I veil my inner self. Nobody I know is aware of what a schizoid is, and if I explained the disorder to them they would be concerned...which would drive me further away from those people, because I would not be able to stand their concerns. I would feel for them to act like that, they do not understand my mindset. They could not empathize with me because they are confined to their narrow realities, and I would be disgusted.

[1otherS]

sexuality is a key element of our world.

So is lying, murder, delusion, suffering, etc. But that's no reason for them to continue.

Why do you equate sexuality with the worst crimes in the world? Why must we get rid of it? Wouldn't it be wiser to educate people how to express this natural urge sanely instead of suppressing it with chemicals or meditation?

[David Quinn]

Thanks for your responses, Cognition. Even though I have been diagnosed with a Schizoid Personality Disorder (as part of a process I went through to acquire a government pension), I haven't experienced any of the things you mentioned.

I do find small talk uninteresting, but that's mainly because it reduces people to the level of robots mindlessly acting out a social ritual, which causes them to appear inhuman. If it is viewed as a tool for "breaking the ice" and allows a quick progression to more interesting conversation, it is alright. But with many people, small talk is as far as they ever go.

I don't like hugging either. It is rude behaviour which involves people foistering their insecurities upon me without asking whether I want to be involved in it or not. But I don't consider it a big deal.

Are there techniques or medications which can help you eliminate these unwanted feelings?

-

[1otherS]

Thanks for your responses, Cognition. Even though I have been diagnosed with a Schizoid Personality Disorder (as part of a process I went through to acquire a government pension), I haven't experienced any of the things you mentioned.

I do find small talk uninteresting, but that's mainly because it reduces people to the level of robots mindlessly acting out a social ritual, which causes them to appear inhuman. If it is viewed as a tool for "breaking the ice" and allows a quick progression to more interesting conversation, it is alright. But with many people, small talk is as far as they ever go.

I don't like hugging either. It is rude behaviour which involves people foistering their insecurities upon me without asking whether I want to be involved in it or not. But I don't consider it a big deal.

Are there techniques or medications which can help you eliminate these unwanted feelings?

-

1otherS
-Someone on here said: "Enlightenment can be reached by reading a bubblegum-wrapper." According to my own beliefs, Perfection is realisable through a 15-minute conversation.

-There are no techniques to eliminate unwanted feelings. Just accept them passing through your mind and body+move on.

[mansman]

When people casually/socially touch me at work, I instantly recoil if I wasn't expecting it, I flinch. Because I've created such an intricate social facade for the disorder, people are often startled by that. When my relatives touch me or try to hug me or kiss me, I become highly agitated.

But the emotional origin of these reactions is not fear...it is a disgust and rejection of such emotions. I do not feel sad or unhappy. But since everyone associates such emotional control with depression or high eccentricity, I am not taken seriously unless I veil my inner self. Nobody I know is aware of what a schizoid is, and if I explained the disorder to them they would be concerned...which would drive me further away from those people, because I would not be able to stand their concerns. I would feel for them to act like that, they do not understand my mindset. They could not empathize with me because they are confined to their narrow realities, and I would be disgusted.

Hi friend. So how do you feel about being so very different from most others, its OK with you? feel cheated? or proud?
Do you think you're inferior, or are "they" inferior?

I think you came to the right place!
M

[Cognition]

Why do you equate sexuality with the worst crimes in the world? Why must we get rid of it? Wouldn't it be wiser to educate people how to express this natural urge sanely instead of suppressing it with chemicals or meditation?

I suppose there is a distinction I should make clear. I see emotional expression and sexuality as biological programming. Because of the way my brain was wired as a child, which may in part be genetic, I found those emotions too intense to experience or perceive. I don't find sex to be disgusting but I do think intimacy is. As a natural response to the strong stimulus, the brain quickly suppresses these emotions. I didn't even realize I was using a veil to hide vulnerability, I always just thought of it as having to act a certain way (based on what I assessed were important characteristics of people to other people). Around every person I talked to I had a different personality. I just matched how they acted, I don't actually feel the emotions at all.

I understand the differences between my subjective perception of these emotions and another person's subjective perception. I wasn't a loner growing up. I modeled a lot of my personality off of friends I would make in school. I understand how emotions play a role in a person's behavior because nearly all of my friends were popular social people in school who had successful emotional lives. I am saying that I do not wish to have these perceptions, though they obviously must confer some satisfactory benefit for those who hold them and I do not deny that.

There are two different types of schizoids. The first is hyperaesthetic: Timid, shy, with fine feelings, sensitive, nervous, excitable . . . Abnormally tender, constantly wounded . . . "all nerves," . . . [hyperaesthtics] feel all the harsh, strong colors and tones of everyday life . . . as shrill, ugly . . . even to the extent of being psychically painful. Their autism is a painful cramping of the self into itself. They seek as far as possible to avoid and deaden all stimulation from the outside (Millon, 1987, p. 277, sites Kretschmer, 1925, pp. 155).

I was hyperaesthetic as a I child. In order to receive the kind of stimulation I wanted, I used to walk out into the woods as a child and talk to imaginary people in an imaginary landscape. Anything bad that anyone said could hurt me. Over the years this built up and built up until I reached high school where the stimulation became so negative that my brain effectively stopped it. I was turned into an anaesthetic, the other group of schizoids described as thus: We feel that we are in contact with something flavorless, boring . . . What is there in the deep under these masks? Perhaps there is nothing, a dark, hollow-eyed nothing-affective anemia. Behind an ever-silent facade, which twitches uncertainly with every expiring whim . . . nothing but broken pieces, black rubbish heaps, yawning emotional emptiness, or the cold breath of an arctic soullessness (Millon, 1987, p. 277, sites Kretschmer, 1925, pp. 155).

Hyperaesthetics have a compulsive need for loving emotion. It is a painful driving force of two extremes: acceptance and rejection. Rejection is something so frightening that you will do anything to avoid it, and that includes isolating yourself. For them, therapy of how to control their emotions may be helpful. Anaesthetics find these emotions detrimental to what they want out of life, and so they reject them. They will not want any sort of therapy or help because they are perfectly content with their attitudes; they don't want to change. Schizoids may decide during any point of their lives that they want to be in a relationship, and if they want to be in one they will attempt so, however successful that may be. However, spouses often complain in marriage with a schizoid that their mate doesn't express nearly enough emotion or involvement.

I never said anyone should use chemicals or meditation to deal with their schizoid issues. I wouldn't even suggest that idea to a friend to see what they thought of it. Every mind operates differently and has underlying perceptions that are completely personalized and so the same techniques that work for one mindset will not work for another.

[Cognition]

I do find small talk uninteresting, but that's mainly because it reduces people to the level of robots mindlessly acting out a social ritual, which causes them to appear inhuman. If it is viewed as a tool for "breaking the ice" and allows a quick progression to more interesting conversation, it is alright. But with many people, small talk is as far as they ever go.

I don't like hugging either. It is rude behaviour which involves people foistering their insecurities upon me without asking whether I want to be involved in it or not. But I don't consider it a big deal.

Are there techniques or medications which can help you eliminate these unwanted feelings?

-

I understand what you're talking about, especially about the hugging thing. A person comes toward me to hug me and I am just thinking "don't do it". There are two ways you can go about dealing with these feelings. However, before I talk about them, I want to express that prescription medication is rarely the answer. Medication will make you appear to act and think normal, but the way medications affect your neurochemistry is flawed and imprecise. You are putting chemicals in your brain for the explicit purpose of getting rid of your illness but you are also accepting the consequence that your brain will be altered in other ways as well. Many people who take medications for their disorders report that they feel interpersonally normal but cognitively weaker.

You may wish to see a psychologist and talk about ways you can become more social and learn to express yourself. If you want to change your personality, you have to use your mind to perceive things in different ways. Temple Grandin was severely autistic as a child. However she learned as an adult to use associative thinking to allow her to interact socially. As a child she used to stand outside supermarket automatic doors and wait for them to open, then try to run through. She associated that with how to walk up to a person (she couldn't handle the experience before). She imagined that the person was an open supermarket door she was walking toward, and when she got close to the person the imaginary doors shut, and she would stop where she was. Temple Grandin is now a highly successful behavioral biologist and a public speaker. The point is that you can find your own specialized way to socially interact with different thinking. Kim Peek, the highly autistic savant known as "the real Rain Man" can also speak to people, though he has a very limited ability to do so. If you just look at a picture of him, you can tell he is somewhere completely else in his mind.



You may also decide that you do not wish to do anything about the disorder and live with it, which basically means severing ties with others that you are uncomfortable with. This is not recommended if there is a history of schizophrenia or similar mental illness in your family. Isolation is more conducive to madness and schizoid personality disorder is sometimes a precursor to schizophrenia.

[Cognition]

-There are no techniques to eliminate unwanted feelings. Just accept them passing through your mind and body+move on.

You don't understand these feelings in the same sense as a schizoid does. Unwanted feelings surface during ordinary moments of social interaction. Yesterday I was getting a hair cut and the woman cutting my hair wouldn't stop talking to me about stores that were around 20 years ago and how she used to eat at Denny's as part of some work-education project she had. Everything she talked about led into something else loosely related to what she was just talking about, and it became obvious she was just trying to talk. This made me feel very anxious and annoyed. You can't just accept them and let them pass through because the feelings are too intense to ignore.

[Cognition]

So how do you feel about being so very different from most others, its OK with you? feel cheated? or proud?
Do you think you're inferior, or are "they" inferior?

I think you came to the right place!
M

It has been a journey to this point. I grew up wondering why I couldn't relate to other kids. I wondered why they didn't like me. It was because I was eccentric, but I didn't understand it. Through adolescence I was trying to figure out who I was. I wondered if something was wrong with me, but because my facade became socially accepted, I gained confidence. The ability to manipulate people like that put me on a power trip, and I started thinking I was much more intelligent than my peers. In the ways that I analyze and perceive things, I don't feel any of my peers can match up to me. However, I recognize there are other forms of intelligence, and that many of my friends are more intelligent than me in social interactions. I learn from them, and they like to learn from me. I am not highly emotional, but I am helpful/caring for about four or five people. These people like my unique insight and sense of humor, and I like their ability to spontaneously create fun, though I can't handle it unless I have long periods of isolation between the fun times.

I don't feel inferior and I do not feel superior. I do not feel the need to overpower anyone. I am not competitive. I never try to 1-up people...I think that's so lame...

[Cognition]

Yesterday I was getting a hair cut and the woman cutting my hair wouldn't stop talking to me about stores that were around 20 years ago and how she used to eat at Denny's as part of some work-education project she had. Everything she talked about led into something else loosely related to what she was just talking about, and it became obvious she was just trying to talk. This made me feel very anxious and annoyed.

Not anxious or annoyed in the sense that I was sitting there thinking "this sucks", but in the sense that I was sitting there looking at her face in the mirror and thinking about jumping up and punching her, then running out as quickly as I could. I don't know if I could ever do that, but that is what I am thinking and feeling, and suppressing. She was uncomfortably close to me. How would people feel if I were honest with them like that? How would my mother feel if I told her I didn't really love her, and that's the reason why I never call her? I don't think I can do that. That's why I have to use facades.

[mansman]

Well sure, some things are best left unsaid.
But the haircutter seems to me she might not have been considerate enough to you, and your mind picked up on that. Depends if you were signalling positive with certain head nods or "yes, right" cues, or just sitting there like a stone showing no interest whatsoever in what she was saying. Or something in between, like maybe occassional eye contact and slight smile when she looked up at your face between sentences.
In any event there are polite ways to silence people "excuse me ive got this bleeding eadache..." or otherwise keep them away but its difficult to respond as such once the emotions have built up within and one is about to blow a gasket! In time you may develop a half dozen general purpose remarks that will get people to give you more space and respect boundaries. If you got a sibling to practice with that'd be good.
I always like the fairly silent experience you get at an old Italian barbershop. Closing my eyes usually shuts em up too.

Besides theres nothing at all the matter with you if you dont care to socialize with many others, thats all about THEIR addiction more than about you.
Having less needs is a great thing, imo.

talk to you later
M

[Cognition]

Nice insight!