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Symptom: Emotionally inexpressive

This one I found incredibly hard to write about because it covers feelings and emotions, which I find incredibly difficult to talk about even on the best of days. I’ve written and rewritten the entire post about half a dozen times. I do hope the end result isn’t nearly as messy as my thoughts on the subject.

This is not a symptom I myself am fully aware of. I can’t tell how much or how little emotion I actually express unless others comment on it, which few actually do. And even then, they might comment on it in a sort of roundabout way, like someone might say I look more relaxed/happy after we’ve known each other for a while. I never actually realized I could be considered emotionally inexpressive until my doctor made note of it at the time of my diagnosis.

I don’t know how long I’ve had this particular symptom. For all I know, it’s something I’ve always had. Maybe it can even explain a lot of why I have such a hard time in social situations. It could be the reason I’ve sometimes felt as if there’s a glass wall between me and everyone else. It makes sense. People tend to avoid someone who’s aloof, who doesn’t mirror their own emotions. Someone who does not display weakness becomes unrelatable and unapproachable.

I can think of three main reasons why I might not express myself openly:

  1. I don’t actually know how I feel.
  2. I fear the consequences of my own feelings.
  3. I simply take a long time to warm up to new people.

First reason is difficult to deal with. I have to take the time to process physical and emotional cues to pinpoint my feelings. Sometimes, they can be very indistinct or difficult to identify.

Let’s take fear as an example. I tend to avoid social situations, but I hesitate to say that I’m afraid of social situations or have social anxiety. The behavior is the same: Avoidance. But I don’t easily recognize the telltale signs of fear: accelerated heart-rate, sweating, the feeling of unease, the worrying about what other people think of me, difficulty breathing. Some of these things do register on some level, the heart-rate and difficulty breathing in particular. But they don’t necessarily become conscious. I might realize I’m suddenly taking long, slow breaths to compensate before I register the actual signs of fear. The worry about what other people might think of me becomes internalized so I worry about what I think of me instead and I’m convinced I don’t actually care what others think of me, even though maybe I actually do on some level. Or maybe I don’t actually care what others think of me?

The emotions themselves become lost in coping mechanisms and strategies until I can’t fully tell what’s what or where the cause to my reactions lie. Maybe it’s a result of suppressing my feelings for too long? Or maybe I’m just not very sensitive to my own feelings for some reason? Maybe the connection between my brain and face muscles is just naturally weak? Maybe I just overthink everything and make it more complex than it really is?

As a result I sometimes find myself in truly upsetting situations without having the first clue why it is I find it so upsetting. It often takes me a while of careful introspection and ruminating over the whole situation before it finally dawns on me. Maybe someone said something I didn’t like and upset me, but I’m loathe to make mention of it before I know exactly what it was that upset me. Otherwise, what’s really the point? You can’t ask someone to apologize over or not repeat something you don’t even know what is. There’s very little as upsetting as being upset over nothing or not knowing what it is you’re so upset over.

On top of that, it becomes especially difficult if someone comments how I seem to feel one thing when in fact I feel something else entirely. Maybe someone would make a comment that I look more relaxed and comfortable, when in fact I’m bored out of my mind and about ready to run off screaming. It annoys me and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t want to tell people not to voice their impression of me, quite the opposite. But what do I do when that impression is wrong? Do I correct them and say: “No, sorry this isn’t my happy and comfortable face, it’s my dying of boredom face”? Wouldn’t that make the whole thing more awkward? What if they’re right and I’m the one interpreting my own feelings wrong?

The second reason is maybe kind of complicated. In my experience, expressing negative feelings tend to produce negative outcomes. I express anger, the response is often offended and defensive, I express sadness, the response is sadness. I don’t want to make others sad! Or hurt or offended. Especially not those I care about. So, I prefer not to express those feelings. That way, I’m the only one suffering. In the short term anyways.

Because the truth is, hiding feelings doesn’t make them go away. Eventually, they’ll boil over. I know this. It’s just that it’s easier to cover them up, to wait until I’m beyond caring. The short term relief means more in the now, the long term consequences is a problem for another day.

In much the same way, I’m very conscious of not “showing weakness”, especially when I’m not quite sure about the company I’m in. I’ll avoid complaining and automatically bury any embarrassment. Embarrassment especially is something I’ve become very good at avoiding.  If I don’t acknowledge it, it’s almost as if it isn’t there at all. If anything bothers me, I’m not likely to point it out. I go to great lengths to avoid crying in front of others as much as possible. However, when I’m with friends and family, I love complaining about every little, silly thing. I’m far more talkative as well. Almost as if to compensate, letting out a little of the steam I’ve been bottling up. But only with those few I know very well and very, very rarely anything serious.

It’s not hard to imagine that this kind of thing would affect my relationships a great deal. I have easy, comfortable relationships with all of my immediate family and my closest friends. But the minute they start digging into the serious things, the relationship crumbles and I can’t get away fast enough. But family and friends are supposed to be the ones that can handle the serious stuff. Those who’ll stick around for the bad as well as the good.

But then, there’s very little as painful as the realization that you can’t actually trust someone you thought you could rely on, that you’re supposed to be able to rely on.

I’m lucky in that my family and friends are all loving and supportive. I know I can rely on them. But there’s always that little doubt. Because we’re all only human. We have faults and I’d rather live in faith than truly test it and risk rejection. I’m afraid that if I told someone that I truly needed them and they couldn’t be there, I’d break. It’s easier to tell myself that I don’t need to say it, that of course they’ll be there if I need them, but I don’t need them that much right now.

Lastly, it’s very likely that this symptom has not only affected my existing relationships, but the forming of new relationships (or lack thereof). I warm up extremely slowly to new people. If I don’t know them, I don’t know if they’re worth spending time with, but I can only know them by spending time with them. And if I lack emotional expression, it’s likely it would put a great many people off. After all, why would you spend time with someone if you can’t even tell if they’re the least bit happy to spend time with you?

Mulling over this symptom and the possible problems and after talking to a social worker about how she connects with the people she works with, some interesting questions came to mind: Why do we find some people more genuine, approachable and relateable? Not because they’re perfect. We tend to resent people who seem to do so much better than us, seemingly without effort, do we not? However, when we see someone with flaws, someone who has to work hard for every, little victory, we can sympathize. They become more human to us. They become like us.

Everyone struggles with something and the struggle is something we can usually bond over. Things like embarrassment, frustration, fear, sadness, feeling inadequate. Most, if not all of us have been there one way or another. It invokes sympathy. I think we like being able to sympathize with those we’re with. But we tend to hate being sympathized, it quickly becomes pitied and patronized. I certainly do.

But then, by refusing to show weakness, by pretending nothing at all bothers me, I may inadvertently tell people, that I’m superior to them, that I wouldn’t be able to understand their flaws, that we have nothing to talk about or bond over. Essentially that I surely wouldn’t give them poor, faulty mortals the time of the day.

I’m often described as very intelligent and seem very mature and competent, but in truth I often feel so very far from all those things that the compliments sometimes end up seeming like outright lies to me. Me, intelligent? Hurr-durr, thanks I guess? I can’t seem to work out even the simplest of problems though. Competent? Yet routinely defeated by a pile of dishes. Mature? LOL.

I like being praised and admired, even if I can’t quite believe the admired traits truly are ones I possess. It’s certainly better than pity or resentment. I want those around me to see the good, not the bad. So I tend to cover up the bad. Perhaps with time and practice, I’ll be able to open up more and then I’ll learn that I truly don’t have to be lonely.

Not My World

 This is really more of a personal rant than anything else. It’s mostly an expression of my own depression and feeling of disconnect from the rest of the world. But perhaps you might find something familiar or useful anyways. Further down, I touch briefly on thoughts of suicide. If you struggle with thoughts of suicide yourself, my advice is: find a reason to stick around just a little longer and seek help. The way back out of depression isn’t easy, true. Sometimes you have to crest the hill yourself to see the light and find that you’re not as alone as you thought you were. Death is permanent, depression isn’t.

 Sometimes, I don’t feel as if I belong in this world, like there’s no home for me, no use or purpose. I’m just a round peg trying to fill out a square hole. I don’t understand half the things other people do or say, I’ve no connection to the world at large. If it weren’t for the far too few connections I do have, I’d have been completely lost, adrift in a cold and uncaring world.

I feel as if I’ve nothing to offer the world and that the world has nothing to offer me. That I’m a waste of resources that could have been used to help someone else more deserving and in more need. I’ve no right to complain, and truthfully not much to complain about either. It’s my own fault that I’m miserable. In fact, I’ve nothing at all to be so miserable about. I don’t even know how or why I’m so miserable. Am I truly such a horrible person? That I can’t simply be content and focus on the good things in life? ‘Cause surely there are good things, even if I can’t see them right in the moment.

I’ve a place to live, an income, of sorts. Things to do. But I’ve no home, no real purpose and I’m worse than superfluous – I’m a burden. No matter where I go, I’m nothing more than a guest, a beggar or a prisoner. Living off other people’s good will. It would be ungrateful of me to complain, to express discontent. But I feel it all the same.

Why can’t I just be content with a crappy cashier job? Live in a crappy apartment, content with crappy neighbors or crappy roommates? People do that all the time. They get on with their lives. Some even enjoy it. Why do I have to be so unreasonable? I know the world isn’t fair and no amount of complaining is ever going to make it fair.

I’ve so many people working to help me. I feel like I should be more thankful than I am. And truly, I’ve come so far this past year and a half. Why is it so hard to see the improvements? Why is it such an effort to see the positives? Am I such an awful person I can’t acknowledge all the amazing help I’ve received? How lucky I am? Shouldn’t I be over these bouts of depression? Or at least better at dealing with them? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel entitled to comfort or better life. At least I don’t think I do. I just don’t consider a poor, miserable life worth living.

The other day, I had a pretty good meeting with a psychologist working on a project to help young people into jobs and education. We brainstormed ideas for me to find more fulfilling work and she had a lot of good ideas. She was also a good listener and all in all, I think the meeting went well and I felt fine. Still, I felt lost and adrift. And walking home from that meeting, I just wanted to step right off into traffic, preferably in front of a nice big truck. I didn’t. I had no desire to ruin anybody else’s day. I felt like I wasted everyone’s time somehow.

It made me think of the movie, Up in the Air with George Clooney. At one point, they fire a woman who seems perfectly calm and put together, who then frankly informs them she intends to throw herself off a bridge back home. If a person neither looks nor sounds desperate, how would anyone know if they truly intend on acting upon such a drastic impulse? Surely a competent, intelligent, young woman would find her own reasons to keep going, even when everything looks hopeless.

I don’t feel particularly depressed or emotionally unstable. I’m just so tired of looking for the silver lining in every cloud hanging over my head. Always trying to see the positive when everything just looks like shit.

I will say this though: I am not suicidal. No sudden or violent death appeals to me and I’ve no intention of acting on any, random suicidal impulse. I’d much prefer a comfortable, dark corner somewhere to slowly, quietly decompose over decades and decades.

If only I could kill off my soul and be content with simply a life and not have to worry about living a good life. I wonder if a lobotomy could do the trick? Pity it’s no longer practiced. Not that adding damage to problem would likely solve anything.

I’ve been told that intelligence is a resource, but my intelligence has brought me neither happiness nor fulfillment. It’s just a bigger cup to fill when all I have to fill it with is a couple of pebbles. It just feels more empty. I think I could have been happier if I was dumber; had a smaller cup to fill.

I feel broken. Irreparably broken. My brain as useless and burdensome as a pair of floppy, paralyzed legs.

If I were a dog back home in Greenland,  I’d likely have been shot or drowned. Nobody needs a useless dog. But then, if I remember correctly, Greenland still has the highest percentage of suicides in the world. I wonder how many of them felt like I feel now? Like a lame dog to be put out of its and everyone else’s misery.

Unlike them though, I have no problem finding excuses to stick around anyway. I know there’re people who would be absolutely heartbroken if I were gone and I might be useless in the grand scheme of things, but I’m not leaving my loved ones behind if it means I can’t ever come back to them. Moreover, there’re still things I want to do that I can’t do if I’m dead. And if all else fails, I’ll stick around purely out of spite. Let my two middle fingers be the last thing to disappear, when the rest of me is mulch piled in my dark, little compost-corner.

This world might not be my world, but I’m living in it. So I might as well make the best of it. With a little luck, I’ll even manage to find a way to make it a little better for others as well. And who knows, maybe somewhere down the road, I’ll even manage to find a couple pebbles of happiness for myself.

Household Chores

I often find keeping up with day-to-day living extremely hard. I especially have a hard time keeping up with household chores like tidying and cleaning, laundry and dishes and the like. If you’ve struggled with depression or some other mental illnesses, I’m sure it founds very familiar indeed.

Otherwise, it might sound awfully petty or lazy. After all, these are all things nobody likes to do but still needs to get done. It’s a part of life and you just have to suck it up and get it done. But feeling bad and horrid over never getting it done doesn’t help. It doesn’t give me the energy or presence of mind to do them. It just makes me feel awful and like a complete failure.

I struggle even on my good days, but when I’m in a really bad period, the simple chores become impossible. The filth just piles up. Trash, laundry, dishes, everything blends into a giant, depressing mess without head nor tail. I can’t cook proper food because of the dishes, I’ve no energy to tackle the dishes and don’t really have the energy to cook besides. I run out of clean clothes because I can’t manage to do my laundry and I don’t shower because I’ve no clean clothes to change into, so I can’t go out either. I won’t have anyone over, because everything’s a mess and I can’t summon up the energy to do anything about it. And just staring at the whole mess every day just makes my mood even worse.

Luckily, it’s been a very long time since things were quite so bad. Although I still can’t quite get rid of the mess entirely just yet. I’m slowly working on incorporating better habits and found a couple strategies that seem to help make my life easier quite a bit.

Some time ago, I attended a cognitive training group. We’d train memory, attention and the like by playing games on the computer. They stressed the importance of keeping up with these games at home, to get the best results. We didn’t have to spend a long time on it, just a few minutes if that’s all we had. If we couldn’t spend an hour, then a half or even just 10 or 5 minutes, then that was fine. Just so long as we got something done.

Working with that same principle, I found I could chop up my chores in various ways to make them more manageable. When faced with a messy room, I could chop the tidying up into categories, saying I’ll pick up the trash first and then that’s one task done. I can take a break, stop for the day or, if I feel up to it, I’ll maybe gather up the laundry or start clearing my desk. Then, little by little, I’ll manage to get my room in order. It might take days or even weeks, but it’ll slowly get done. I’d chop up the tasks into as little pieces as necessary. If it’s even just picking up one sock off the floor and putting it in the laundry bin, that’s still one sock less littering the floor.

For the dishes, since I didn’t have a dishwasher and very little kitchen-space, they tended to be a big problem. So, I’d start by just sorting and tidying up the dishes, pile the plates and bowls together, group cups and glasses, gather the cutlery together. Suddenly, it looks a lot more manageable. Then, when I feel up to it, I’ll wash the cutlery first. Then the plates, then cups and glasses etc.

Often times, I’d do the dishes, then order takeout. Dishes and cooking right after each other is a lot and so, just thinking about it would make me too tired and depressed to even get started. So instead, I’d negotiate with myself, find a comfortable place between nothing and everything and at least just get something done.

It might sound lazy or petty to feel satisfied with only doing a tiny bit at a time, but I’ve tried beating myself up over it and that got me nowhere good. When everything is darkness and you’re just barely holding on to your will to live, there’s no just “pulling yourself together”. You’ll have to make do with what you can do, and forgive the rest. That way, you might soon find that the amount that you can do will slowly increase.

Another thing I discovered just recently is just how helpful step-by-step guides can be.

Where I live now, I have to share the bathroom with 5 others and so we each have to take a turn every week to clean it. To help with that, there’s a piece of paper hung in the bathroom with a detailed step-by-step guide on how to go about it. The first step is listed as: “Fill a bucket with warm water and a bit of cleaning agent.” Then it details what to clean first with what and how. It makes the whole process so much simpler and easier. You just follow the list one step at a time and then you’re done.

Even though I know roughly how to clean a bathroom, I found it extremely helpful to have a written guide. That way, I didn’t have to keep everything in my head and risk forgetting anything. The cleaning got chopped up into easy, little steps that made it much more manageable. Sure, I had to do the whole thing in one sitting since others need to use the bathroom, but it didn’t feel like such a big task when I had a place to start and a list to follow.

I’d bet I could use a guide like that to do more things than just cleaning the bathroom. Such as tidying up my room, doing the laundry, the dishes, even keeping track of bills and finances.

I struggle with chores, sure. But I’m not lazy. I just need a good strategy. You don’t have to leap into the deep water, if there’s a ladder or you can slowly wade in from the shore. It’s okay to do things slowly, one step at a time and at your own pace. What matters is that it gets done.

Symptom: Paranoid Thinking

When asked whether I suffer from paranoid thinking, I’d say no. I don’t really think the people around me want to deliberately hurt me. I don’t automatically think the worst of other people or assume anything about their speech or behavior without good evidence. Not that I’m aware of, anyways.

I do have this sense that I mustn’t show weakness, or show if I’m nervous/afraid/uncomfortable, that if I show other people that they can hurt me, they probably will. It doesn’t register to me as an actual fear. I simply quietly avoid it, let it pass me by without a conscious thought. And so, when people inevitably hurt or disappointment me, I know it wasn’t on purpose, because if they’d known, then surely they wouldn’t have said or done what they did. Maybe I’m afraid to find out that if I did give others the opportunity, that they would want to hurt me deliberately? So it’s better to hide and forgive any accidental toe-stepping.

I’ve heard that sometimes people suffering from schizotypal disorder can have small, momentary paranoid delusions, or maybe paranoid stray thoughts. They might be very self-conscious about it and feel that the thought is silly, that “of course my friend isn’t a government spy” or “bodysnatchers isn’t real and mrs. Jensen down the hall isn’t actually an alien in disguise” but… Often, such thoughts are fairly quickly and easily dismissed.

Sometimes, the idea might feel all too real and even if they sound silly to others, they make perfect sense to the person experiencing them. Those tend to enter the realm of full-blown paranoid delusions. Thankfully, I’ve never experienced this myself, that I can remember. I’ve enough in worrying that my subjective reality isn’t quite the same as objective reality, or the reality experienced by everyone else, so that there’s no chance I’ll ever be able to truly understand what others are talking about, or make myself understood. Could that be considered a paranoia?

Paranoid thinking could also be things such as, if a friend takes a little longer to reply to a text, “it’s because she’s angry or doesn’t like me”, or “everyone at work hates me,” even though there’s no real evidence for it. It could also be the immediate assumption that if someone says something hurtful, it’s deliberate, or interpreting general comments as referring to you personally. I heard a story of a man once, who, while suffering from paranoid delusions, became convinced that the happy smiley faces staff members left on whiteboard messages for general use were in fact caricatures of him, which the staff drew purely to mock him. It might sound like a silly, little thing, but it’s truly deeply disturbing and hurtful for the one experiencing it.

Mostly, my own fears are never so concrete or focused, although I’ll admit I’m absolutely terrified of ghosts (even though I don’t really believe they exist, I can’t say they definitely don’t exist either). It’s usually just a vague sense of “I’m not safe”, “I’m alone, but it feels like there’s someone else here” or “I’m completely, utterly alone in a cold and uncaring world”. I’m aware the latter is an incredibly ungrateful thought, that I have people close to me who care a great deal about me. But well, they have their own problems. They have their own lives to worry about. They don’t and can’t possibly understand what I’m going through. Although in truth, I’m sure they understand and recognize a great deal more than I’d think.

I hate this part of me, who thinks this way. Like an overly dramatic teenager. But I can’t quite get rid of her. It’s silly and stupid, but it’s the way I feel, and feelings aren’t so simple to change. The fact I feel ashamed for feeling this way in the first place makes it all the harder to admit to and discuss, even just with myself.

I don’t know what to do about the vague feeling of being unsafe. Mostly, I just try to ignore it, distract myself, turn on the lights so I can see around the room, play some music, read a book. But this often ensures I won’t get much sleep that night and I’ll be tired and cranky the next day.

Sometimes, if I catch myself thinking or feeling something negative, I use techniques from CBT (That’s Cognitive Behavior Therapy, not the… kinky one) and try to challenge the thought or feeling using reason. I’ll ask myself things like: Where am I? Have I ever experienced something bad here? How likely is it, that this thought/feeling is true and reasonable? If I’m feeling alone, maybe I’ll challenge the feeling by texting a friend. She usually texts back. Maybe I’ll line up examples in my head where my bad expectations were justified versus where they were proved wrong and usually I’ll find just enough examples to put my mind at ease. I can use this technique to determine the likelihood of a thought being true as well. Like, “if Mrs. Jensen down the hall were an alien, what’s the evidence for it? Could there be other, more likely explanations? Maybe she just had a bad day and goes back to normal soon enough?”

 

I’d love to hear if anyone else experience anything like what I’ve described and how you deal/cope with them.

Sense of Self

Talking to a few others with schizotypal disorder during a group session, I found a curious trait most of us seemed to share. And that was a lacking, or poor sense of self. It was somewhat described as feeling “hollow” or not having a core of identity by one and it’s a feeling I find I can recognize: The sense of being a different person depending on who I’m talking to. I’ve on occasion thought of myself as a mirror, merely reflecting others’ own image back at them. Sometimes I’ve felt like a poor facsimile of a human being, other times just as if I’m missing something crucial that’s supposed to make me a person. Sometimes, when alone, I’d feel like a puppet, with her strings cut, or a toy others might pull out and play with for a while, but then put back in the toy box and forget about until the next play-time.

Identity is a complex thing I’m sure we all struggle with at one point or another. Teenage years and mid-life crises come to mind. Questions like: Who am I? What do I want? Like? What do I think about this or that or how does one thing or other make me feel? But I imagine most people have a sense of being, something inside they can point to and say: That’s me. They might not know who they are or what they’re really like, but there’s something. A constant that’s always there. A certainty that there’s something that’s you and you do exist.

This doesn’t seem necessarily the case if you suffer from Schizotypal disorder. I don’t know if it’s a trait in every case or how severe or mild it can be for each person. For me, I do usually have a sense of self. I’m the source of my thoughts. Trouble is, I can’t always tell if it’s really a me, or stray fragments of thoughts and opinions picked up from other people and tangled up together to fill an empty void.

The worst part of it is, I think, that whenever I try to talk about what I think/feel or how I see myself, I can’t always tell if I’m even telling the truth or not. I often struggle to find the right words to describe them and I am endlessly worrying about whether or not the words I use actually mean what I think they mean. I worry constantly that I’m being misunderstood and that I in turn don’t understand others at all. Makes for interesting social interaction. Not to mention sitting down and writing a blog like this one. Sometimes it just all feels like a massive waste of time, but anxiety and depression are a topics for another day.

So, what do I do to try and lessen the feeling of emptiness, the lack of identity? I treat it like an empty canvas and paint something on it. I sit down and think about what kind of person I want to be: Honest, compassionate, loyal, kind, intelligent, confident… and then I strive to live by the values I make for myself. Of course it’s not easy and I don’t always live up to my ideals, but then no one actually does. I think of it like this: Who I am doesn’t matter nearly as much as what I do. Then all I have to think about is what do to do to create the image I want for myself. But I realize it might ring a little hollow to some. It just ends up feeling like another role to play. A lie.

Another thing I do is, I spend a lot of time pondering my interests, my talents, consider what I like to do, take the time to really think about my likes and dislikes, try to examine my feelings and emotions and how I react to one thing or another. I imagine Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) also might provide a good way to challenge the feeling of emptiness/hollowness and negative thoughts such as “I’m nobody”, “I don’t have a personality” and the like. Often times, when you sit down and really think about it, there’s usually always some kind of evidence that there really is a person inside.

I try not to compare myself to other people too much. Down that road lies all kinds of misery.

I mentioned playing a role earlier and incidentally, one of my big interests is roleplaying. I recommend it for anyone who struggles with identity problems. Or hell, I’d recommend it to anyone just ’cause it’s super fun! The gist of it is, you construct a fictional character complete with a backstory and personality and then act them out in a series of scenarios together with other players. Basically making a game out of playing pretend. There are many ways you can roleplay: Live action roleplay, a great variety of desktop games like Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer and Shadowrun, as well as text-based roleplaying fora all around internet. There are also roleplaying communities in the various Massively Multiplayer Roleplaying Games like World of Warcraft and the like. Roleplaying gives a great opportunity to explore roles, personalities and even sexuality without actually putting yourself out there. I had a guy in my roleplaying group once, who played a gay character before he officially came out as gay. I don’t know if the roleplaying ever actually had any effect on his decision when he did decide to come out of the closet. I never asked. But I like to think it helped just a little.

 

A poor sense of self can be an incredibly painful, confusing thing to live with. But perhaps there can be upsides to it too and it certainly doesn’t have to be all pain always.

Introduction

Hello, dear reader and welcome.

This is a blog dedicated to discussing mental health in general and Schizotypal Disorder, or Schizotypal Personality Disorder in particular.

Searching the net, there’s plenty of pages to tell you what Schizotypal Disorder is in a general and clinical sense. It is, shortly and rather crudely put, a mild form of schizophrenia. It has a list of symptoms shared with schizophrenia, however the so-called “psychotic symptoms” are very limited or non-existent. But what does all that mean, really? How is it diagnosed, how can you treat it and what is it like to live with it? What on earth do they mean by symptoms such as “ruminations” and “magical thinking” and what-not? Researching the diagnosis and symptoms, I found some of these terms very difficult to understand and found it a little hard to recognize in my own daily life. Assuming I wasn’t the only one, I decided to try and write a blog about it. Both to help organize my thoughts and hopefully make a difference for others.

Mental illness can be a very touchy subject, very hard to understand and accept, both for those living with it and their relations. Many who suffer from these illnesses find themselves feeling misunderstood, isolated and alone. It’s as if there’s something more shameful about having a broken mind than a broken body, simply because the damage is harder to see with the naked eye.

Over the last several years, acceptance of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety has slowly spread as more and more are diagnosed with them, and more people speak up about what it’s truly like to live with these and other psychiatric diagnoses and how treatment helped them better their lives.  But I think there’s still a ways to go, before the stigma of mental illness is truly gone.

By writing about my own experiences living with Schizotypal Disorder, it is my hope to help shed more light on this and similar disorders. Whether you have been diagnosed with a mental illness, know someone who has, or are simply curious about the subject, I hope you’ll find something helpful in my writings.

I’ve never made a website or written a blog before, so please bear with me as I learn. Comments and suggestions for the site are welcome and greatly appreciated. If you wish to share your own experiences, you’re also more than welcome to do so in the comments.