Tag Archives: Schizotypal disorder

Interview with Clint Sabom and My Thoughts on Magical Thinking

So I just had an interesting interview with Clint Sabom for his podcast Sanity Sessions. And it kind of rekindled my passion for this blog. I’d lost some interest after I was introduced to r/schizotypal, since I could connect with other schizotypals more directly and there are so many amazing threads to read and discussions to join too! And since I landed a full-time job in November, I’ve also been too busy getting into that to really just sit down and write. I think I’ll try to actively make time for it now though. Because my talk with Clint reminded me that I have so much more about STPD that I want to share and talk about. More than what I’ve covered so far in this blog and even more than we managed to cover in that one interview. And well, I think text really is more my medium, which I’m sure you’ll be able to hear if you listen to the podcast.

So one thing we talked a bit about, and I’m not sure if it made it into the interview because we did talk quite a bit before and especially after, was Magical Thinking. I did talk some about Odd Thinking, which I might revisit because it feels a bit messy and rambling, to be honest. But I never quite touched on actual Magical Thinking. I guess I’ve been kind of ignoring that one a bit because to be frank, I find it kind of insulting that’s somehow a criteria for STPD.

My thoughts are entirely rational to me regardless of how they sound to you. I tend to arrive at my conclusions after careful consideration and the very idea that someone can just dismiss those out of hand as hocus pocus is genuinely upsetting to me. And here’s the thing about magical thinking: It’s extremely common and for the most part harmless or even beneficial. An example of culturally accepted magical thinking would be religion. And if you’re a religious person, I’m quite certain you’d be quite offended by my assertion and that’s kind of my point.

For the most part, magical thinking is little more than minor idiosyncrasies. Just take a look around a casino and look at all the little things gamblers do to “improve” their luck. They rub or blow on the dice, make sure to wear their lucky shoes and the list goes on.

We tend to do these things, I think, because the brain loves patterns. It’s constantly looking for cause and effect: which kind of behavior is rewarded and which is punished. When we get a reward, we immediately look at our behavior leading up to getting the reward and naturally conclude that it was that behavior that triggered the reward. Even if the reward was given by pure chance. It can take quite a while to unlearn this notion even after we discover that doing the behavior again doesn’t produce the outcome we want. It’s even worse if the reward is given sporadically, so we pay more attention to the times our behavior worked than when it failed.

People aren’t really equipped to fully understand random chance and maybe that’s just as well. It’s actually a terrifying thought. Things happen to you that are entirely out of your control. Both good and bad. We like control, because it makes us feel safe. Lack of control is incredibly scary. Anything could happen and you’d be helpless. If I focused entirely on all the terrible things that could potentially happen to me every time I step out of my door, I’d never make it over the threshold. The good news is we can generally influence our chances of getting one outcome over another. We lock our doors to deter break-ins. It doesn’t completely prevent break-ins, but it does reduce the chance. And someone buying a lottery ticket has a much higher chance of winning the big bucks than someone who didn’t purchase a lottery ticket.

In some way, the function of magical thinking can help us determine what behavior is more likely to get us the good stuff and avoid the bad stuff. And coming back to religion, the idea that no matter how bad things get in this life that as long as you live your life well, you’ll for sure be rewarded in the next life is a great comfort, an excellent motivator and helps us keep a positive attitude even when facing adversity.

The point where magical thinking becomes an actual problem is when it starts to take over your life. Perhaps you get so obsessed over finding the one lucky whatever that you end up with a gambling addiction for example. Or another example I know for sure I never got around to mention in the interview was OCD. Obsessive compulsions typically come from some form of magical thinking paired with fear or anxiety. “I HAVE to do this thing in this specific manner, otherwise something terrible is going to happen”. And this is an incredibly painful trap to be caught in. You’re compelled to do something out of fear and the only way to break out of the circle of compulsive behavior that I know of, is to challenge it. You have to face your fear and not give in to the compulsion in order to prove to yourself that your fear is unfounded. This runs the risk of proving your fear correct, because there’s always a chance something terrible can happen even when we take all the right precautions. Facing that fear and not letting it take over your life is an amazing feat. Maybe you should feel just a little bit proud of yourself every time you step out of your door to face the world. Because anything could happen.

Update: I neglected to share the link to the podcast episode, since it wasn’t published at the time of posting this blog post and then I completely forgot about it. Here’s the link to the podcast: The Sanity Sessions: Exploring Mental Illness And Maladaptations Episode 10: Living With Schizotypal Personality Disorder

Reading

Growing up, I had two passions: Drawing and reading. Once I grew out of wanting to be Superman when I grew up, I wanted to be either an artist or a writer. To this day, I still want to be an artist or a writer. Depression put a serious wrench in my artistic aspirations however and after about 7 years slugging through university with little more than a useless bachelor’s degree to show for it, I had to finally acknowledge my reading problems.

Again and again I would force myself to sit down and read a text and while I understood each individual word, by the end of the page, I had no idea of what I’d just read. I could still read novels okay and follow the story as long as it was simple enough. No Dosteyevskij or even George R.R. Martin for me, unfortunately. My psychology textbooks and academic articles? They may as well have been written in German for all the good they’ve done me. I’m amazed I managed to make it as far as I did.

Some information would make it through my brain soup and stick around for a while, but then some new information would come along and knock the old right back out again. I had the bizarre experience of re-taking an exam and pulling the exact same topic from the first exam. An article on language learning and Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas.  A couple questions I answered correctly the first time around, I couldn’t remember the second time, but I answered other questions correctly the second time around. Luckily for me, I passed the second time. I was just happy I wouldn’t have to re-visit the article from hell a third time.

Even something as supposedly simple as job applications can be hard for me to work through sometimes. Going through dozens of them in a day to find just one or two that sound promising? That is seriously taxing work. More than once, I received a call from a workplace I couldn’t even remember from all the applications I’d sent. Makes for a pretty lousy job interview when you can’t even remember what job you’re applying for.

Other times, I’d apply for a job only to later realize they were located about half-way across the island if not at the exact opposite end. Some people can commute two hours back and forth to work. I can’t. Two hours of public transit in the middle of rush hour? Yeah, no.

It was something of a revelation to find out others with schizotypal disorder had similar problems with reading. I’m still not entirely sure if it’s a schizotypal thing in particular or more of a general effect of long-term stress. I might try to look that up sometime.

A part of me still refuses to acknowledge that I can’t actually read anything more complex than the equivalent of a Harlequin novel. I was the born academic. I’ve always loved reading and learning. What good is an intellectual who can’t even read? About as much good as a boat made of Swiss cheese, that’s what. So I still routinely expend and exhaust myself trying to slug through all the reading and writing I can manage. It’s still almost entirely simple romance novels and roleplay posts, but I like to think I’m slowly working my way up to something more substantial. Maybe I’ll even eventually find a good use for all the light novels and roleplays I’ve devoured.

Anyway, this whole post came from trying for months to stable together something more academically grounded for this blog. I’ve been ruminating over one topic in particular: The relationship between Asperger’s and Schizotypal disorder, or the differences and similarities between the two. But I wanted to study up on what kind of research has been actually been published on the topic. As you might have guessed from this whole post, it’s not going so great for me.

Psychopharmacology

Medication against mental illness has always been an iffy topic full of taboo. Many believe we are being over-medicated, that mental illness should be treated mentally through therapy and not physically through medication, and so on and so forth. I tend to fall more towards the “no medication” than the “yes medication” end of the discussion. But I also think it is unwise to refuse medication entirely. I realize that my feelings on the matter are just feelings, not actual facts, and ultimately irrational.

I’ve never been a fan of antidepressants and am even less inclined to like antipsychotics. A big part of it is an irrational fear that the drugs will turn me into a completely different person somehow. Like the drugs will make me think and feel different than I normally do. But you could also say that my disorder makes me think and feel differently than I normally would. When you’re sick for so long, it can be difficult to discern where you end and the illness or disorder begins. Am I me or am I just the drugs?

Another big part of my reluctance to take any medication is, I’m embarrassed to take them. Especially when I visit my dad on the weekends. I don’t want him to see me take any pills. It’s a stupid, stupid reason not to take medication, I know. Even so, when I was on antidepressants, I often found myself “forgetting” to bring the pills or forgetting to take them when I did bring them. When I finally took them, I’d always covertly swallow them while no one was looking.

Because of my own stance on medication and the fact my symptoms have always been relatively mild as far as I can tell, my experience with medication is very limited. I’ve been on mild antidepressants twice in my life. Both times I abruptly stopped taking the medication. I’ve never been on antipsychotics. Why would I want antipsychotics when I’m not psychotic? Although, perhaps the classification is a little misleading. Perhaps it’s more helpful to think of them as thought-regulating medication? On second thought, that might actually be worse… It’s silly to get hung up on names and specification, I know but what can you do? My brain’s just full of excuses.

I’ve heard some medication can help with excessive thoughts. I considered something like that, but my thoughts feel more slow and rusty than excessive and I was afraid the medication would somehow slow my thinking to a crawl or even stop completely. I should probably have talked more about this with my psychologist at OPUS. Probably he would have been able to clarify what sort of medication does what and what might be a better fit for me. But I didn’t.

My biggest hang-up against psychopharmacology is perhaps the side effects. Sometimes, the side effects of some medication can be quite severe and it can feel a bit like cutting off a leg to save the arm. It’s a different kind of debility but still one way or the other, you’re still not whole. There are other medications you can take to treat some of the worse side effects, which is good. But at the end of the day, it’s just more pills to take and that can get a little exhausting just to think about.

The first time I took antidepressants, I was 18 and living at home in Nuuk, Greenland. I was diagnosed with mild depression and a visiting psychiatrist (meaning he worked there for a short time before returning to Denmark) prescribed me with Citalopram, I believe. It worked great for a couple of months. Then it stopped working. So I stopped taking them. I didn’t like my psychologist at the time either and when she failed to make a new appointment one session, I simply stopped coming. Instead of ineffective medication and useless psychologists, I decided to treat my own depression by making a point of exaggerating the enjoyment of the few things I still enjoyed. It worked well enough for a while. Focusing on the good things in life is helpful short-term, but if you don’t treat whatever’s making you miserable, eventually all those bottled up emotions are going to come crashing down. It may take years, but it’ll happen sooner or later.

The second time, I started taking basically the same drug, but a different brand because I felt mildly depressed while I was at OPUS and I had a lot of trouble sleeping. This time, I felt no difference at all from the drug after taking it for about a month. Rather, I suffered the unfortunate but very common side effect of being unable to orgasm or taking ages and ages to get there, without the actual intended benefit of the drug. And so, when I forgot to pick up my new prescription just before Christmas the year before last, I simply stopped taking the pills when I ran out. This turned out to be a very reckless move. As it turns out, going cold turkey on antidepressants can have some pretty uncomfortable side effects. Like dizzy spells. At first I thought it was simply lack of sleep that caused the dizziness, but after talking to my psychologist, I realized it was probably the drug. Thankfully, I didn’t suffer any worse side effects and the dizzy spells disappeared on their own.

I’ve heard a few other horror stories about medication, like the schizophrenic patient who spent her time drugged into a stupor and her medication messed with her hormones making her obese and grow unsightly facial hair that she hated so much she would escape into another world where she wasn’t sick and had a successful life with a career and family. Sometimes, I dream about being able to just park my body in some institution and disappear into my own head and live in my own dream world where everything is exactly how I want it. I feel like I’d be happier that way. But I’m much too proud to allow myself to live out my days like some institutionalized drugged-out potato.

So, do I believe psychopharmacology’s all bad and should be avoided at all costs? No. I do believe drugs can be helpful, even necessary. For all the horror stories, there are many more happy stories where drugs bring relief from internal torment and allow for a relatively normal life. I know someone who takes medication for her anxiety and it relieved her of the terrible stomach pains she suffered from due to the anxiety. I know of a family friend who takes antidepressants because he simply can’t function without them. I don’t think medication is the ultimate solution, but it can bring relief where it’s needed. Recognizing that need is an important step towards recovery.

If your own brain torments you so badly you can’t be in your own skin, if your anxiety is so bad it causes physical pain and leaves you trapped in your own head, if you feel so awful death seems the only escape? Then perhaps trading off happy-fun times with your favorite sex toy doesn’t feel like such a bad deal. And perhaps it won’t have to be for the rest of your life, but just until you’re in a better place overall. The important thing is, you get to a point where you can live well.

inappropriate or constricted affect

What on earth does that even mean?

A quick Google search describes constricted affect as a restriction in the range or intensity of display of feelings. While inappropriate affect is the display of feelings inappropriate for the situation.

I’ve already talked some about the restriction in the range or intensity of display of feelings in Symptom: Emotionally Inexpressive.

Inappropriate affect however, I haven’t talked about at all. It’s fairly easy for me to find examples of this in my own life.

Two memories in particular stand out to me:

The first, I was younger than 15 at least. Maybe 13-14 or a couple years younger? I was in an indoor swimming pool with my dad, his girlfriend and my youngest half brother. I knew the girlfriend could swim. She would jump into the deep end and dog-paddle around. Then, suddenly she began calling for help while splashing around in the deep end of the pool. Maybe she had suffered a panic attack and forgotten how to swim. She wasn’t a very good swimmer to begin with. I didn’t understand any of this. All I saw was that this woman, who I knew could swim, was splashing around as if she didn’t and people were starting to look concerned. It was so funny to me, I couldn’t help but laugh. Being the one closest to her, I simply swam over and pushed her to the shallow end of the pool where she could reach the bottom and get out of the pool herself. Chuckling all the way. It was an indoor pool. Where was the danger? The harm? Of course, I was reprimanded by the attending life guard for laughing. She could have drowned! But she knew how to swim! I know now, that being able to swim is not the same as being unable to drown.

Looking back now, I can see how inappropriate my laughter was. But I still remember how absurd the whole situation was to me. The way she splashed around looked really funny. I just didn’t understand the gravity of the situation.

The second memory is somewhat similar. This one was in high school. The high school I attended had a proud history with not a single suicide among its students. This is significant, given the high suicide rate in Greenland. That record was broken when the school was hit with a suicide epidemic in my second or third year. 3 students killed themselves that year. Including one of my classmates.

After every suicide, the school would gather all the students and hold a memorial. 1 minute’s silence for the poor sod, every single time. By the third time, it went from horribly tragic to downright absurd. Students started asking each other: “Who’s next?” As if there was some invisible serial killer going around offing random people.

At the last memorial, I stood at the back, chuckling to myself. Laughing in the face of tragedy. This time I was well aware of how inappropriate that was. It was no laughing matter. But it still struck me as funny. 3 people, who’d suffered were dead by their own hands and all the rest of us could offer was a speech and a minute’s silence. It was so goddamn sad it was funny.

But yeah, laughing at a memorial is hardly appropriate behavior.

We tend to do odd things when we don’t know what to do. Some lash out and become violent. Others are paralyzed and overcome with their own inadequacies. Some, like me develop a warped sense of humor and laugh at tragedy.

Behavior that is inexplicable or inappropriate when looking from the outside, usually makes sense when seen from the inside. Our behavior, no matter how insane are bound by their own internal logic. Even if we can’t quite explain it, it makes sense to us. It feels natural. I couldn’t not laugh.

Reacting to horrible things by smiling or laughing isn’t actually as out there as it might sound. Laughter and smiles are mechanisms deeply ingrained in humans. They have a relaxing, calming effect. Even disarming. After all, people will like someone who’s smiling better than someone who’s frowning. It’s an excellent coping and defense mechanism. For example, we automatically laugh when we get tickled. I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly enjoy being tickled, even though it does feel good to laugh.

So, do I laugh at horrible things because I’m a horrible person who lacks empathy? I don’t think that’s the case at all. But it’s very easy to make that assumption. If tragedy makes you laugh, you’re assumed to be horrible, if comedy makes you cry, you’re assumed to be overly sensitive and if you get angry at nothing at all, you’re an excellent target for bullying.

So, I think inappropriate affect is an expression of a divide between what goes on on the inside and what goes on on the outside. Either due to the outside stuff being interpreted incorrectly inside your head, like putting 2 and 2 together and getting chicken pot pie, or because you’re reacting to something going on inside your mind that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the outside world. I find that spending too much time with your own thoughts tends to dull awareness of what’s actually going on around you. My point is, the inappropriate behavior has meaning and logic behind it. Just not meaning or logic that’s obvious when seen from the outside.

Sickness – reason or excuse?

One thing I tend to struggle with a lot is distinguishing between genuine need for rest and laziness. I’m constantly second-guessing myself whenever I decide to call in sick from work for instance, because there’s nothing physically wrong with me. I know I could technically go to work and get it done, although not as well and I’d be exhausted and utterly miserable. On top of that, I’d usually be looking forward to an even more miserable time the following day.

Eventually, if I kept pushing myself, I’d reach a point where I can’t make myself do anything at all. That’s surely not a healthy work ethic. I certainly don’t think it’s very constructive to push myself to the breaking point. But when is it okay to stop up and take a break? And how long should that break last? At which point does need for restitution become plain laziness?

I’ve been on a very long sick leave from job-hunting and even though I don’t at all feel ready to go back to that particularly unpleasant rat-race, I felt more or less forced to. It was either that, or stay in an internship I felt entirely unsuited for and found increasingly more stressful and confining.

I didn’t want to drag myself out of bed and either spent most of the day twiddling my thumbs, waiting for customers to service, a task I’ve always despised, even if it’s really just scanning in wares and accepting payment. Most of the time. That is when there was a bar to scan and it showed the right price. Then there was the greens. At the store I worked, we sold surplus goods, so the actual wares tended to wary and the greens varied a lot in type and quality. Often times, the prices could even change throughout the day, depending on quality, quantity and how well they sold. It was confusing and I hate that kind of uncertainty.

It’s the weirdest things that can wear you down. Simply standing around all day wears on the feet and back like you wouldn’t believe. Doing nothing at all tires and stresses and simply not knowing what to expect from a workday can, when you’re not the sort of person thrilled by surprises, really, really drain your energy levels.

Then, when you’re spending all your energy out at work, you come home to dinner that needs cooking, dishes, cleaning, laundry and all the wonderful elements of being a responsible adult. I consider myself very lucky I don’t have any children to look after on top of all that. Sometimes I wonder how anyone can manage all those things. My parents have both done a pretty decent job of it for decades. In my dad’s case all alone for most of my youngest little brother’s life.

For them, simply pulling yourself together and get the job done seems to do the trick. Most of the time anyways. But for myself, I find that approach absolutely miserable.

If I can make work and chores fun on the other hand, it’s so much easier to get done. And taking lots of breaks tends to make things much easier and more fun. Trouble is, breaks can take hours, even days. And then the work piles up to epic proportions, to the point where I’m exhausted just looking at it. To the point where I feel I need to take a break before I’ve even begun.

It’s so much easier, to sit down and disappear into my own, little world instead of with all the things I should, but really just don’t feel like.

It’s understandable that when you’re sick, you can’t do as much as when you’re healthy. But in my experience it’s maybe not so much a matter of whether you’re sick or not, but how sick. For longtime sickness, you tend to have good days and bad days. It’s not like the flu or a cold, where you’re sick and then get over it. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell if it’s a good day before I get out of bed. Most mornings, I’m tired but otherwise feel okay. Most days the mood will generally hold throughout the day, other days, I can suffer a major panic attack right after breakfast or on the way out the door.

In reality, the panic attacks aren’t something that come straight out of the blue. None of my symptoms are. It’s usually a slow build-up where I feel maybe a bit stressed, a bit down, but otherwise okay. I think it’s better to alleviate some of the strain while it’s nothing but that. I just have a hard time figuring out a way to properly do that without taking the whole day off. And it feels so incredibly wrong to call in sick when I’m still more or less okay. It’s much easier to justify staying home, when I can barely get out of bed or the mere thought of stepping out the door sends me hyperventilating. It’s either one extreme or the other. Neither’s a good solution. Life shouldn’t be a choice between working yourself to death or be dismissed as lazy and selfish.

I started this post intending to write about whether or not I might be using my diagnosis as an excuse to work less and play more. Instead it became a bit of a rant about how much I dislike work. But they’re sort of connected. Work sucks, play’s fun. I’d much rather play than work.

So then, do I feel like crap because I’m actually sick, or because I’d really, really just rather stay home and play, and just can’t find any better excuse besides making myself sick? Or maybe do I dislike work so much I make myself sick to avoid it?

Thinking about it, it’s possible, isn’t it? When you’re sick, you get to stay in bed. Exactly what I most feel like doing most days. Then it feels more like a reward than a necessity. If you’re sick, you can’t be expected to work, which we’ve already established I’m not exactly a fan of.

Am I so lazy that I’m making myself sick just to have an excuse to laze about?

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.

Symptom: Social Withdrawal

Social withdrawal is a negative symptom of Schizophrenia and can be present in Schizotypal disorders as well. It is when a person shuns social contact and spends large quantities of time by themselves, largely ignoring the world around them.

I think, for much of it, this tendency is closely tied to social anxiety. After all, we tend to avoid what we fear and brings us discomfort. But that’s not the whole reason behind it. At least for myself, sometimes I just get so tired or so distracted that social interaction becomes more of a burden than a pleasure. It simply takes too much effort. My brain, like a sore muscle, screams out for rest so it can recuperate.

For myself, I often have periods of time, a day or two usually, sometimes up to several weeks, where I can’t stand the thought of looking at another human being. During those periods of time I find communication, even by text, extremely difficult.

Usually, these periods of isolation coincide with depressive periods. I’ll huddle in my room, in front of the computer, immersing myself in fiction. Sometimes I’ll spend days just playing video games. Other times I’ll binge-watch TV or anime series or Youtube videos, or spend every waking hour just reading mindless, fluffy romance novels. Just anything that keeps my mind turned off, away from reality. If one pastime fails to distract me well enough, I’ll move on to another before I have to think too deeply on what it is I’m doing.

Any time I find myself under any kind of pressure, I risk lapsing into this isolation tendency. Exam periods were especially harrowing. I had to retake a couple exams, but somehow I managed to get through them in the end.

Too much social contact can also be a serious strain. I get exhausted just by being around a lot of people, even when I don’t have to talk to anyone. Talking to a lot of people over a period of time seems to be especially draining though. Even just spending too much time with family can leave me exhausted and irritable, to the point where simply having another person just quietly breathing in the same room becomes unbearable.

I’m extremely introverted by nature, and so I actually need some time to myself, to recharge and relax.  Otherwise I end up mentally exhausted and stressed out. Generally, a day or two a week, without social obligations is enough to keep me going, so I try to plan around that.

My most recent bout of social withdrawal, was likely brought on by too much social contact. I just simply couldn’t bear the thought of seeing, let alone talking to another human being. I felt almost like I’d shatter, if I did. Thankfully, usually after a couple days, or sometimes a week or two, depending on my level of exhaustion, I perk up again and become able to face the world once more.

I think, there are several points to keep in mind about social withdrawal. One is personality. If you have an introverted personality like mine, you might benefit from more time alone. But too much time alone isn’t good for anyone, regardless of personality.

During my worst time, I spent weeks by myself, hardly speaking a word to anyone. During that time, I found my speech greatly deteriorated. When I finally did speak, I spoke slow and haltingly, spending more time searching for words. My more psychotic symptoms became more pronounced, I felt increasingly detached from my body and the world around me. The more time I spent alone, the harder it became to simply set foot out the door. I was “lucky” enough that my local supermarket was open 24/7 at the time, and so I’d do my grocery shopping in the middle of the night to avoid other people as much as possible. I could hardly function day to day and that’s when I finally realized, I couldn’t keep going at the rate I was.

This leads me to another point to keep in mind: Day to day function. If your social withdrawal impacts your day to day life negatively, if you find your mood deteriorating, find tasks such as grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, showering etc. increasingly more difficult, that’s obviously a big problem. Any time you spend alone isn’t in and of itself a problem, as long as it doesn’t affect your quality of life and your relationships.

If you can, holding up your behavior before and after getting sick can also be a good idea. Were you much more social before you got sick? If so, then the social withdrawal most likely due to your illness. As with any symptom, proper treatment might greatly reduce, if not completely eliminate it. Although, it goes without saying, that restoring a ruined social life is very hard work. Like most any course of recovery, it takes time and practice. You don’t generally start running the moment the cast is off your broken leg either.

Like our muscles, our brain requires use to function properly. This includes the parts of our brain governing language, speech and social skills. The more they’re used, the better and easier it becomes.

Since my biggest bout of isolation, I’ve come a long way, simply by interacting with the people around me, weekly talks with my psychologist, frequent visits to my dad and the like. I was also very lucky to get into a social skills training group, where we meet every week and take up various problems we face in social interaction. We’ll take a problem one of us faces and together discuss strategies and ways to overcome it.

For instance, maybe someone is facing a pending family gathering and is nervous about seeing family members they haven’t seen or talked to for ages. So then we’ll talk about what makes the person nervous, the negative thoughts they face like: “They’re not going to like me” or difficult questions like: “What do I say if they ask how I’ve been?”, “do I tell them about my illness?”, “if I don’t want to talk about it, what do I say if they ask?”

Usually, by the end of it, we’ll have a plan of action for the person and a whole host of good tools and ideas for everyone else.

To summarize: Social withdrawal may be a symptom of illness, but it’s only a problem if it’s bad for your relationships and quality of life. If it does become a problem, it can be treated with training and working out good strategies. Cultivating good relationships is crucial for a good quality of life regardless of illness, health or personality.

 

Lastly, these are, as always simply my own thoughts and experiences. I am by no means an expert and my experiences may not completely reflect yours. Take what you can use and leave the rest.

Body Awareness Therapy

A little while ago, I took a class dubbed “Body Mindfulness”, which was a light exercise and meditation class employing elements from Yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong and mindfulness meditation. It turned out to be an exercise therapy called Body Awareness Therapy (BAT) developed sometime in the 70’s and used by physiotherapists to alleviate symptoms both in physical ailments such as chronic pain like from whiplash and mental illnesses like schizophrenia and the like.

This class caught my attention because I’ve had problems with feeling disconnected from my own body, feeling as if one or more bodyparts or in some instances my whole body isn’t really mine or fully under my control. I had an inkling that it was a problem that could be removed or alleviated by actually using my body, exercising and the like. But it’s incredibly difficult to get motivated and I detest the pains and aches and exhaustion that comes from exercising. So, a light exercise class that seems to focus on connecting body and mind by focusing one’s attention on the body and movements more than the movements themselves seemed like just the thing.

I often struggled with actually showing up for class, but once I was there, my experience was very positive. The exercises did indeed help not only with loosening up on some muscle-tension, but helped making me feel more connected to my body as well.

The exercises were very simple and fairly easy to do at home. Most of them only required a yogamat and enough room on the floor to stretch out. We’d start the class by taking note of how we’re feeling in the moment, our mood, various bodily sensations we might be feeling at the moment. I’d often feel a tension in my neck and shoulders, maybe some strain in my thighs, ankles and feet from the kneeling position. Sometimes I’d feel mostly happy and content, other times I’d not want to talk at all, and whether it was good or bad feelings and sensations, they were all valid and perfectly acceptable. There was always a relaxed atmosphere in the room, no one ever asked any more than you were willing to share and you were free to participate as much or as little as you were able.

Next, we’d do a lying down or sitting meditation exercise where we’d slowly move our attention first to breathing, then to various body parts one at a time. I’d often find my thoughts wander and might have fallen asleep once or twice during this exercise. It wasn’t uncommon to hear someone else snoring softly somewhere either. The point, I think, was to gently coax your mind and attention to focus on your body, let go of wandering thoughts without judgement and just be in the moment. The mindfulness part of the therapy.

Next, we’d do various standing exercises. The main focus was to visualize this center-line going through our bodies and slowly move it and our bodies back and forth, side to side, up and down, twisting around. If you’ve ever taken a lesson in drawing the human body, you might be familiar with the helping line often drawn straight down through the center of the face and follows the spine all the way down the body. That’s what I’d visualize – just more like a rigid thread or rod going through my body that I can move around and my body sort of just follows.

Then we’d do various exercises lying down, often times with a big sausage-pillow, filled with something like sand to give them weight and firmness. We’d use the weight, hugging it on top of our chests, use the firmness to lay our back or legs on it and relax into a stretch over it. Some of my favorite exercises were just lying down and moving the arms. One started lying on our backs, eyes closed, with the arms laying straight down our sides. Then we’d slowly, very slowly lift them up and sloooowly raise them up and then down to rest above our heads. It was always something of a surprise to note just how heavy my arms are. Sometimes we’d open our eyes when it felt like our arms were at their highest point above, to give some visual feedback on our physical sensations.

Another one we’d lie on our sides with one arm straight up into the air. Then we’d slowly swing it around in the shoulder-socket, first in tiny circles, then slowly widen the circles until the circle stretched as wide around as possible, practically dragging the hand on the floor at the front and back. Those exercises could really loosen up some muscles in the shoulders and back.

Finally, we’d finish up the class by repeating the starting exercise, noting how we’re feeling in the moment compared to at the beginning of the class. More often than not, I’d feel a definite improvement, if not in my mood, then in how my body felt overall. Sometimes, I’d note a tension in new muscles, sometimes I’d have more or less of a headache. More often than not, I’d feel much more relaxed and at ease compared to the beginning of the class.

It’s a bit of a challenge to actually keep up with the exercises, but I’m happy to say that I feel much more connected to my body these days and haven’t had any episodes of being unable to recognize it as my own. It doesn’t do much for the face in the mirror, but I don’t spend much time staring into mirrors anyways.

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.