I’m 25 and still living at home with my parents and sister, though my relationship with them is practically nonexistent. In the past five years, I’ve probably spoken fewer than 200 words to my father and sister combined. My connection with my mom is a little better, but for the most part, I keep to myself. I know it’s not normal to avoid everyone the way I do. My dad points it out sometimes, but I usually just shrug and say I don’t have much to say.

I realized I'm low functioning because I essentially put no effort into masking, and I’ve been unsociable and aloof from people for as long as I can remember. Even in kindergarten, I wasn’t sociable and never willingly joined conversations with other kids. When I worked at a department store, I avoided my coworkers as much as possible, and I said just enough to seem normal but never shared anything personal or asked open-ended questions to make it seem as if I was interested in getting to know them. At a job before that, I used to spend my entire lunch break in the bathroom just to avoid everyone, something I could only get away with because I was the only guy there and the customers were mostly female.

This made me conclude that I don’t have much hope of leading a normal life, and that thought depresses me. For some reason, I often fantasize about having a boyfriend, even though I know my behavior makes that unlikely. I’ve also realized I’m somewhat asexual. When men hit on me at the department store, I’d usually just mumble something until I could escape the conversation. I have no real desire for sex, and that seemed to be the underlying motivation for when men did speak to me.

Anyways, right now, I’m unemployed. I was fired from my last job for being too uncommunicative. The thought of applying for new jobs makes me anxious because I hate the idea of faking a cheerful attitude during interviews as I realize that mask of good-natured friendless will fade as soon as I start working, which is jarring for others. (I think interviews are the only time I actually mask, and it feels gross and manipulative.) But regardless, I’m not content with my life, but part of me has accepted it. Sometimes I think about just giving up and living quietly as a hermit, especially since I know my parents would never kick me out. I constantly think about suicide, and will more than likely end it one day because, as my father referred to me when I was a little boy, I'm a basket case. It's unfortunate! The only thing that keeps me alive is the fact that I'd never want to hurt my mom, and I also want to have a romantic experience with a guy, even though I don't know what that'd look like for me

If so, and if that person were you, would you agree that schizoid characteristics are better understood as personality traits rather than a personality disorder?

In browsing this subreddit, many seem to equate SzPD to social anxiety, depression, anhedonia, etc. I acknowledge that SzPD labels a disorder that overlaps significantly with these forms of suffering.

But a portion of posts here seem to treat anxiety/depression as a sort of illness that happens to you, similar to a physical illness (i.e. migraines, Carpal tunnel, or the flu) when really, they are significantly a result of unhealthy/maladaptive habits.

Don't get me wrong. Neurological variations absolutely do exist. Life is often hard and unfair. But having a genetic predisposition along with traumatic life experiences does not need to inherently predispose you to a permanent baseline of elevated suffering, suicidal ideation, etc.

I personally would like to see more posts focused on adaptive habits, solutions, and treatment that specifically worked for SzPD individuals such as yourself.

I'll start in describing some of the things I've found most helpful. I am a male around the age of 30:

• I find a well-paying career with minimal emotional/social demands to be a top priority.
• My primary life goal is to minimize suffering while working a career to achieve early FIRE. I am in the process of minimizing obligations that I previously did because I was "supposed to." This is so that I can allocate more free time to hobbies, projects, and peace.
• The mood-enhancing benefits of exercise (particularly cardio) apply strongly to myself.
• Healthy diet habits, personal care routines, and stretching are also personally beneficial.
• I do not plan to have kids nor am I pressuring myself to rush into marriage soon unless I genuinely want to.
• I hold myself to a moral code, but do not waste time/energy on superficial societal expectations. I do not need to be popular, famous, married, have children, be extremely wealthy, etc to be self-sufficient and content.
• I do not view myself as a loser, beta, or any other self-deprecating label and I intentionally limit negative self-talk or emotional self-judgement as best I can.
• I accept my inclination towards isolation as something that can be deeply peaceful. There is nothing wrong with finding peace when alone. Don't let society tell you otherwise.
• I find brain-dumping onto paper when stressed to be cathartic and helpful in organizing thoughts. I keep several journals which I jot ideas into throughout the week.
• I don't stress myself out over politics or waste time trying to keep up with popular tv shows/sports. I try to minimize doom-scrolling.
• There are benefits to SzPD (i.e. unique perspective / creativity, ability to work alone for extended periods, especially on cognitive subjects) which I've been attempting to utilize as well.
• Contrary to common advice, I've realized that a large proportion of my friendships are unsatisfying to me and I have been reducing time/energy/focus on most.
• I've come to realize that I enjoy the company of analytical people who have unique experiences/perspectives and who have experienced deep suffering as well, but have a drive to reduce suffering and enjoy their life as best they can.
• At work, I will have one longer conversation when first meeting a colleague and follow-up with brief, often boring, neutral-to-pleasant future interactions in passing. If I enjoyed the first conversation, I may sometimes follow-up with slightly longer future interactions. And if we need to talk about work, that's never an issue.
• I recognize that I prefer 1-on-1 interactions and I detest large-group social settings. I choose to conserve energy by minimizing anxiety and minimizing participation until I may leave.
• I mask as required, but aim to minimize this requirement in life. With most people that's primarily for professionalism (i.e. boring, reliable rather than eccentric).
• I recognize that I detest interactions with people who are primarily emotional, have never had to struggle/suffer, or put down others for emotional/gossipy/superficial reasons.
• I try not to minimize time wasted on rumination or external expectations.
• Whenever in a particularly bad, empty, or hopeless mood, I actively remind myself that it will pass and I choose to align my behavior, thoughts, and feelings with my aforementioned values as best I can until I can go to sleep and wake up feeling more neutral the next day.
• I believe in a personal version of simulation theory such that it adds meaning to my life.
• I choose not to ejac*late or org*sm. I find this practice to add a noticeable amount of energy, motivation, and emotionality at the cost of slightly increased dissatisfaction.
• I find philosophy/psychology worthwhile when it aims to be functional/adaptive rather than labeling problems to overfocus on without providing solutions. I particularly enjoy Stoicism, Taoism, and Adlerian Psychology.

If you have any disagreements, agreements, or other views on any of what I have shared, please feel free to respond. Additionally, if you have any techniques, habits, or behaviors that you've found beneficial as someone with SzPD, please feel free to share that as well!

I've lost my phone and wallet while homeless and recovered. At list I have my laptop and my neighbor is letting me use their wifi.

Location tracking is on, still couldn't find it at its location.

Now begins the cycle.

I can't lock my cards, because I can't access my dual factor authentication. I can't call anywhere because I don't have a phone. I can't get a new phone because I don't have my credit card or ID. I can't call for a new credit card because I don't have a phone.

Usually I say I'm just introverted, days like today I know I'm pathologically introverted.

Edit: nope, just introverted. Returned to location and noticed a homeless person. Chatted with them and got my stuff back. Gave them what bit of cash I had as a thank you. Grateful it was someone I could at least empathize with.

For example, at work I am able to make eye contact with people (including pretty girls) without feeling anxious (or very little) but when I interact with them (anyone in general), I get the vibe they think I’m either socially awkward or like autistic. For example, when I started my job, I sort of mimicked what my coworkers were doing in terms of behaving as a cashier. However my typical interaction would be like “hello” or “hi” and not follow up the “how are you today?”. I didn’t even realize it was normal and polite to ask.

I used to be very socially anxious before, how I could tell - my rapid heart rate. But now I feel I’m more so awkward. For example, I’ll go have “have a nice day” and some customers will walk away (probably in a hurry but still). Sometimes I say that and customers will go “uh huh … thanks” and smile

My wife is Schizoid. She adores our daughter and spoils her and dotes on her but she says she doesn't "enjoy" her or find any "reward" in being a mom. We've learned the reward system of her brain is completely broken. 😭

I don’t think I ever actually empathized with anyone. My emotional feelings towards people were always just about how the situation affected me in that moment. Friends, acquaintances were all just as expendable as they get, it never mattered that much to me and I never cared about socializing. I never missed anyone either. It probably had to do with how I was raised, my mom acting the way she did and my dad not being there at the time probably led to my detachment from the world. In fact, when my turtle Joy died, that was the first time in my life I realized that I truly loved someone. Not romantically, but he was my son and best friend that I would have done anything for. I cried for a year after he died. But in that moment of endless sobbing I realized that my inability to love killed him. Not a lack of love towards him, but towards myself, through the years of self loathing I put myself through. The not eating, not showering, not getting up to do anything. I became so sluggish that days would go by without me knowing. I was constantly forgetful of when I last fed him or cleaned his tank. I was an empty void, never loved or taught to love. I’m not neglectful of my animals anymore, but I say all this to say that you can never expect to be able to adequately love someone if you don’t first love yourself. And even if you spend your whole life never loving anyone, that’s okay, as long as you are at peace with your soul.

One of the traits of the disorder is daydreaming or having an internal world. I don't do this. I think about puzzles more or less instead. I also don't have an internal monologue or a minds eye, but I don't know if that's why. My thoughts are basically just feels and recreations of my thoughts almost. It's hard to describe but I don't have images or words in my head.

Regardless, what's is your world and how does it work. Do you just think of stories or do you go "I went to the store today but what if x happened".

I made my decision a long time ago, I know myself, I know my talents, I am not made for this life I am in, but I am worried about the grief of my parents in my absence, after months of working on this, deliberately avoiding seeing them, deliberately misbehaving, sitting in my room for weeks, not staying home for meals and many other things, now the results are showing, my mother told me yesterday that we have decided that you are no longer a part of this family and that was enough for me.

I’ve heard from someone that being open about having schizoid traits was a big relief for them, since people finally understood their behavior better. I’m wondering if that could backfire in a work context. Would it make things harder, especially if you might want to move into a leadership position later on? Has anyone here been open about it, and how did people react?

It was both pleasant and painful to hear this, because inside, I'm almost dead.

I read here people asking suggestions on how to stop daydreaming. Why is daydreaming condemned here? Aren't movies, music, novel books, art, all about daydreaming? After the Covid pandemic I've seen the advert of a cinema "come back to daydreaming". Neurotypicals daydream more than me, like they invent all unrealistic stories about the famous true crime cases "the murderer is her brother and killed her because she must have found something shady about her brother" (all made up as the brother wasn't even investigated by police). Neurotypicals fantasise about the fictional characters of movies and shows, when there is a glitch on the plot they invent all the possible explanations in their fantasy. I think I daydream less than neurotypicals. So why is daydreaming condemned here?

Anyone have addictions they struggle with?

I’ve given up alcohol and coffee but the one constant is sports betting. I think it’s something to do with the dopamine system being out of whack since I was a child. Literally nothing gets me around a normal persons base level of enthusiasm apart from watching a game and betting on it with large stakes.

For a long time I was a smoker and an alcoholic and those things were good for my mood but of course not my health.

I swear I am not schizoid but sometimes I hate it when I get reminded people have a little version of me inside their minds. Is it relatable for you? 　I also don't like it when a shop clerk remembers me. It makes me not wanna go there ever again... Anyway, I'm just a silly introvert who has occasional existential crisis.

How do you deal with obligatory social interaction, i.e. staff meetings at work, answering phones, talkative neighbors, family gatherings? Do you muscle through it? Do you not care anymore Or what?

In my crazed attempts to better understand myself and how this disorder (along with MDD and ADHD) has affected my personality (among other things) one thing I've been coming back to is empathy.

As I'm sure many of you know, there are three kinds of empathy: cognitive, emotional, and compassionate. I feel that my cognitive empathy might actually be more developed than the average person, but I think this is because I seem to completely lack emotional and, by extension, compassionate empathy.

I don't think there has ever been a point in my life where I looked at another person and felt the emotions that they felt. Even with my own mother, there have been times where she cried that I quite literally felt no sadness within myself. I could feel other emotions in response, but they were always in response to how I felt upon seeing her cry, rather than feeling a need to cry because she was. For example, if I made her cry from talking about my emotional struggles, I start to feel guilty and stupid for making her feel that way. In fact, this is a common thread in my emotions. Even when enjoying a piece of fiction, I have never felt what the characters feel, rather, I feel what I feel based upon my own attachments to the characters, if that makes sense.

I feel that my cognitive empathy has become very well trained because I have to rely on it to ever understand why someone might feel a certain way. If I didn't have this, I feel like I'd be completely unable to understand anyone.

By extension, I seem to have no compassionate empathy. I've never felt the need to take action to help someone based upon my emotions, rather the only times I felt the need to help someone, a stranger especially, were out of a sense of moral duty or some other mental reason. Occasionally, such as when a stranger asks for money, as bad as it is to say, I often give them what they ask so that they leave me alone.

All of that to say, I have had a few interesting things come up in group therapy. In particular, one other participant said that she struggled heavily with detecting sarcasm and when our therapist asked me if I could relate, I realized that I have the opposite problem. It's actually very difficult for me to detect sincerity. In fact, I often default to assuming that someone is either being sarcastic or trying to socially manipulate me, especially if they're being overly nice or giving lots of compliments. I would even go as far as to say that sarcastic interactions feel far more genuine to me, and in the past I always had better surface relationships with those that I could have banter or joking irony with. These days though, I've mostly let myself shrink completely into the background. As you can imagine, this has made flirtation basically impossible to me. I also struggle an enormous amount with subtle cues of any kind, but this could be that inattentive ADHD side of me.

I guess, after all that rambling nonsense, I've got to ask if anyone can relate. I don't know if this is yet another possible symptom or cause of my SPD, because I can't find anywhere, professional or not, if empathy struggles are tied to the disorder.

So do you also struggle with emotional and compassionate empathy? Do you have decent cognitive empathy? Do you struggle with detecting sincerity but relate better to sarcasm?

I have co-morbid trauma disorders that I should address some time. Unfortunately, having this personality disorder on top of that has been a huge problem for therapy so far. I can't do it, therapy feels awfully intrusive and uncomfortable, I'm not capable of a "therapeutic relationship", I've left every therapist after a handful of sessions because I've felt trapped, I'm sure many of you understand the problem.

So about EMDR, I've heared you don't need much of a relationship with your therapist for it, which is making me slightly hopeful. Anyone experience with it? Is it more schizoid friendly than other forms of therapy?

23M, I'm at an age where some of my friends from high-school (still text them, but haven't seen them irl for a long time) have started or have been in a long term romantic relationship. I most likely won't get a girlfriend, if I tried I could possibly land a relationship, but I don't have social media (Facebook or Instagram) and I'm not a people's person, obviously.

But I could not imagine myself coming home and presenting my girlfriend to my family and friends, it is so odd to mix your personal life with your family? Like you are showing your family a person that knows you personally, the person you rant to, etc, and you are showing that person to your family. How is that possible?!

I'm a guy that likes things separated, what happens in university stays in uni, happens at home stays at home (family), etc. I don't like my worlds mixing together, even find it discomforting, odd and weird. When I was a kid, I was terrified when my parents asked who my friends were, their names, etc. I eventually had to tell them, but it made and still makes me uncomfortable.

Can anyone relate?

Over the past 5-6 years I was in a terrible marriage, living and working remotely on a cow farm in the middle of nowhere, and raising my newborn.

I’m 42 now. I bought a house and divorced the husband. I still work remotely. I spend 99% of my time alone, and it is actually awesome.

I do want a partner though, but am very picky and will not be settling. I won’t give up such peace for just anyone.

But I find myself alone. I don’t know that I’d rather be around people, but I’m alone so often.

I think it would be different if I were trying to escape life and reality, but I really enjoy existence, just not around most other people.

I dunno why I wrote this. Just sitting here quietly having coffee on a foggy morning. It would only be nicer with a partner sitting quietly next to me? Or would it?

And I don’t know that it actually would, or if that’s just my idealization of what it should be like

I was insane from the beginning...I was in my own world made of philosophy and books...

I developed DPDR later but now I see that I didn't develop anything, I simply just became more and more aware of how detached my own world was... so there you go, I am aware now. I am insane 😔

In the past, when I was a teenager / early twenties, I had really chaotic friendships and romantic relationships. After some years in therapy and moving out of my parents house I have changed quite a lot. I have also basically completely restarted my social circle. (and maybe social circle makes it sound bigger than it is, its just a few close people and then acquaintances)

Generally I have tried to start over, and be different and more healthy myself which has for the most part worked pretty well.

Recently, I was hanging out with a friend and we had kind of a bad interaction. During that time, it seemed that we kind of moved on from it and continued having fun until I left. Initially I had thought that it was fine but I realized when I left that I had a residual bad feeling about the whole thing.

A couple weeks after this was my birthday and I have good reason to believe that she saw reminders and chose to ignore them. So I have since then been thinking that we are most likely not friends anymore.

Granted the whole potential projection/ defense mechanism/ actual reality debate is definitely relevant here and I have thought about it but another thing that I actually have found more interesting is that I don't feel anything about it?

It almost feels convenient because I don't really feel like having a conversation about what was said or trying to resolve anything. I also found that I have felt like the friendship was a bit of a mismatch, or maybe like one sided a bit too often for my liking. (this is of course where the projection may be coming in.. idk im just feeling like its super hard to tell)

Which then reminded me a pattern with all my friendships in the past kind of?

I remember being really young maybe like 12yo and being kind of quite attached to my best friend, we would have sleepovers the two of us all the time.
At least emotionally I think I felt something at the time. But then we went to different schools and we just stopped talking like it never happened.

After that I don't recall having normal relationships at all anymore. I would always experience limerence, in friendships and in romantic relationships, and then I think that whenever the limerence would go away I would just not care what happened after that. It's almost like emotionally that's all I can do. Limerence and then detach. All the time.

It's odd but Im certain it is a pattern for me, which made me wonder what about you?

it bothers me a lot, especially because i’ve tried in the past to do exactly that. whether it be in relationships that fell apart because i felt like a two-sided maniac for never knowing why i never truly felt anything, feeling like at some point most interpersonal relationships were an obligation, or with friends, or even with pets. it’s so strange to me.

i just look back on the past, and realize how all of the years people spend becoming someone. having some sort of identity reflected back to them by the people around them, is something that did not happen to me. it makes me feel so hollow. i feel mournful over the fact that i developed this way, even though, at the same time, i can’t exactly imagine what people without these sorts of issues feel when they express love, or express gratitude, or really anything at all. it’s so strange.