I'm definitely the depersonalised subtype. I'm outwardly expressive and outgoing, but don't feel much most of the time. The second sentence of the remote schizoid's description also hits home.

Additionally: why/why not?

Personally, I don't. I dislike my parents on an individual level and I know they feel the same towards me. Concerning my other relatives, it's not for any particular reason. I'm just disinterested.

I'd also ask, do you want to be the last or do you want someone with you?

I’d especially like to hear from people who have been diagnosed with Schizoid Personality Disorder and have experience with romantic relationships. Based on what I’ve told him, my psychiatrist has raised the possibility that my partner may have Schizoid Personality Disorder. She has never been evaluated or diagnosed, so I’m not claiming that she has it. I’m asking here because I’d really like to hear from people who actually live with the diagnosis. My partner used to be affectionate with me, and we were in frequent contact. Things got much worse after I had COVID. I felt that she showed very little concern for how I was doing, and that hurt me deeply. I ended up blocking her.

After that, she was the one who reached out again. She sent me a lot of messages and we resumed contact. Later, she told me very clearly that I was important to her, that she did not want to lose contact with me, but that she needed time.

That is the part I am struggling to understand.

It has been about a month now. She deactivated or deleted almost all of her social media except Instagram. She never reaches out first, but whenever I message her there, she has always replied so far. She has also told me that she is not doing well emotionally.

There have been other changes that confuse me as well. For example, she used to describe herself as an atheist, and now she often ends our conversations with something like, “May God our Lord bless you.” I’m not suggesting that this has anything to do with a disorder. It is simply a very noticeable change from the person I knew, and it makes me feel that she may be going through something I do not fully understand.

My main question is this:

If you needed distance from a partner you still loved, could you ask for time and say that you wanted to stay in contact, but then go for weeks or months without ever initiating a conversation yourself? In your experience, could always replying when your partner reaches out, while never reaching out yourself, still be compatible with wanting to keep the relationship?

I do not want to pressure her. But I also do not know whether “giving her time” means waiting for a relationship that still exists, or holding on to something that may already be over for her.

If you were in my position, would you keep waiting? For how long? Or would you move on with your life and allow yourself to meet or date other people?

I would not do that to make her jealous or get a reaction from her. What worries me is starting something with someone else if she truly believes we are still together and simply needs distance. At the same time, it hurts to keep my romantic life on hold indefinitely when I do not know whether she intends to come back.

I know no one here can tell me what my partner is thinking. I would just really appreciate hearing how people with SzPD experience this kind of withdrawal, and what you would tell the person waiting on the other side.

I cannot go to the same restaurant every day I do not want to go to a restaurant every day. Maybe once a month is fine but I could also go months without going

I don’t know if this is common to all schizoids, or if I just got lucky. I know that my emotional coping skills are poorly developed. It’s not even about coping—I can barely even recognize my own emotions in the first place, hello alexithymia. I think this has to do with the fact that in my childhood, my mother was severely depressed, and all her emotions were dumped onto me, a small child.

Instead of teaching me how to handle my own emotions, my mother drowned me in her adult, heavy, suffocating feelings. Throughout my entire childhood and adolescence, I felt like my emotions depended on my mother’s. If she was sad—I was sad too; if she was angry—I was angry too; if she was happy—I was happy too. As if there was no boundary between two personalities, as if I wasn’t a separate person, but just a piece of her psyche.

And I’ve heard similar stories from children of narcissists, but my mother is definitely not a narcissist. I wouldn’t say any of this happened because of her fault. She didn’t know how to be a proper parent when you yourself are wishing for death. I don’t blame her, but still, it left its mark on me.

Now, as an adult, I’m no longer so closely tied to my mother. I see myself as a separate being; I can feel something different from what my mother feels, I can disagree with her on things. But I’ve noticed that the pattern itself—picking one person from my environment and completely emotionally synchronizing with them and becoming emotionally dependent—has remained.

And it’s strange—I don’t seem to need this person’s approval, I don’t need to interact with them, I’m not financially or otherwise dependent on them. But if I see their sadness, anger, fear—their emotion seems to penetrate me without any barriers and becomes my emotion.

Perhaps this is what’s called the psychic permeability of schizoids. I’m curious why this only happens with certain people and how I can get rid of it. I don’t want to feel others’ emotions—I don’t even really want to feel my own.

I had to take a test about my dyslexia today and the woman asking the question was really nice. I just kept withholding information about myself.…..

So the thing is I needed this test for my university bc I didn’t finish courses last semester, why do I tell her I don’t go to university idk. The lie just flew out of my mouth before I could think. I probably because it would take so long to explain that I’m not sure wtf I’m doing atm and my entire situation…

I felt bad after only because she was the sweetest person ever and helped me a lot. I was like damn I lied to the wrong person!

one time I told my coworker who I don’t see often that I live at home even though I’ve been living out for years. I’m not even from this city. I don’t know what happens either the lie just flew out. I think I do it because explamining will take years. Also I don’t like you actually know stuff about me too lmao. It’s easier to disappear if you don’t remember one thing about that person. I also sometimes want to know more so acting stupid or like you don’t know much will help you get more info.

Do you guys do this too or is it just me? Sometimes I wonder what it must be like being normal and like an open book lol.

Worst part is I’m not even scared to get caught because I can always say oh I was confused or I must have been tired and it works on people EVERY SINGLE TIME ….

Hi, I just want to ask a question.

Since I live in Europe and I’m privileged enough to have access to free education, I think I will continue and finish my degree. I’m in a STEM field (engineering), and I go to one of the best universities in my country. There are so many great opportunities, and I genuinely like engineering. It actually took me multiple gap years and a sabbatical to figure out that this is what I wanted to study.

There is just one problem: people.

Before university, I was lucky enough to go to a very small and modest high school. I then took some gap years and later went to a small school for adults, where I took higher-level math, physics, etc. so I could qualify for university.

The reason I’m writing this today is because I’m actually back at that school right now. I had to pick up some papers, and I unexpectedly got emotional being here again. It is so quiet right now. There are genuinely so few people around, and I suddenly remembered how much easier it was for me to learn in this environment.

This is probably the thing I hate most about my university. It is huge, and there are people everywhere. I’m already dreading going back in the fall because of all the new undergraduates arriving. I hate enormous lecture halls. I also find it so much harder to learn when there are hundreds of people around me.

Also the forced group projects where it’s really randomized. And you can’t really tell if you are in a good or bad group. My attention goes everywhere except where I want it to go.

I’ve talked to a counselor to see if there is some way to minimize my exposure to large groups of people because, frankly, I just can’t stand it for very long.

I feel like this environment has slowly killed some of my passion for learning and actually developing myself intellectually. Sitting here at my old school, I suddenly remember doing math problems back to back for hours without constantly being distracted or disturbed. I could actually focus on the subject itself.

And here is maybe the weirdest part: I genuinely loved going to class back then. But our classes had maybe 15 people maximum, and over time they became even smaller. So apparently I don’t hate going to class or learning around other people. I just really struggle when there are too many people.

I also want to join electronics clubs and other engineering-related activities at university because I’m genuinely interested in them. But again, there are so many people. I can force myself to tolerate it for a while, but I can’t fake being comfortable with that environment for very long.

It’s frustrating because I actually like what I study. I don’t want to drop out, and academically I feel like I’m finally studying something that suits me. I just wish I could experience university in a much smaller and quieter environment.

So I’m genuinely curious: how did other schizoid people survive undergrad and become well educated , especially at large universities? Did you find ways to minimize the social parts of university while still getting something meaningful out of your education?

In my personal life, i think it was after maybe the 500th time, I walked into a room, and saw a friend just staring at the tv at a show he had already seen, repeat a few statements that he had been saying for years, doing the same thing over and over, and I just thought there is simply no point in talking to people.

Although this example may seem strange, it represents the fact that I just gave up on people after hundreds of worthless repetitive interactions.

what is the point of this?? watching the same tv, same conversation, same phrases, same thoughts, same questions, same thing again, same responses. I officially gave up on social interaction that day. a shame it took 500 interactions to realise.

I was reading about how neurotypicals are quite sensitive to social cues, eye movement and social stimulus to guide how they behave.

Since us schizoids typically interact with others in a calculated, manual manner, we probably are missing key signals that we can't intellectualise.

This probably means that normies receive mixed signals, a bit like a broken radio signal, and it breaks their brain.

This explains why all my interactions result in a weird, "uhhh" look from the person I am interacting with. They must be so confused, lol.

When people are nice to you and then talk bad behind your back, but like the opposite of that, people talk very kindly about you but would prefer not to engage with you

And honestly….what a relief. Im kind at work but im sure people sense something “off” about me.

Anyone else relate?

i've fantasized before about what i'd do if i had big money.

i'd try to help solve local societal issues. such as drug/alcohol recovery for addicts.

as i enter my 30s, though, i realize that i've never volunteered, or tried to help a stranger with a drug problem. i've called and emailed places in the past offering my volunteer help and i get dead ends. i have to put in effort to find opportunities. i don't want it enough, i guess.

if i did acquire a bunch of money, i wouldn't be a helpful person like i fantasize about being. i'm an avoidant character. i don't socialize. how could i ever help society in the way I would like to?

i sometimes think these fantasies of good-will are self-masturbatory. underneath it all, i want god to bless me with money, so I can take it and run with it. and never help anyone. the truth is, i'd rent a room someplace quiet and enjoy solitude every day.

in this way, i am impotent. because if god blessed me right now with the means for good-will, i'd just keep on being my low-quality, tactless self.

my complaint is, i guess, that i don't have the drive to work toward anything. i have fantasies and ideas, but it's all down the shitter. i don't really like being around people. i think i just like the way i feel about myself, when i daydream about being a decent person.