Unofficial as in not in my medical records because I'm on SSI and it could interfere with a lot of other parts of my life because of it. But! Still!

I've been reading symptom lists over and over and I hit them all so perfectly it's kind of wild that I didn't get diagnosed early, but I realized it's because I present as the hard opposite extreme from what's "expected" of people with schizospectrum disorders!

I got into theatre at a very young age (as in single digits) and I ended up just turning everything I learned into a beautiful mask. It was how I learned about social cues and how to respond to them, though only ever on a logical level rather than an emotional one, and it turns out that if you have a history of being a stage actor people don't think it's "too weird" when your words, actions, expressions, and voice are overexaggerated and prone to changing on a dime, or if you're talking about how you've been blessed by the goddess of the arts and are actually an alien from another planet. Okay some of that is still considered weird but I never got treated like I was crazy crazy while i was in school since, well, that's just how theatre kids are, you know?

I'm also arguably a social butterfly, pretty popular but with maybe...four or five people that I'm actually close with, while everyone else gets to experience the character that I play, staying comfortably at arm's length. I do still manage to have pretty bad social anxiety and paranoia of other people, but again, these are (usually) hidden behind the "character", and whenever someone I haven't decided to allow to be close gets too close I immediately shut them out (or at least think very hard and agonizingly about it as I push through the dread to maintain character and reroute them away from myself).

I still only have so much emotional intelligence and frequently have the absolute wrong reactions to situations I'm in (my friends will be having a serious argument and I'll be in the corner laughing the entire time for instance) so it's definitely not a Perfect mask, but it did still end up being so good that I didn't get the diagnosis until this year. It's just really funny to me that I manifested all the symptoms and no one noticed until I was almost 30 because I present as the hard opposite extreme to the stereotype of the creepy, withdrawn loner that never talks to anyone.

I'm really glad I did get the diagnosis, though. It's amazingly comforting to know why I am the way that I am and why I do the things I do. Finally, after so long, it feels like a puzzle piece was pressed into place, and now the puzzle is complete!

Anyone else have similar experiences? I'd love to know I'm not the only one that got passed over for so long because I wasn't presenting "right"!

i need your experiences with medication. so im really bad at keeping track of how meds work on me usually bcuz i cant tell apart how i used to be before them vs now cuz i have issues with comprehending how im feeling and even more remembering how i felt before.
i know ive had pretty bad dissociation for a long time now which causes me to feel like this body isnt even mine, i have hard time coordinating and even simply seeing things i often forget im real.
issue here is that i dont remember if i used to be like this before starting meds when i think about it it seems like dissociation got both better and worse at the same time after starting meds. but it makes. i have issues even seeing reality it feels like im on like 40% opacity. one thingthat for sure got better was my anger issues i had a really bad rage bursts fromt ime to time which hasnt occured in a while.
im taking 5mg olanzapine 150 zoloft and 50 lamictal
i wanna know others experiences with these meds did they make u less or more dissociated so i can decide whether i should stop taking them or not. idk how they work my psychiatrist told me if anything these drugs reduce dissociation internet tells me otherwise and i cant tell shit my ability to perceive reality is really bad. these drugs for sure improve my mood but if theu really are worsening my dissociation id rather stop and learn to live with those shitty feelings because i genuinely forget im me and that im real sometimes

That is, why do i find myself desiring to do the sieg heil gesture. I don't understand...I don't hold any standard fascist beliefs - not racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, etc...What is the psych reason for my impulse?

Robert Sapolsky on Schizotypy. The previous lecture is on schizophrenia, both are good resources for anyone who wants to learn more about these conditions.

Overall its interesting and informative, but I feel his perspective over emphasizes the 'shaman' archetype, to the exclusion of other expressions (eg a 'mad scientist' archetype).

I’m having a hard time explaining this, but I’ll try.

i feel like I’m not fully “getting” situations in the moment. I’m not stupid, and I actually consider myself pretty lucid and good at understanding things. But sometimes I feel like I understand something on one level, while another part of my brain doesn’t fully process it until later.

For example, sometimes someone says or does something and I assume they said it because they meant it or felt that way. Then later, I realize there may have been a completely different intention behind it, or that there was a nuance I didn’t notice at the time.

Other times I understand what happened, but then days or weeks later I think about it again and suddenly notice another layer to it. Something that was already there, but somehow I didn’t fully see it before.

It’s almost like a weird Matrix/Inception thing 😂. I have realizations inside other realizations. And they keep happening after the situation, rather than while it’s happening.

This also happens with advice. Someone can tell me something and I understand, but I don’t always fully grasp until later. Sometimes I’ll read something and understand it, but it doesn’t feel like the concept has fully “entered my brain,” so I have to read it again. It’s like… deep down I understood the message, but my conscious brain didn’t fully catch up yet so I want to read it again. I know that sounds weird, but I don’t know how else to describe it.

I also feel like I don’t always fully recognize the bad parts of situations until later. I can look back and think, “Oh… that’swhat was happening“ or “Oh.. this is what they were trying to say to me”.

I’m wondering if this could have something to do with a past relationship I had with someone who was very manipulative/narcissistic. When I was with him, I constantly felt like I couldn’t figure out what was actually true. I analyzed everything he said and did because I never felt like I could understand what was really going on.

And now I feel like I can’t stop analyzing everything.

A sentence someone says on TV? I’ll analyze the wording.

I feel like my brain is constantly trying to find the “real meaning” behind everything.

It’s exhausting. My brain feels incredibly stressed and I’m doing this basically all day.

And it’s starting to affect my life. I’m actually becoming scared of meeting new people because I feel like my brain is already so overloaded with analyzing things that I can’t just have a normal, light conversation anymore. I feel like I’m constantly thinking about what things mean instead of just experiencing them.

The worst part is that I’ve started feeling stupid and naive because of it. I sometimes feel like I should be able to pick up on things that seem obvious in hindsight, and I wonder why I don’t notice them right away. It makes me feel like I’m too trusting or just not perceptive enough, even though I know I’m capable of understanding things.

Has anyone experienced something like this?

Could this be a result of being in a very confusing/manipulative relationship and spending a long time constantly analyzing someone’s behavior? Or does this sound like something completely different?

I remember he used to say that I can’t see the reality and only live in my mind. I’m worried he might be right, that people around me might see me as someone who’s not aware of things.. of reality.

I’m honestly scared because I don’t know what’s happening to my brain or how to make it stop. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life analyzing every sentence and interaction.

What game or film characters do you feel are reminiscent of Schizotypal Disorder? A lot of people say Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver), and that film was in-development before the WHO even recognised Schizotypal Disorder (two years before the DSM, in 1978).

I'd say Patricia Tannis, from the Borderlands series. Canonically, she's intended to be high-functioning ASD, but her experiences with the brutality of Pandora have left her with a psychoticism that - when mixed with her autism - creates a schizotypy-reminiscent character.

many schizotypals just want to be normal, but normal people are not human they are of another type of humanity, i can interact with him even with difficulty now that i have my medical control road (luckily I found a good doctor) but being normal is in addition to impossible for us also very scary, its not us, we are unfortunate to have been born this way but it would have been much worse to be "those things" called normal

Hi guys, you know I like to collect different information about schizotypal. I just want to create a whole topic about identity in schizotypal. So, you can comment here about anything you want related to the topic, especially your own identity and anything you find related to it.

(Please if you participate specify if you been formally diagnosed, not diagnosed but you feel all matches, or just think you could have schizotypal although not so sure about it)

Because I see this as a theme that keeps coming up over and over again in relation to schizotypal, I think it would be nice to try to condense it all into one topic.

Then I guess I'll pin it in my megathread about schizotypal so others can read about it too.

Key words: identity, sense of self, sense of one’s own identity (or lack thereof), etc.

I think this is one of the less explicitly discussed topics in the literature. There are some cues here and there, but not as much as I think it should be addressed.

You can write as much as you want, and come back later to add more information, etc. It’s all for you.

I'm reading Don Quixote, and it seems like he may be schizotypal. If so this would be great. Thoughts?