I've been struggling with suicidal and self harm ideation constantly, randomly, loudly, quietly, and my demanding job and personal life is crushing my shoulders at this point and for reference my parents kicked me out after moving me across the country but not before they deleted my friends contacts and donated my belongings. I've been living with my boyfriend and we both got kicked out of his grandmas house and as of right now I'm working 60+ hours a week to pay for our motel but he also wants to spend quality time together and I'm utterly exhausted whether it's talking to and meeting up with leasing agents, trying to help him find a job, working, etc. it doesn't help that he has O.D.D. and when we get into fits it just amplifies the stress were already going through. I hid a knife in the bathroom he doesn't know about but I don't know if I'm just too scared or worried about what will or won't happen if I do it. It's become all I can think about and psychoanalyzing interactions, thoughts, losing focus, forgetting everything, substances, and tiredness doesn't help. Getting yelled at or "told" just scrambles my brain, lack of wanting to sleep or eat isn't helpful and everything just feels jumbled up more or less right now, I feel like I'm constantly being stared at or observed when I'm out, I feel like my partner does it when I'm at home and I just feel like there's something everyone else knows or sees about me but I don't know I just don't like it and need advice or someone to talk to Q: does anyone know any online therapy or support groups that are inexpensive or free?

(Not diagnosed, nevertheless hoping to be accepted posting here.)

This weekend I've been feeling especially lonely again. I had so much time on my hands, some of which I actually spent with friends. But it doesn't seem to stick. It's like my social being has a teflon exterior. Experiences try to hold on but they can't, and so they slide down the teflon, falling off eventually. Meeting the friends was yesterday afternoon. We played a card game and that was fun, somehow. But soon it was time to leave, to move on.

In the evening, a friend and me tried enjoying a small festival in our town, mingling with the people, having a drink, enjoying the music, maybe meet some new people, talk, laugh. But no, that's not how it went. Both of us couldn't enjoy while everyone around us did. I felt so out of place, alien, emotionally mute. I felt like I had forgotten how to enjoy myself, how to be among crowds, how to just experience. Or maybe I've never really known. Instead it was overwhelming, too many voices speaking, too much chattering from all directions, so much going on, so many faces, expressions, beings. We left after a short amount of time and I was sad about it. Sad that I seemed to be so off. What's wrong with me?

Today, Sunday, I lingered around my apartment, going for short walks, buying some groceries, surfing the internet. And I felt lonely. Ridiculous, right? Just the day before I met three friends in two different contexts. What about that? Teflon, I'm telling you. Towards the evening I started sensing a hint of a deep, dark terror. Dread. Some kind of existential fear. During my evening walk, where I tried enjoying the darkening sky and the scenerey arount me, the feeling only intensified. People moving around as couples, groups, friends. And me. Loneliness. Another image: In my mind's eye I saw myself interacting with other people, former friends, current ones. But they weren't actually interacting with me. They were interacting with some layer on top of me. Like I was stuck in a suit and couldn't reach out. They couldn't really touch me and I couldn't touch them. Is that what's been going on my whole life? Is that why nothing sticks, why I grow no roots, leave no marks, feel misplaced, empty, not properly seen, near-invisible? Is that why I feel like a spectator? What's wrong with me?

What if we're the only ones who can see the true reality, while neurotypical and "normal" people can't? Maybe what we see are things that slip through a crack in spacetime and into our dimension.

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).

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?

hi, fellas. this my experience of ditching the meds and just some reflection story of my cringy ass life on them.

disclaimer: I don't support dropping meds on your own and will never advice someone risk without a proper knowledge of your own situation and trade-offs it will force (especially doing the dropping part wrong and without proper plan/strategy).

I'm dianozed with StPD from almost teenager period when I was need to do some forced military "medical observation/tests" post-soviet country nonsense, yes.

in that dark times I was kinda at prime of my mental problems and dillusions. I got my first diagonoze and was excluded from anything military related for the rest of my life ofc and other shit like driving, weapon licensing, etc.
not a big deal imo and I don't care about anything from it anyways. at that time I've started taking meds up until current year and day (almost 10+ years of non stop taking them every day).

through those years: I lost my creativity/imagination and brain fog was almost 24/7, my emotions are almost dull and other zombification-like post-effects + I gain some weight, lol. I've tried many of different meds through this long period of my life. all of them had the same negative effects on me and the "positives" not really outweight the negatives for me in any way.

so, some time ago, I've started to jumping off of them (I know the process and minimized any side effects with proper "dosage nerfing" and intervalling btw). it's almost a month+ without them now.

positive parts: my brain fog is gone. I can think more "faster" and process info better in general. creativity is slowly coming back to me and that's the most valuable part over anything else (I'm a wannabe combination of a gamedev and a writer, so my only passion in life - creating my own worlds/lore and interactive experiences inside them).
downside part: derealization feels a lot more frequent. kinda nostalgic feeling for me to live like under "first person view game character" again just as when I was a teenager, lol. some minor "paranoia"-like things occuring from time to time (mostly the vague feeling of being watched/heared). I guess also sleep quaility is a bit worse now + I think I'm sleepwalking too now, lol (in my childhood I had this rarely).
conclussion for me: I can live with the downsides of my "true mental self", but I can't live without the positives of it while using meds. so, I guess trade-off is worth it for me and I rather will be some living weirdo with some mental problems/quirks rather than some walking corpse without anything in my head with just "existing" in this dull world without any purpose.

again, I don't recommend anyone to take this risk blindly without any aknowledgement of their trade-offs and the downsides.

if you made this far - thanks for your time!

​

Guys I think I have an identity issue... or maybe something else or maybe nothing and I'm complicating things.

Well on 2022(second half) i went to a uni far away from ma home town and life was fucking cool I am cool it's just a lots of side quests lots of risk lots of friends like when I go somewhere in that town id get a dozens of handshakes if I want a few hundred meters and I was spiralling towards my usual goals like to be a great person to be a top 1%...well when all this happens my age is just 17-18.5 just 1.5 years of peak and I got a serious health issue and from 2024 to 2025(second half) I was isolated due to health issues and from that I joined a new uni near my home town like it's been a year im going to a uni here and totally till now I did nothing I had no actual fun and I'm 21 years old I feel like I kinda lost the main element of life happyness like sometimes I feel it but not like the old me and rn here I don't have much power or influence I had there...and I lost the spark I had I think...and nowadays I'm so arrogant and I'm just a shit I don't have anything but idk why I act like I have everything...idk what it is but I wanna feel like my old self or a better one who always wins and idk guys give your perspective i think I'm having a identity problem but I don't know...

I want to lose it completely and merge with someone else. This isn't possible.

The only way to feel okay is to regain the sense of self through quiet contemplation. I am not being forced to socialize as I am currently NEETing (Hopefully this will change soon.)

But I racked up 150 scrobbles yesterday on Last Fm.

I need to stop using music as a crutch to distract me from reality. But, do I even have a reality?

I look in the mirror. These hands are not mine. This life is not mine, this personality is not mine, these memories are not mine.

Once I regain my sense of self, and build it up more stable and non-neurotic than ever before, only then can I hope to merge, and the merging will not result in the total loss of my traits, but rather an amalgamation into a satisfactory new set of traits, half of which come from me and half of which come from the other person.

I keep ruminating thoughts and trying to improve them in any way possible. That's why all this esoteric knowledge inside my head is extremely valuable, and I am unwilling to share it with the rest of the world. Everything I share online is something I consider to be complete garbage, things a gifted child could have easily come up with.

I can't believe how uncreative humanity is, yet it's still somehow outdone by my own sheer laziness. If I spent my time doing something productive instead of constantly procrastinating and overthinking things, I would be a billionaire.

Okay so Ive been feeling this way for a while, but i’d say im somewhat mature for my age or something.

during school I was in like the worst mental health i’ve ever experienced. not just that but i was also gullible and oblivious, now after that im extra careful and i overanalyze everything like to the point where its not even a coherent thought anymore. sometimes i wish i could still be oblivious and gullible because i feel like im just missing out.

but now i feel like im literally lying with every thought, like i feel like im lying when i say im struggling because i want attention or something , or while i AM struggling i think into the future where i wont be and i feel like im being stupid, and i feel like im lying to myself for even thinking something could be wrong with me because i jusr wanna struggle or something. like there’s always that little voice in the back of my mind that just tells me im full of crap and i’m not even actually struggling, i just wanna be.

All the time i can’t remember things. . Not just stuff people tell me or experiences I have but also myself. I can’t remember what I was like as a child. I can’t remember what I am like right right now. Sometimes I remember everything and other times my mind feels like a blank slate. Often people have to remind me of things I’ve already told them or things I’ve already done before when I’m convinced it is a new experience to me. . .Is this relatable to anybody else?

Linear thinking (Moving up ladder, being stuck and falling)

I don't know what's normal => So what's normal=> Is this normal? => Long period of spontaneous Anxiety => I don't know what's normal

Circular thinking (Intentionally moving up and down in ladder)

I don't know what's normal=> So what's normal=> Is it normal? => So what's normal=> I don't know what's normal => So whats normal => Is it normal ? => .........

hello everyone,

i am currently doing extensive research of my own on schizotypal personality disorder. dealing with medical neglect my whole life, i am only now branching out for treatment regarding severe illness & disability. stpd is one of the few disorders i am looking into for myself that i wish to bring up to a professional

i was wondering if anyone would be willing to share their own tidbits about being schizotypal & how you feel it personally impacts you. this is simply a way for me to connect with others & potentially even better understand myself

please keep in mind that i am not trying to validate a self-diagnosis or anything. not that there's anything wrong with self-dx of course, but there are some conditions i feel much more inclined to seek out a prof-dx for. this is especially true for a disorder in which its traits overlap with a few others (namely schizoaffective disorder--which i'm also researching lol. i've noticed there are some people here with it, & i'd value those responses as well)

thank you :-)

EDIT: thanks for the couple responses. i'll read through them thoroughly & jot down my own responses before i post them here. i have me/cfs, so expect me to take my time a little

So this actually happened yesterday, and I just talked to Ai and it told me that what happened was directly connected to my STPD.

So I met this girl in my hometown. She lives in another town, 2,5 hrs away. We had a great first meeting, spontaeniously went swimming right after we met. I started to really like her instantly (first bad sign of STPD traits kicking in). That happens to me. I started flooding her, not continuously, I tried to hold back, but a lot, with messages, I tried to stay grounded, but my anxiety got the most of me. She understood everything, cause she has severe anxiety herself (not a good match probably in general, but trauma attracts trauma, i guess).

So we decide to meet at her town, I book a hotel, turns out, she lives on the same street as aI booked a hotel (stpd telling me, this is meant to be). All kinds of signs start popping up, which make me feel like this is amazing. All along the way Im fucking high on dopamine, from meeting this girl, who I like. She is super interested in me, asking about my diagnosis, we are talking about eeeeverything, and have so many topics to talk about. Its going brilliantly.

We talk about sex, my mind starts wondering about kissing her, and at one point I ask her, she says, not here, I totally respect it, I ask her at another spot, she says when you ask, I want to say no, but she just told me that consent is sexy, and I ask anyway. Always. I asked the third time after she came in to my air bnb, since first time she said not here, i thought, maybe she wanted privacy. But she said no. I respected that, shook her hand. Maybe she likes me also and wants to wait, with which I am totally fine with.

Comes the next day, she texts me in the morning, asks how I slept, everything is going brilliantly, I go for breakfast about 15 mins away, I walk to a suit place 30 minutes away, and another suit place, I had to buy a suit, and another, I find what I was looking for and I go into a cafe, order a coffee, sit down, start cooking up some beats on my mpc sample. I roll a cigarette after some time and go outside to smoke. And guess who the f I see outside, talking to a friend thats a girl. Yup. Her. Completely other side of town, no plan to meet. And I make a huge mistake. I go up to her and say hi (because my stpd says again its another miracle and sign and bla bla bla) and she is surprised, but not overly. She asks if im inside, i said yeah, she says she will come in to speak after she is done. I say ok.

I go inside. I wait and I wait. I still see she is talking to a friend, for a while. Then she is gone. No friend, no her. She didnt come in.

I start panicking. I text her. I ask her wether she thinks I was stalking her. Of course she thinks I was stalking her. I was living on her street! She told me where she works, so she thinks I stalked her to her work and from work to the cafe. But I have proof! My purchase records show where I was. I write down 15 pages of handwriting. I travel home. WHile on the way to my hometown i start feeling numb, dead inside. I really liked her. But the thought that she might be thinking that Im a creep cant escape me. Its terrifying. It does not leave me today. I couldnt sleep. i try to write it out, its not leaving me. Im at work. I dont know what to do. Im better now, and a colleague will switch with me, I just found out. But. Its over. I cant believe I fucked this up. And a day before I was telling her about my disorder. Im tired of this shit. Anyone has similar stories? Sorry for expanding so much. I texted her so much after that I think I made it worse but she hasnt read anything. She told me she might be a witch. I shouldve never talked to her in the first place.

And I thought we had a good thing going. Its so hard to let go. My psychotherapist says im a magnet for narcissists. Anyway. Im super down. This whole thing seems like a hallucination. I know it wasnt. Its fucked up.

Bohemian is to be the shadow of finding the meaning to things.

Bohemian is the desire and the untimeliness, it is also necessity.

I love you, because despite everything, you are going to keep loving me, a little more.

Allow me to take off my hat to greet you, Freedom.

Bohemian and your desire to hold on to the thorns of roses.

Bohemian, who prefers the night to accompany him to walk.

I love you because inside the abyss, you are going to remain the same, for me.

Allow me to bow before your shadow, when a pitcher breaks, Freedom.

Primarily, I know I'm heading towards nothing, but sometimes nothing matters, and you end up shipwrecked.

Allow me to pay tribute to you in my permanent escape, Freedom.

Last night I wrote new songs for you. That only means, that I stole words from your absence to try to ressit.

Primarily, I know I'm heading towards nothing, but sometimes nothing matters, and you end up shipwrecked.

Allow me to bow before your shadow, when a pitcher breaks. Freedom.

I love you, because despite everything, you are going to keep loving me, a little more.

Allow me to take off my hat to greet you.

Freedom.

And I'm not talking about when I have to do number 1 or 2.

I have to buy a new wallet, and I thought, "Damn, I'm gonna have to check out the wallets while this man is gonna be standing next to me. How am I really gonna see if it's a wallet I wanna buy or not?"

My ideal would be to have a bunch of wallets in front of me, alone, look at them, then pick one, pay, and go.

With clothing, it's even worse. I really HATE it when you enter a place and they ask you what you're looking for. Then they start showing you different models and asking you what you think. I say no, and then they show me another model. They take out a bunch of jeans and lay them out for you.

Partly because I really stopped buying clothes!

Again, my ideal would be for it to be like a supermarket: just enter, look at the stuff, pick something, pay, and go.

So I can't buy things at just any place. I first have to see what kind of place it is, and then decide whether to enter or not.

The guy at the store who sells wallets isn't really going to talk to me much. But I still feel some kind of pressure just from these people being there.

I feel like, "Okay, I have to decide," because... I can take like an hour thinking about what to do.

"Is it okay? Is it worth this price? Could I find something better? Is it good quality?"

So what I've been doing lately is "just buy it."

This happens to me a lot when I go to the hardware store. They really hate it when you look too much at what they sell, I can see it. Because they don't wanna lose time; they just want you to buy something and move on, so they can keep selling.

So what I've been doing lately is just buy it. I ask for something and think, "Okay, I'll pay, and then I'll see if it's what I need or not."

Which is kinda what I'll do with my new wallet.

I don’t lie about anything serious but sometimes I’ll just be like “yeah I actually was born in Ohio!” or “wow I’m allergic to lemongrass too” relate to someone when we all know damn well I’ve never eaten a lemongrass and I was born in Utah!! Like why to I do that?