darkgreenonion

homicidal ideation is the term for having active thoughts about murdering others. these thoughts can be intrusive, however they can also often be voluntary.

misconceptions:

‘people who have these thoughts either have killed someone or will kill someone in the future’ - this is false. most people who have these thoughts usually have disordered behaviours (most commonly as a result of personality disorders) and struggle to find healthy ways to cope with their emotions, therefore provocation and stress can easily cause thoughts of inflicting harm onto others. this doesn’t inherently mean these people are dangerous, nor does it mean that they’re going to act upon these thoughts. most people who experience homicidal ideation never act on it and use it more as a way to process their distress/frustration internally.

‘having these thoughts about people in your life means you can’t possibly care for them’ - also false. caring for someone doesn’t make them an exception to mental illness and it doesn’t stop your mental illnesses from existing. to think that someone’s love for you is only valid as long as they’re not displaying traits of mental illness is unfair and is hugely misinformed. to love and be loved by someone who is mentally ill is to accept that they will display symptoms of their mental illness. you are not the exception and they do not love you any less by showing traits of being unwell.

‘so you endorse murder’ - no. that’s not at all what this means and if you seriously think this then your grasp of severe mental health issues is too limited to be commenting on such topics.

‘you’re evil’ - for being unwell? don’t be a cunt. if you seriously think that having a disordered manner of processing emotions internally makes someone ‘evil’ then that sounds more like an issue with you being too sensitive and having a lack of understanding, not an issue with the mentally ill person experiencing these thoughts. don’t make your inability to understand mental illness into someone else’s problem.

Shout-out to neurodivergent people who have felt stupid and inferior intellectually.

Shout-out to the neurodivergent people who were in support classes for the kids falling behind.

Shout-out to the neurodivergent people who were in separate programs, classes or schools designed for kids with learning disabilities.

Shout-out to the neurodivergent people who got held back a grade or failed out of classes.

Shout-out to the neurodivergent people who didn't enjoy or even successfully read books because they were too difficult.

the reason i fit 7/7 of these is because i absolutely relate to them, experience them daily and to a point where they disturb my daily ability to function. but my reasoning for exhibiting this behaviour is irrelevant to the disorder. as an autistic individual, even autism is often misconstrued and mistaken for personality disorders, when it's merely that some symptoms are shared between the two. or another personality disorder i do have shares traits with one i don't have, because my baseline purpose for engaging in that behaviour doesn't match the disorder i don't have - if that makes sense.

personally, it has taken me years to research and come to terms with my own mental health conditions, and even today i'm still questioning new ones. remember that there's no rush to diagnose, take time to explore your symptoms, make notes on your triggers, explore and understand the baseline reason for the way you behave - for example has your trauma made you unable to regulate your own self-esteem, has it made you reactive to instability, has it made you impulsive and defensive in the face of threat to autonomy? these are baseline reactions of 3 separate personality disorders. i find watching videos on youtube to sometimes ( if the person is knowledgeable, isn't merely regurgitating information they've read and has experience with the disorder ) be useful, specifically when the individual is diagnosed with the disorder you're looking into. if there are multiple videos from different people - watch them.

understand how experiences differentiate or compare to one another, note whether you relate to any of them or not at all. but something important to remember is that research is your friend. not just mindlessly scanning words, but comparing, processing the data, finding the stigma or lies. anyone can read about antisocial personality disorder, for example - but a lot of the criteria isn't actually experienced outwardly by many with aspd. or are experienced in different intensities with different rates of impulse control. through learning from those with the disorder, you're able to spot ( sometimes, though bear in mind there's a lot of ableism / internalised ableism even among the mental health community ) what's genuine and what's stereotypes or stigma.

many disorders and illnesses can mimic behaviours witnessed in personality disorders, and vice versa. you might relate to a list of symptoms / criteria, but a useful tool is really analysing whether it's the symptom you relate to or the baseline reason for the symptom. all disorders differ, hence there being separate diagnoses, because the baselines differ significantly. don't ever just look at a list and think because you fit every symptom, you have that disorder. i just did that and proved that it's not always correct.

it's really important you take self diagnosis seriously. whatever your reason for not seeking professional help, it's understandable. but by misdiagnosing yourself and then telling others, if you're by any chance incorrect or misinformed you could be adding to stigma by behaving in ways irrelevant to the disorder you believe you have. above all else, i encourage you to seek professional diagnosis at the soonest convenience, with self diagnosis ( unless unequivocally undeniable ) acting as a first step and / or stepping stone for you to find your footing financially or with insurance - whatever is accessible to you. mental health isn't a trend, disorders aren't cute and can be entirely debilitating to many. and of course, it is never to be used as an excuse for negative behaviour.

It is important for me to be free and independent of others.

I enjoy doing things more by myself than with other people.

In many situations, I am better off to be left alone.

It’s better to be alone than to feel “stuck” with other people.

I can use other people for my own purposes as long as I don’t get involved.

I am a social misfit.

Intimate relations with other people are not important to me.

My privacy is much more important to me than closeness with people.

Relationships are messy and interfere with freedom.

Life is less complicated without other people.

It is better for me to keep my distance and maintain a low profile.

I shouldn’t confide in others.

It doesn’t matter what people think of me.

I am not influenced by others in what I decide to do.

I set my own standards and goals for myself.

What other people think doesn’t matter to me.

I can manage things on my own without anybody’s help.

I’d rather do it myself.

I prefer to be alone.

I have no motivation.

I’m just going through the motions.

Why bother?

For schizoids, all of these automatic thoughts cause some kind of distress or impairment. And on top of that, there is a much deeper meaning underneath all of these statements, I’ll explain below.

These are the classic, overt (open and observable) symptoms for SzPD:

These are the covert (hidden and concealed) symptoms of SzPD:

I posted more detail about the difference between these two types of schizoids in another post. 

The overt, DSM criteria alone causes impairment for schizoids. That is, unless they put on the “mask.” The mask is essentially just looking normal on the outside. This takes effort and usually leaves schizoids exhausted at the end of the day for having to put up a false self. For the schizoids who don’t have a mask (or do, but are too tired to uphold it that day), they appear “odd and eccentric.” They usually display poor social skills and a flat affect. These cause the schizoid to appear awkward and emotionally cold. This can cause impairment in social functioning and work functioning. Their outer symptoms (some schizoids can’t uphold a mask even if they try, it’s hard to do) cause them to fail job interviews, get fired, not get promoted as often as non-schizoids, and cause them to have trouble socially. If they go to college, they are more likely to have trouble with group projects and having a roommate. Below is an image depicting what SzPD generally looks like on the outside (overt) vs what they feel on the inside (covert):

The PDM criteria are the covert symptoms that cause internal distress. Most schizoids match the PDM criteria too. Only in the more severe cases are schizoids impacted enough to where they don’t match most (or any) of the PDM criteria and have zero longing for other people and don’t experience extreme emotions. Most schizoids are highly sensitive, shy, easily overstimulated, fear and long for closeness, emotional pain so strong they must suppress it, and they withdraw into fantasy when needing to seek refuge. That withdrawal to fantasy can be a form of dissociation since they are attempting to detach from their self and environment.

As the severity of the schizoid pathology increases, the patient is likely to show deficits in his social skills and increasingly constricted or absent emotional experience. At the same time, the more acute cases show increasing or total denial of dependency needs and seem to have little need for human closeness.

Schizoids also show borderline level defenses.

For the most part, schizoid patients rely on primitive borderline defenses over neurotic or mature defenses (Giovacchini, 1979). Patients who rely on primitive defenses often have difficulty with reality testing and show impaired ability to interact in the world. These defenses, as listed in Figure 6.3 below, include splitting, extreme projection, primitive denial, devaluation and idealization, projective identification, and omnipotent control (Clarkin et al., 2006). In general, however, the most common of these observed in schizoid patients are splitting, denial of feelings, devaluation of objects, and idealization (Kahn, 1974).

The most common defenses being splitting, denial of feelings, devaluation of objects, and idealization can cause significant impairment and distress. Also schizoids generally avoid relationships due to fear of love being dangerous.

Fairbairn (1940) famously noted the schizoid’s fundamental belief that it is his love, rather than his hate, that destroys relationships. Fearing that his needs will weaken and exhaust the other, the schizoid disowns these needs and moves to satisfy the needs of the other instead. The net result is a loss of ego within any relationship he enters, eventually kicking off an existential panic. Since love becomes equated with unsolicited obligation, persecution, and engulfment, the schizoid defaults to self objects instead, consuming himself with love to avoid being consumed by the love of the other (Laing, 1960). As Appel (1974) notes, “From these fears derive the negativism, stubbornness, and reluctance of the schizoid to love. Since he equates love with fusion, control, and persecution, the schizoid must hate what he loves—the classic ambivalent position”.

Aside from the borderline level defenses when schizoids are in relationships, they also have an approach-avoidance conflict:

When in relationships, the schizoid maintains a pattern of oscillating towards and away from intimacy, alternatively desiring, and being excited at the chance for contact, and becoming claustrophobic, smothered, choked, imprisoned and terrified of being devoured or smothered by the other. The schizoid then must break free and recover independence (Guntrip, 1969). The oscillation in and out of relationships is the real world enactment of these conflicts around involvement. The schizoid’s legendary avoidance of relationships reflects his assessment that abandonment of others is a lesser evil than facing engulfment and loss of self, despite his longing for relationships (McWilliams, 2004; Seinfeld, 1991).

The schizoid alternates between fearing abandonment and encouraging it. Borderline level defenses and approach-avoidance behaviors cause social impairment.

So there are deeper reasons for the automatic thoughts schizoids have. Especially the statement, “It is important for me to be free and independent of others.” The word free implies the schizoid is avoiding something. They avoid obligation, persecution, engulfment, and fear of abandonment (fear of wearing out and exhausting the other person), so they believe it is better to be independent of others so that they can remain free. Underneath all the automatic thoughts are a deeper, depressing undertone full of fear and despair. Any time a schizoid says, “I prefer to be left alone and am disinterested in relationships with other people” they are really saying, “I prefer to be left alone and am disinterested in relationships with other people because I would rather be alone than be engulfed and obligated to another person.”

I’m schizoid and my deeper reasons for avoiding relationships is due to that fear of engulfment and not wanting any obligations towards other people. I don’t want to be obligated to spend time with others. I don’t want to be obligated to provide emotional support or care about their success. I don’t have to be on anyone else’s schedule and I don’t have to revolve my life around someone else. I can do whatever I want, when I want. I can leave the house and not have to tell anyone where I’m going. If I arrive home later than usual, I don’t have to explain to anyone where I was. I associate relationships with a loss of freedom. And that fear of loss of freedom causes me to have a genuine disinterest in relationships with others. I don’t match the PDM criteria for “longing for others” because I’m so deep into my avoidance of losing my independence that I lost interest in others a while ago. To me, other people = loss of freedom. And I don’t see why that would interest me. I don’t see people as confidants, I see them as oppressors. As long as other people are in my life, I’m obligated to give them my time, self disclosure, and in turn become controlled and engulfed. Being with other people feels like I’m being absorbed and swallowed up. Like I’m losing myself.

Non-schizoid people don’t associate other people with a loss of freedom. They intentionally seek out relationships with others because they enjoy friendships and relationships. Non-schizoids enjoy being with people, they aren’t filled with distress and dread at losing their freedom. In fact, they don’t even consider that their freedom is being stolen anyway, since they don’t view friendships and relationships as loss. They view it as a gain.

There is a dark undertone to the things schizoids say and believe. It isn’t always how it appears on the surface. It’s a distressing disorder full of impairment in mental and social functioning.

Source

Treatment of Schizoid Personality: An Analytic Personal Handbook

A clinical dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor or Psychology.

Every time I point out that disabled people are chill and that presuming we are violent monster maniacs is a bit ridiculous, at least one fuckwit has to be like, "oh yeah? What about [condition]?"

"Oh yeah? Well my sister works at a special school and she gets bitten by autistic kids all the time!" Okay. I was an autistic kid who went to special school. Didn't bite anybody, didn't see anybody bitten. I also worked in SPED for a while as an adult. Never saw an incident. Hm.

Oh look, studies show that violence is common in pretty much all schools because exploring and experimenting with violence is actually really common for kids aged three to nine. But oh, we notice it more when the retards do it. Why is that. Could it be ableism. We discuss it as an especially common and problemaitc thing when the retards do it. Why is that. Could it be ableism.

"Oh yeah? Well I'm a psychiatric nurse and my schizophrenic patient punched me!" I am a diagnosed schizophrenic. The whole reason I'm not working any more is that I lost years of my life in psychosis. Now, follow me here, I never assaulted anybody, but I have been assaulted a number of times since I became ill, always with the excuse of "well he could've become violent." Hm.

Every single major study on violence and schizophrenia finds schizophrenics are not more violent than the general population but experience violence at massively, massively disproportionate rates. In fact, they usually find the majority of violence in these contexts is perpetrated by support workers, family members, and police. Hm.

So here's some reminders. Feel free to add on with your own as well!

Psychosis does not make someone inherently dangerous. In fact, psychotic folks are more likely to be the victims of violent crime. Anyone can be dangerous, regardless of whether they have a psychotic disorder or not.

Psychosis doesn't mean your life is over. Psychosis affects quality of life in a lot of ways, but it's not hopeless! Plenty of people with schizophrenia manage to live a fulfilling life, even with the struggles that come with the disorder. There's ways to manage, there's ways to find support, and all psychotic people deserve help to get to the point where they're at their healthiest--their own definition of healthy, whatever that might look like for them. Healing looks different for everyone, remember that!

Schizophrenia (and other psychotic disorders) aren't always just delusions and hallucinations. There's other symptoms including flat affect (lack of emotional expression), catatonia (restriction or loss of movement), depression, isolation, anhedonia (inability to feel joy), disorganised thinking and speech (word salad, words lose meaning, etc), problems with your memory and attention, and more.

Hallucinations aren't always seeing and hearing things. You can experience visual hallucinations, auditory (hearing) hallucinations, tactile (touch), olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste), and really any sense your body has.

Hallucinations also aren't always horrifying. What I mean by that is it's not always ghosts and demons and blood and bodies, like in the movies. Sometimes it's a little beetle, or a cat. Sometimes it's hearing a friend's voice when they're not around, saying something mundane. Sometimes you hear your phone ring in another room. They can be mundane and annoying as well as something more stereotypical!

You can't "snap someone out" of a delusion. Belittling someone, telling them to get over themselves, that they're being silly/stupid, or things like "you don't really believe that, do you?" are generally not how you speak to someone in active delusion. This is more likely to push the person away from you. Delusions, even if the psychotic person knows they're delusions, are fixed beliefs that affect us and our reality as if they were real.

Different people have different opinions on reality checking. For some, being reality checked while in a delusion might help! For others, it will push them further into it and make getting out of the episode much harder. It's best to ask each individual psychotic person you know what they want you to do, if anything. You should never encourage (or affirm) a delusion or reality check a delusion without knowing what the person needs.

Reminder that alterhumans of any kind with psychosis are no less real in their identities than an alterhuman without psychosis. Having a psychotic disorder doesn't discredit your personal identity in any way, even if it does stem from a delusion. It doesn't matter where your identity comes from.

So. Shoutout to: Systems formed from or influenced by psychosis. Otherkin who are nonhuman due to delusions. Endels of any kind. Otherlinkers who have 'linked something to help with their psychosis or because of it. Otherhearteds who have a hearttype that relates to their psychosis. Physical nonhumans who are this way due to delusions. Fictionfolk and factfolk who have their identities influenced/formed by psychosis. Alterhumans who get euphoria from their psychotic symptoms. Alterhumans who are alterhuman because they're psychotic. Alterhumans who just happen to have a psychotic disorder and those two things don't intersect.

Cause I want to feel genuine joy, instead of dealing with Anhedonia. Because I know how I should feel, how I should react to things. But I just don't and it's extremely frustrating.

I want to react to stimulus like an average person, not be in the state of numbness or melancholy like I am now.

What Works in the Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder

(PDF)

SUMMARY: BPD used to be considered untreatable. However, new(ish) research has revealed that this is far from true. This paper reviews the major evidence-based treatments used for BPD.

NOTES:

Requested by @captain0fcrows.

General psychotic flag edits under the cut!