The Living Heart Fled

TW: mention of psychological and physical self harming

Questions:

Have you ever tried schizoid self-conversion (trying to convert yourself to be an extrovert and social)?

Did any of you view this time period as traumatic in a way, since you’re inducing emotions like engulfment, and feelings of being psychologically smothered or buried alive?

I ask because I’m going through this right now. I don’t have a GED, no job, and I’m not in college. I can’t do any of these things due to disability. But I want to make my mom proud of me by reaching at least one milestone, such as friendship. Also, all of my relatives have insulted her and called her a bad parent. I want them to admire my mom. 

So I have been having trouble figuring out a label for my romantic orientation. And I decided on lithromantic.

Here is a copy-paste from Treatment of Schizoid Personality by Zachary Wheeler.

Avoidant pathology reflects active detachment from a desired closeness with others, while Schizoid pathology usually reflected a passive detachment indicative of limited interest in relationships

Patients that most frequently qualify for an Avoidant diagnosis are often in touch with their neediness for others, but often run from opportunities for intimacy because they fear rejection, feelings of inadequacy, abandonment and failure in these situations

Accordingly Avoidant individuals often experience high levels of depression and anxiety in their lives, and a good deal of shame, embarrassment, and feelings of inferiority in relationship to other. Only to a limited degree in Schizoid and Schizotypal presentations where neediness for others is deeply denied or split off, and fears of rejection and embarrassment do not often materialize because relationships are avoided and the emotional implications of interpersonal associations are dismissed. Anxiety and depression do occur, but usually only arise when connection to others is in some way unavoidable.

The Avoidant personality differs mainly in that these individuals are capable of warming up to others once an accepting relationship has been established, whereas the Schizoid and Schizotypal presentations tend to experience strong anxiety within relationships that does not easily abate

In general, Avoidant presentations are those Schizoid patients that tend to be seen as outwardly suffering. In particular, these patients often report loneliness and longing for relationships that are not usually present in pure Schizoid types.

But Avoidant PD and Schizoid PD are more similar than not:

The difficulty of using the DSM to adequately assess the Schizoid personality is covered extensively elsewhere (Akhtar 1992; Gabbard 1994), as is the large diagnostic overlap between Avoidant and Schizotypal disorders with Schizoid personality (Livesley, West, & Tanney, 1986; Shedler & Westen, 2004).

Avoidant is also sometimes referred to as High Schizoid.

Schizoid without (or with minimal) Avoidant traits is sometimes referred to as Pure Schizoid.

My Opinion: