Problems with Narcissism, Anxiety, and Anhedonia

[TBerg]

Communicating my inner struggles in detail is difficult for me, as I have a history of avoiding shame, whether deserved or not, as much as possible. That means that what I am trying to do right now goes against every instinct I have ever had.

As I was growing up, my mom and dad would frequently fight. I remember crying myself over what was going on. I remember feeling helpless. I remember feeling like crying was just going nowhere I wanted to go. So I decided to stop. To be more precise, I decided to stop caring. At all. In a cosmological sense. I knew everything was shit and was going to stay that way. I knew I could not trust reality because I did not have a reliable, intimate connection with the world outside. Thus I learned to Think.

As I was growing up in this reality, I only knew I was on the right track when people told me I was. I would find the right thing to do for people to give me confirmation. People told me how smart I was. I knew I would be able to come up with ideas that would radically change the world around me. I had delusions of being something of an awakened one. I just knew my insights would allow me to control the unfriendly world around me. I would use my mind to control my parents, who I did not trust. When I controlled them, I knew I would be able to trust them.

As I was growing up, I viewed the world as an enemy, a demon even, whom my messianic self was destined to defeat with my left-liberal ideals and intellect. My parents sometimes inculcated me in their quasi-hippie ideals and biases, and they would sometimes tell me of why they chose the route of unschooling me instead of sending me to school. They would tell me of their biases regarding other people.

As I was dealing with the world, I expected to control it and be able to do all kinds of things. When I encountered strange things, I would get a bizarre anxiety that made things appear like I wasn't part of this world at all. The anxiety would disrupt all of my sincerity. I learned to fake all kinds of stuff. I always thought I was different from other people, so I dealt with them like some alien people whose culture I must learn, rather than feel in my heart, so to speak. I would keep a lot of myself secret, including the fact that I was a virgin, from others, and I would make stuff up to make them think I had the same psychological projections as them. I thought I would be like them someday. But I was going against my nature. Group activities made me feel fake. I did not actually enjoy them. To be repugnantly honest, I was just hoping for easy sex, but I did not really understand what easy sex was.

Now, because my nature is so tied to profound naivete, I find myself despairing most of the time. I do not feel competent. I do not enjoy much at all. I will post more on my more recent past soon. Have a good night everyone. Who knows. Maybe this will start a trend for more people being less censorious in describing their psychological makeup.

 

[Pizzabeak]

School and work? Certain people will probably say you're just depressed and melancholy rather than whatever NT-NF thing you may be, consequently some depressed SJ/SP. Are you saying you feel weird and are worried about your future, you might end up dead in a dumpster and no one will attend or cry at your funeral besides your parents or close family members?

 

[TBerg]

This directly impacts school and work, my old sources of hope in the absence of other hopes. I will fill in the last couple of years in a little while. I wanted to preface it, but it turned into more after I started to really think about it.

Basically, I think I fucked up my life. Thanks for reading. I need to confront more of my demons in hope that they will turn into Jungian angels. And I really, really want any help people sincerely offer.

 

[Duxwing]

Describing your problems has seemed to relieve you: go on, write.

*hugs*

-Duxwing

 

[QuickTwist]

You will find that a lot of people on this forum have been through something similar in nature to what your life experience has brought you.

It sucks.

No real point in ignoring it because it is there.

Many people in this world have it like cake. Everything is easy for them and this causes them to not give much thought about the kind of struggles some people face. Fact is, because you have been through struggles you know what its like and know how to deal with certain things the people with easy lives can't even cope with.

That is what is encouraging to me at least when I think of this.

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

That means that what I am trying to do right now goes against every instinct I have ever had.

As I was growing up in this reality, I only knew I was on the right track when people told me I was.

I would find the right thing to do for people to give me confirmation.

This, combined with your early life experiences, is interesting. The environmental component of schizotypy is receiving confusing signals during early childhood. For example, being punished disproportionately or for no apparent reason. This creates reliance on external validation, which is both a strength and a weakness. I'm sure you're familiar with the weakness aspect, but the strength is the ability to triangulate the perspectives of others and perceive things that any one of them cannot, the whole elephant. This is lateral combinatorial thinking, and it's a beautiful thing.

You're doing it right now, too. Learning about yourself through the feedback of others.

I knew I would be able to come up with ideas that would radically change the world around me. I had delusions of being something of an awakened one. I just knew my insights would allow me to control the unfriendly world around me. I would use my mind to control my parents, who I did not trust. When I controlled them, I knew I would be able to trust them.

This... is actually good. Very good. But now you've got to figure out how to use it (which I argue very strongly can only be accomplished, for those with a predisposition towards lateral thinking or schizotypy in general, through external validation). Think of it as being born with some advanced nuclear powered world changing gadget, but having to spend a considerable amount of time figuring out how to use it in order to actually do anything with it.

My parents sometimes inculcated me in their quasi-hippie ideals and biases, and they would sometimes tell me of why they chose the route of unschooling me instead of sending me to school. They would tell me of their biases regarding other people.

I wouldn't blame them too much. They did some things right, exposed you to ways of thinking outside of the mainstream. The challenge is to overcome. Period.

When I encountered strange things, I would get a bizarre anxiety that made things appear like I wasn't part of this world at all.

This is dissociation, no?

I learned to fake all kinds of stuff.

^A valuable life skill, imho. Have you seen this thread?

But I was going against my nature.

I was just hoping for easy sex, but I did not really understand what easy sex was.

1. Be the scorpion. Just don't sting until you've actually crossed the river.
2. Craigslist casual encounters. Play safe.

I find myself despairing most of the time. I do not feel competent. I do not enjoy much at all. I will post more on my more recent past soon. Maybe this will start a trend for more people being less censorious in describing their psychological makeup.

You need a dose of will (dopamine, most likely in your prefrontal cortex, and a little positive anxiety/hypomania). Something to influence your emotions. Music?

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GupJwtLRp8Y

And I approve of said trend.

Basically, I think I fucked up my life.

I need to confront more of my demons in hope that they will turn into Jungian angels.

1. You'll probably find this thread useful.
2. Confront your demons, or embrace them?

 

[The Void]

Yes I viewed the world as my enemy and planned to destroy it long long ago.
Now I am gaining occult powers to change the world, start the NEW WORLD ORDER!
Yes I have this anhedonia too, and a blunted affect and ....and avolition and alogia too and also schizoid personality overorder (screw your biased views society! You call this disorder? I call it overorder! Only overordered person are not interested in the messed up society).
I started getting bored with human connection (IRL) ( I had few to begin with), spending time with a group was pretty boring actually ( I spend one or two times in a group only), I dont enjoy their nature of discussions, I had no topics to discuss, the psychologist to whom I drew the Void (I didnt draw) when I was asked to draw said it is becoz I don't have anyone in my wavelenght, or some stuff like that , but it is obvious, who needs a psy for that and I am sure there no one truly like me, and even if there is then what will be the fun in talking to someone who is completely like me?
Screw all that.
I am slowly regaining my dark powers again. Yesterday I succesfully manipulated reality again.
I will soon rule the universe and change everything, or die trying, or die not trying, or whatever does not matter.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Once you deal with avolition, I found that most things are much easier to deal with.
After developing this mechanism of reliable dealing with problems you can actually take on and solve the issues that you have identified. Also there is next problem of low perception pool, so that to find discrete problems one needs to increase ones own perception and knowledge.

 

[Vrecknidj]

A great many people suffered in their early years and during those years developed skills that helped them survive or cope with their circumstances. Most of these people eventually get away from their family-of-origin situations but a great many of them do not then learn new skills for dealing with their new circumstances.

It's very easy for sufferers of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual, whatever the case) to find themselves continuing to suffer in part because they continue to treat the world as though the world is an extension of their early life experiences.

I've noticed that the people who started this way who have done well afterwards have been those who've developed new tools and the insight to recognize when their own emotional reaction (which can include things like avolition) is rooted in the past and no longer an effective means for dealing with the present.

 

[TBerg]

Just for some accountability, I am declaring my measured inebriation tonight. I read the Gospel of Mark, helped my dad get supplies for his business, my mom's plans for a second-degree family reunion crumbled, and so I drank slightly more than usual. I hope not to be as numb to my problems in the near future. Thank you all for your mindfucking responses. They were all useful. Especially the stuff about schitzotypy. It might explain my horrendously average memory. Kind of ambivalent feelings about being on the schitzo spectrum, though.

Jesus wants you all to wear nothing but birkenstocks.

 

[Polaris]

Jesus wants you all to wear nothing but birkenstocks.

I wear birkenstocks with socks. Is that all right?

 

[QuickTwist]

Of course! that makes you smarter, but you already knew that.

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

Just for some accountability, I am declaring my measured inebriation tonight. I read the Gospel of Mark, helped my dad get supplies for his business, my mom's plans for a second-degree family reunion crumbled, and so I drank slightly more than usual. I hope not to be as numb to my problems in the near future. Thank you all for your mindfucking responses. They were all useful. Especially the stuff about schitzotypy. It might explain my horrendously average memory. Kind of ambivalent feelings about being on the schitzo spectrum, though.

Jesus wants you all to wear nothing but birkenstocks.

First, if something's a spectrum, everyone's on it.

Don't numb too much, just learn. Other people's problems are not your problems if you don't allow them to be.

Memory, or attention? One can have ridiculously awesome memory but never be able to utilize it because they have poor focus.

And Satan says Birkenstocks are too damn expensive.

 

[The Introvert]

This... is actually good. Very good. But now you've got to figure out how to use it (which I argue very strongly can only be accomplished, for those with a predisposition towards lateral thinking or schizotypy in general, through external validation).

What makes you argue so strongly about this?

What's the correlation between lateral thinking and schizotypy? Or rather, what makes them similar, and why?

I'll take a stab at it...

Assuming the 'schizo' is not completely debilitating, it can be used as an alternative point of reference for an idea or experience. In states of lucidity (if proper care is taken to somehow utilize the benefits of an alternative cognitive state) one can organize and implement the knowledge gained from other states.

What if there were simply two people with common goals, and functional stacks different enough to achieve a sort of 'combined utility'?

Two people with latitudinal thinking processes (assuming that by that you mean integrating otherwise unrelated concepts into a project, or something to that matter [Horizontal gene flow for an analogy]) working in tandem. It's effectively the same concept as the schizotypal person (and probably less likely to end up in the aforementioned dumpster).

-BW

Spoiler

^^ JK

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

I knew I would be able to come up with ideas that would radically change the world around me. I had delusions of being something of an awakened one. I just knew my insights would allow me to control the unfriendly world around me. I would use my mind to control my parents, who I did not trust. When I controlled them, I knew I would be able to trust them.

This... is actually good. Very good. But now you've got to figure out how to use it (which I argue very strongly can only be accomplished, for those with a predisposition towards lateral thinking or schizotypy in general, through external validation).

What makes you argue so strongly about this?

What's the correlation between lateral thinking and schizotypy? Or rather, what makes them similar, and why?

This feeling, this intuitive knowing that you can do something is the pure primal driving force of universal perception. One whose existence relies on external validation has a unique insight into true possibility, because their understanding isn't based on personal subjectivity. The more external validation undertaken, the stronger the 'objective' triangulation on one's own understanding; taking the Heisenberg Principle to over 9000. It's all they've got, and it's likely ingrained into one's brain physiology. See this thread starting at ~post #6.

Assuming the 'schizo' is not completely debilitating, it can be used as an alternative point of reference for an idea or experience. In states of lucidity (if proper care is taken to somehow utilize the benefits of an alternative cognitive state) one can organize and implement the knowledge gained from other states.

It's a common misconception that the schizophrenic spectrum is defined solely by perception; it's defined by perception as well as cognition. Debilitation occurs when one is substantially more powerful than the other.

What if there were simply two people with common goals, and functional stacks different enough to achieve a sort of 'combined utility'?

Two people with latitudinal thinking processes (assuming that by that you mean integrating otherwise unrelated concepts into a project, or something to that matter [Horizontal gene flow for an analogy]) working in tandem. It's effectively the same concept as the schizotypal person (and probably less likely to end up in the aforementioned dumpster).

Integration isn't lateral thinking, that's the interaction between intuition and one's other functions.

Most people, when presented with a square peg, a round peg, and a round hole, will discard the square peg, use the round one, and call the job complete. Lateral thinkers become the hole. What multitude of things and shapes can fit inside the hole? What other uses can the square peg have? Why is the hole even present?

The benefit of lateral thinking isn't identifying what is, ruling out what can't be, but verifying and validating goals and expecting the unexpected. "Why?"

Using this example, my first thought was that the man was trying to distract the bartender and rob the bar, which was exposed when he asked for water, something that 1) isn't something you go to a bar to get 2) is free, or at least extremely inexpensive. The bartender can't lose in the specific context of this situation. If he were going to be robbed, that was prevented, he wouldn't have made any money on the water anyway, and he didn't rule out the possibility of the guy paying him for a scotch on the rocks in the future. The man smiles because he knows he's been bested. Who needs hiccups?

The opposite of lateral thinking is.... something I don't think has a label/name yet.

*EDIT: Perhaps goal verification can be seen as integration at the "end" whereas the opposite would be integration at the "beginning."

-BW

Spoiler

^^ JK

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

@T.I.

A basic example of triangulating the truth in real time through pure external validation:

Spoiler

Or understanding this in real time, given the nature of altered syllable annunciation involved at that speed:

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCP34Jiq6L0

The difference is that schizotypals aren't distracted from this state of interpretation.

 

[Steven Gerrard]

So they're seeing things that aren't there?

Have you ever tried to make Art HabitatDoctor?

I find I'm literally just grabbing whatever I see and projecting my own meaning onto it consciously but more sublimely than usual consciousness, and it's beautiful.

Artistic logic is very close to the descriptions I've heard of schizophrenia... but that's not the term you're using. How does Schizophrenic differ from Schizotypal?

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

So they're seeing things that aren't there?

Have you ever tried to make Art HabitatDoctor?

I find I'm literally just grabbing whatever I see and projecting my own meaning onto it consciously but more sublimely than usual consciousness, and it's beautiful.

Artistic logic is very close to the descriptions I've heard of schizophrenia... but that's not the term you're using. How does Schizophrenic differ from Schizotypal?

Seeing things that aren't there... No. So, to explain...

Mental disorders exist along a spectrum. The autistic spectrum, for example: At the low end are "normal" people. At the high end are full blown autistics who cannot function in daily life. In the middle are conditions like Asperger's disorder. Schizophrenia and mood disorders like bipolar also exist on spectra.

Schizotypy is something that exists across the entire schizophrenic spectrum, and it manifests in different types of perception and cognition. Full visual and auditory hallucinations are on the high end of perception (werewolf ninjas are breaking into my house to steal my bananas), while things on the low end might be... seeing shadows appear to move if you've been awake too long, or having a song stuck in your head. Full hallucination is only common in full blown schizophrenia.

Artistic logic is more like lateral thinking, and the more extreme the lateral thought, the more abstract the art becomes. Or, given your musical tendencies: Oblique Strategies.

And art can't be made, it just is. (But I do tend to hoard it).

 

[Steven Gerrard]

Okay.

I've had shadows dance on my walls when I'm exhausted or on cough syrup.

Even know if I encourage it and if my head is below my knees at a certain angle.... Sometimes I can just trip. Coffee and fatigue help. And that is schizotypy sure.

But having a song in my head?

I'm telling you there is a correlation between schizotypy and art. Maybe not the common muddle of cliche's and romance about tortured artists- but something close.

Oblique strategies- this is brilliant.

Are you an artist?

 

[QuickTwist]

Smoke on the water.

 

[TBerg]

Time to check back in. These past couple of days, I have become a little complacent/distracted. I continue to study the Bible and psychoanalytic theory, though a little less intensively due to helping my parents prepare our house for social gatherings as well as attending said gatherings. A few of the triggers for my syndromes have become less prominent in my interactions at home. During my effort at understanding some of the extreme displays of faith at the church my sister frequents, I think I had one of those weird quasi-psychotic experiences of feeling strange in the world, and I draw on some of the same energy to get me through the day.

Now I will tell of my more recent years in psychological development, including some of my developments in the workplace.

When I first graduated college with a major in political science and joined a volunteer organization to get my first job, I just wanted to get away from my family and my small town. I wanted to see the world. So, I landed a position in Washington, DC, working for a peace-oriented organization that worked with people who did not fit in the military anymore for a variety of reasons. I edited the newsletter, counseled people in the military on their discharge options, and did basic managing of our website. I enjoyed the work environment because it went with my generally lazy attitude about things. Employees came in at a somewhat irregular schedule, and we got to just kind of hang out a lot. Still, I was not passionate about the work. I was unsure about a lot of things. And I began to understand that this environment was not the kick in the ass my super-ego needed in order to truly become responsible. I went along with things, and then finally my work contract was not renewed in a period of declining revenue.

After two and a half years in DC, I still did not see everything in the world I wanted to see. I had a chance conversation with a stranger about working in China as a foreigner, which I learned was an easy prospect for English speakers. I enrolled in TESOL Training International, and was connected to work at a college in Hunan province. While I was in a strange country, I learned to respect people and traditions on a more basic level and learned to do things without even speaking Chinese. I made many Chinese friends there, got to stay at their houses during the holidays, and was beginning to learn the language. I was better at understanding people than other foreigners, but I was not a good lecturer and was only decent at tutoring people English. I was not very engaging with students, and I had no idea of my lesson plans were any good. But my foreign face gave me affirmative action. I was talking about starting a business there, but I just kept getting sick there. I had shingles for six months one year, then I got sick again without the skin lesions a few months later. I knew it was because the toxins in China had wrecked my body. So I had to leave.

After I came back, I decided that I wanted to learn more about the human body, and so I went back to college to study science. I wanted to be a neuroscientist. I took chemistry classes, biology classes, psychology classes, and some fun philosophy classes. I got used to learning things from a scientific standpoint, excelled at philosophy and did well in psychology, but the mathematical aspects of the sciences simply would not make their way into my understanding without much anxiety and time. I spent hours every week especially on chemistry, but I still barely got a C on it. I was becoming more and more bipolar and was becoming someone that I simply hated. So I decided to take a break and figure out something else.

For the past few years, I have had little money of my own and my only social life without my parents has been visiting my best friend and partying with her. She is married, better looking than me, and shares similar attitudes. She is the only one I have ever really felt a genuine connection to, but I know that she does not have exactly the same feelings.

As I have lost connections to people with my traveling and lack of income, I have felt like I have abandoned some of the friends I had. Sometimes I was supposed to write letters of response to them, but my paralyzing guilt got deeper and deeper until I was able to repress it.

Nowadays, I just try to make the best of living with my parents and learning about more social graces from them. Sometimes my parents tell me that I am actually helpful to them, but living with them is like living with visual representations of my Jungian shadow. I want to break out again sometime.

More details about recent conditions later.

BTW, I have difficulty catching every single word in the rap songs.

 

[The Introvert]

Integration isn't lateral thinking, that's the interaction between intuition and one's other functions.

Most people, when presented with a square peg, a round peg, and a round hole, will discard the square peg, use the round one, and call the job complete. Lateral thinkers become the hole. What multitude of things and shapes can fit inside the hole? What other uses can the square peg have? Why is the hole even present?

I'm still not seeing a definite difference here. With intuition, you can be the hole (or the ball, or neither, or both).

I understand you're trying to get me to see the question that isn't even asked, but I don't understand what advantages a schizotypal person would have at it (and even then, how they would make use of it if there was an advantage). I think you're confusing creativity with schizotypy.

Using this example, my first thought was that the man was trying to distract the bartender and rob the bar, which was exposed when he asked for water, something that 1) isn't something you go to a bar to get 2) is free, or at least extremely inexpensive. The bartender can't lose in the specific context of this situation. If he were going to be robbed, that was prevented, he wouldn't have made any money on the water anyway, and he didn't rule out the possibility of the guy paying him for a scotch on the rocks in the future. The man smiles because he knows he's been bested. Who needs hiccups?

Maybe I'm just the exact opposite of you in this whole discussion. I read this and thought "there is no reason for any of this". The exact opposite; there is no why, it just is. It just happened. Albeit, I read it a while ago and I can't remember my mental state at the time. I didn't respond immediately so it may have been I just wasn't feeling well, and if I were to read it again my opinion would be biased.

The opposite of lateral thinking is.... something I don't think has a label/name yet.

Nihilism?

What about "Why not?"

@T.I.

A basic example of triangulating the truth in real time through pure external validation:

Spoiler

Or understanding this in real time, given the nature of altered syllable annunciation involved at that speed:

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCP34Jiq6L0

The difference is that schizotypals aren't distracted from this state of interpretation.

I don't understand these references. Again, they all point to the same reason to me - no logical reason.

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

I'm still not seeing a definite difference here. With intuition, you can be the hole (or the ball, or neither, or both).

I think you're confusing creativity with schizotypy.

Intuition is a means of taking in information, not using it.

http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-dopamine-connection-between-schizophrenia-and-creativity/0003505

Divergent thinking encompasses lateral thinking. Schizophrenia by default, according strictly to the dopamine hypotheses, is a disorder of increased perception (dopamine everywhere) coupled with decreased cognition (lack of dopamine in the prefrontal cortex) insufficient to handle that perception.

Maybe I'm just the exact opposite of you in this whole discussion. I read this and thought "there is no reason for any of this". The exact opposite; there is no why, it just is. It just happened.

Nihilism?

What about "Why not?"

I don't understand these references. Again, they all point to the same reason to me - no logical reason.

Fuck... That makes sense, and even my urge to deny it because I'm not the one who came up with it has been satiated. Except for that N-word. I think we're talking more along the lines of Jnani vs Bhakti, as in knowing through divergent possibility vs knowing through the window of observation/experience (but in a sense that differs from Si, because the circumstances are by far more theoretical).

With the words/letters and lyrics, you get a bunch of gobbledygook that can only make sense if you compare it to things you've previously seen/read/heard elsewhere, and the context surrounding the gobbledygook (which is additional gobbledygook. I think I've used my quota on that word for today ). Helqed becomes helped. "Aks" becomes "asks."

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

seeing shadows appear to move if you've been awake too long

Oh, good, i'm not crazy!

 

[TBerg]

Okay. So, the past few days, I have been pretty lazy, to put it frankly. I was having a good amount of progress in at least being able to have the inner turmoil to keep learning stuff, but then I got drunk during the Superbowl (good excuse, I know) and had a hangover that dampened that which might have produced a dancing star. I had perceptions of being on the definite low end of existence and had no desire to do any serious thinking about anything. I have been watching videos online for the past few days (which started with a venture into watching The Newsroom) and have had a strange feeling of spiritual coma, like I was kind of dead already and that nothing mattered, except for people interfering with my daily life. Dabrowski would call me a failure. I was too well-preserved by formaldehyde to be disintegrated. Fuck. Posting in this forum is bringing me just a smidgen of anxiety. Enough to let me know there is still something alive in me.

 

[TBerg]

I meditated in the shower today, letting me focus on my immediate surroundings instead of being in by recently nihilistic head. I felt the warmth of the hot water all over my body until I rinsed myself with chillingly cold water. My vicious cycle was temporarily paused, allowing me time to at the helm to try to turn myself in a different direction. Nothing makes me feel better than meditation and a shower, and I combined them together! The best of both the physical and what seems to be the metaphysical. It makes me think that I repossessed the makeup to operate in this world.

 

[TBerg]

Blessed is s/he whose embers are scattered and few, for they shall learn to kindle.

Spoiler

Blessed is s/he who kindles, for they shall understand the profound energy transformation in the bonfire. Blessed is s/he who takes from the bonfire a torch and sets the forest alight, for they shall make way for their own estate. Blessed is s/he who uses the estate to launch volleys of cannonfire, for their enemies will meet their fate.

But just focus on kindling for now.

 

[TBerg]

Today, I seemed to myself two degrees or three less intelligent than even my normal projected self seems to be. My meditation was completely off, and everything seemed to be just quite mundane indeed. Was thinking about my own financial affairs the culprit? I am sleeping without a strong urge for insomnia and a gut feeling that won't subside no matter the content of drowsy thought. Will finding expression for my lack of fire be of benefit, or will it make me wallow in it? These words are the only things that elucidate much at all today.

 

[Variform]

Schizotypy is something that exists across the entire schizophrenic spectrum, and it manifests in different types of perception and cognition. Full visual and auditory hallucinations are on the high end of perception (werewolf ninjas are breaking into my house to steal my bananas), while things on the low end might be... seeing shadows appear to move if you've been awake too long, or having a song stuck in your head. Full hallucination is only common in full blown schizophrenia.

Can you give some sources for this please?

I am diagnosed with StPD. Or Schizotypal Personality Disorder. This condition occurs often in relatives of people with schizophrenia. It is described sometimes as a light schizophrenia but other voices (ooh, a pun!) believe that it is a disorder not to be underestimated because it is by itself a severely disabling diagnosis.
I do not have sz in my family though.

I am always interested in learning about StPD. At some point I translated a document I found online describing the dx in similar ways as some MBTI sites describe the INTP profile, for my therapists. They were impressed and wanted to use it I guess because not all that much is known about it or at least available, with the focus always being on sz.

 

[Variform]

Okay.

I've had shadows dance on my walls when I'm exhausted or on cough syrup.

Even know if I encourage it and if my head is below my knees at a certain angle.... Sometimes I can just trip. Coffee and fatigue help. And that is schizotypy sure.

But having a song in my head?

I'm telling you there is a correlation between schizotypy and art. Maybe not the common muddle of cliche's and romance about tortured artists- but something close.

I can tell you that the link is this, that the magical thinking that is a big part of the dx involves creative thinking and that will have its effect on artistic activities.

 

[Steven Gerrard]

the dx?

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

the dx?

dx = diagnosis

Can you give some sources for this please?

I am diagnosed with StPD. Or Schizotypal Personality Disorder. This condition occurs often in relatives of people with schizophrenia. It is described sometimes as a light schizophrenia but other voices (ooh, a pun!) believe that it is a disorder not to be underestimated because it is by itself a severely disabling diagnosis.
I do not have sz in my family though.

I am always interested in learning about StPD. At some point I translated a document I found online describing the dx in similar ways as some MBTI sites describe the INTP profile, for my therapists. They were impressed and wanted to use it I guess because not all that much is known about it or at least available, with the focus always being on sz.

If you've got that article, I'll take it.

I float somewhere between StPD and disorganized schizophrenia. Originally dx was schizoaffective, but inaccurate. No... uhm... *cough* diagnosed *cough* schizo spectrum in my mother's side of the family.

I'm not sure there's a specific resource that specifically states that schizotypy is a gradient (there's plenty that agree that schizophrenia is a spectrum and that formal diagnoses cluster at the extremes of said spectrum, but that's Google Scholar stuff I don't have saved because it makes sense to me), that's just what I've gleaned from reading studies over time. Correlations of intelligence measures in full schizo vs schizoaffective vs StPD & other PDs, for example. Or measures of divergent thinking/various chemicals [dopamine, clozapine, cortisol]/attention/cognitive function/etc. Pharmaceutical studies are good for this because a medication is often investigated to treat several conditions.

Some cool articles in general, though (imho):

Assessment of executive dysfunction during activities of daily living in schizophrenia
Maria Semkovskaa, Marc-Andre´ Be´darda, Lucie Godboutc, Fre´de´rique Limogec, Emmanuel Stipb

Symptoms of schizotypy precede cannabis use
Jason Schiffmana,T, Brad Nakamuraa, Mitchell Earleywineb, Joseph LaBriec

Cannabinoids promote embryonic and adult hippocampus neurogenesis and produce anxiolytic- and antidepressant-like effects
Wen Jiang, Yun Zhang, Lan Xiao, Jamie Van Cleemput, Shao-Ping Ji, Guang Bai, and Xia Zhang

A systematic review of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis function in schizophrenia: implications for mortality
Andrew J Bradley and Timothy G Dinan

Quantum Logic of the Unconscious and Schizophrenia
Paola Zizzi and Massimo Pregnolato

Quantum computation and Schizophrenia
Monendra Grover
Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University, National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi, India

Approaching Psychosis through Quantum Physics
Kathryn Kay Irish, MSW

The Role of Genes Involved in Neuroplasticity and Neurogenesis in the Observation of a Gene-Environment Interaction (GxE) in Schizophrenia
Yann Le Strat, Nicolas Ramoz and Philip Gorwood

They should be free through Google Scholar. If not PM me and I'll e-mail them to you.

 

[TBerg]

Could the voices represent the superego of the person? I have experienced some voices, but they always seemed a little fantastical. I just thought of them as my own impulses.

 

[Variform]

dx = diagnosis

If you've got that article, I'll take it.

I found my own translation on a cd-rom backup but never seemed to have stored the original locally. You might find it searching for Sharon C. Ekleberry, 2000.

 

[TBerg]

I found my own translation on a cd-rom backup but never seemed to have stored the original locally. You might find it searching for Sharon C. Ekleberry, 2000.

What's the title?

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

Could the voices represent the superego of the person? I have experienced some voices, but they always seemed a little fantastical. I just thought of them as my own impulses.

If the voices aren't subvocalization, they should be hallucinations. I thought that aspect of Freud was invalidated...?

I found my own translation on a cd-rom backup but never seemed to have stored the original locally. You might find it searching for Sharon C. Ekleberry, 2000.

*googles*
Woohoo!

What's the title?

http://schizotypaldisorder.webs.com/Dual Diagnosis and the Schi.pdf

 

[TBerg]

Should we rename this website the "SchizoForum?"

My sometimes faint voices have been maladaptive and childish, sometimes subvocal, and I have been able to suppress them when in the company of others. I used to think it was just my own hypomanic self, but they have always been associated with some aspect of magical thinking. I called them part of my superego because they are sometimes sadistic or masochistic, meaning that they suggest punishing myself or others in order to rectify certain situations. Nothing too bad, though. A lot of ritualistic stuff. If only something would happen, then everything would come to fruition.

That's the source I found by Google as well. I think I have gotten better about my reality principle but worse about my affective results.

 

[Variform]

If the voices aren't subvocalization, they should be hallucinations. I thought that aspect of Freud was invalidated...?

*googles*
Woohoo!

http://schizotypaldisorder.webs.com/Dual Diagnosis and the Schi.pdf

Aye, that is the one. Thanks for finding it lol. I opened all my StPD links and many failed to open. Haven't busied myself much the last decade with all that. I'll copy it now for future boasting.

It was tough to translate because English isn't my first language and it is technical and the grammar has a decent level. :-) But the hardest part was my own meticulous and precise wording. Too often you see translations that are sloppy. I hate sloppiness in translations.

 

[Variform]

Should we rename this website the "SchizoForum?"

My sometimes faint voices have been maladaptive and childish, sometimes subvocal, and I have been able to suppress them when in the company of others. I used to think it was just my own hypomanic self, but they have always been associated with some aspect of magical thinking. I called them part of my superego because they are sometimes sadistic or masochistic, meaning that they suggest punishing myself or others in order to rectify certain situations. Nothing too bad, though. A lot of ritualistic stuff. If only something would happen, then everything would come to fruition.

That's the source I found by Google as well. I think I have gotten better about my reality principle but worse about my affective results.

I have always been fascinated by schizophrenia and the hearing of voices. Maybe I don't know what I am liking or asking for when I say that I would like to experience these things.

I have always been attracted to other states of mind, psychosis and the experience of reality in all sorts of ways. After all, you can really only understand your own mental machine after comparing it to others. What can such a state tell me about my own nominal awareness?

Would you give us an example of sadistic and masochistic? And ristualistic stuff, an example?

Ignore this if it is too personal.

 

[TBerg]

Well, if I don't do certain daily tasks, such as washing the dishes or cleaning the house, then I feel like a piece of shit until I do something correctly again to rectify it, but the guilt does not really go away. I think that if I do something correctly again, which I consider somewhat ritualistic, then everything will be a lot better. Sometimes there is a sort of running commentary in my head that describes how I feel. Sometimes there is a voice that insults me and other people. Sometimes there is a voice that tells me I don't deserve anything. I used to take a lot of my internal goings-on quite seriously, but I have restrained a lot of it. Now I am more anhedonic than anything, after seeing so much of what I am come to complete shit. Looking back, I did not enjoy things the way other people enjoy things. It was usually somewhat hypomanic.

I also used to think that I had control over ball games and fixing technical devices. Quintessentially magical thinking. I also used to think that I was Jesus, and that I would bring the world to a new order. (That's terribly embarrassing.) Imagine climbing down from that pedestal!

I don't recommend my state of mind to anyone who does not have a somewhat adaptive outlet for their experiences, though. I am no artist.

 

[TBerg]

My childish impulses like gangsta-speak, though, as well as world dominators and messianic political preachers.

 

[The Introvert]

So I did not abandon the search until I had become fully satisfied that the thief is a more astute man than myself

 

[TBerg]

So I did not abandon the search until I had become fully satisfied that the thief is a more astute man than myself

I still don't get it. Is this just a general statement, or does it relate more directly to the content of the thread? This is my third time pondering this statement of yours, but it is not the charm. I am still trying to tie it to something in this thread.

 

[EditorOne]

Tberg, no depth or texture to my remarks, just: Don't be so hard on yourself. Think of all the things you're down on yourself about and ask what's really so bad about them? Like "lazy." Here's a story: US Grant, the general, (who was quite possibly an INTP, for lots of reasons I won't go into) was asked once what qualities he valued as an adjutant, the "executive officer" of a regiment. He said "intelligent and lazy." His explanation was that the job required someone who knew what needed to be done and was lazy enough to make sure someone else actually did it. That way an active intelligence was constantly on top of the regiment's status and issues, and never burdened by the need to actually do some of the identified tasks.
Isn't that slick?
Will you ever think of laziness the same way again?

You haven't fucked up your life. Just walk two steps sideways and look at it again.

 

[TBerg]

Tberg, no depth or texture to my remarks, just: Don't be so hard on yourself. Think of all the things you're down on yourself about and ask what's really so bad about them? Like "lazy." Here's a story: US Grant, the general, (who was quite possibly an INTP, for lots of reasons I won't go into) was asked once what qualities he valued as an adjutant, the "executive officer" of a regiment. He said "intelligent and lazy." His explanation was that the job required someone who knew what needed to be done and was lazy enough to make sure someone else actually did it. That way an active intelligence was constantly on top of the regiment's status and issues, and never burdened by the need to actually do some of the identified tasks.
Isn't that slick?
Will you ever think of laziness the same way again?

You haven't fucked up your life. Just walk two steps sideways and look at it again.

Thank you. You are kind and not without inspiration.

 

[TBerg]

Today I felt more alienated from reality than usual. So much felt like a psychic energy attack. I don't feel like going into more details of what happened, but I do really need some validation of myself. My life experience is different from others. I feel like my endeavors are not recognized. I feel like the few assertions of my talent in trying to help others go to shit. I feel like everyone just does the same stupid thing over and over again. Everyone is part of this problem called reality. Sometimes I think my gift to the world would be to die without reproducing. Thank you for letting me use this talk therapy.

 

[Variform]

Graham Hancock, a man both intelligent and wise believes that this life is a great opportunity. I agree.

Think about it. And use logic. He and I agree - though feeling it internally is another issue - that to be born as human on Earth, having this self-relfective consciousness, surely is a great boon. To be alive is such a chance occurrence. You might never have been. Think about how many are never born. But once you emerge from the world, you are there.

And you have all these choices. This is a garden world. You can grow as a person. And you live the life only you can live. No one can replace you. Your unique experience of the world are really that, unique. There is no substitution.

Our consciousness is a fractal. It scales up and down yet has the same characteristics on all levels. You look at a bee on a flower and experience a range of thoughts and feelings. Branching off in your mind are connections unique to you in that moment, despite the fact somewgere else someone looks at a bee on a flower.

And then you watch the news and see a jungle entering into spring and it is the same thing as the flower and the bee, you experience the event in ways no one else can. The scale is different, but our minds fractally encompass it.

A loved one dies and it is the same thing as when 100 people die from a disease elsewgere, the pattern is the same. Life, death.

And these voices you learned to live with, they are uniquely your own, yet elsewhere there is another, who has the same sort of issue. And on a larger scale, there are millions.

You are not alienated from reality. You are reality, you are living and thinking consciousness, part of a whole, our race and a special contributor to it. The world, ontologically, deep down in in the roots of what reality is supposed to be, would not be the same without you. You differ but are the same.

And that is not a bad thing. It allows us to communicate. I think that is a good thing, to share this Earth between people and see if we can bounce off some noticeable awesomeness off each other. Every endeavor you ever was part of the process that brought you here and is therefore significant.

Reality is not a problem. It is an opportunity. We will die. And move on. However, this is a unique place, to be on a world racing through space at what, 30.000 km/h, warmed by the sun, full of life in varieties that boggle the mind, surely should bring tears to ones eyes just realizing it.

If your gift to the world is not to have kids, then you are in doing so helping to create a better world, one or two consumers less, you are part of a movement of people that realize these things. It might feel like a bad thing, but I will never have kids. And yet, there is room to realize that it is okay.

 

[TBerg]

Oddly enough, while slacking off and watching stuff about the Church of Scientology and its cult-like practices, and then looking at an independent site sympathetic to Scientology, I found inspiration in it. Scientology spokespeople emphasize the ability to get people off of drugs using nutrition and exercise. That inspired me to get off my ass and start working out on a really serious basis again. Then I discovered that Scientology considers introversion a kind of way of looking at yourself with no content that can help you move forward. They consider it a cruel endeavor. This fits in with their anti-Psychiatric paradigm. No fucking free association. Not thinking about becoming a cultish extrovert, but their strange perspective seemed to have opened me up to more during the day.

Last week, I also talked crazy shit with my best friend after drinking beer after beer a few nights in a row. We had great times. We are both pretty fucked up, but also try to do the right things. She gave me Xanax, which gave me serious side-effects afterwards. At any rate, it was great to have a respite from my family as well as a journey through different planes of existence, with a compensatory Scientology bonus afterwards!

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

What is your enneagram type?

 

[TBerg]

What is your enneagram type?

When I seem to be in a Feeling grip, I definitely notice Six characteristics. When I am more like an INTP, I go into more like a Five observation mode. Sometimes I think enneagram is too much like astrology, though.