Schizoid INTPs and immortality

[ZenRaiden]

Not sure where to start, but I will ask how many INTPs might be schizoid?

You might ask what schizoid means so here is my take on it. Whereas there are many theories why this personality type exists most agree that it is to certain degree a dyfunctional personality problem and causes problems in life, mainly not enjoying social life as much and relationships, romantic or intimate on any level.

The basis for schizoid label is that it is an extreme form of introversion leading people to be intensily preoccupied with internal life and not with outside world leading to not experiencing human interaction or life in full emotional scale, but rather in dull robotic matter. Indifferent to praise or criticism and mostly preoccupied with oneself schizoid lives out life mostly in fantasy and avoids people not just because of some sort of anxiety, but because of intense dissatisfaction with human emotions and behaviour that simply makes schizoids sneeze like a man allergic to a cat.

So I assume lot of INTPs might be schizoid, because for one they indeed have Fe as fourth function ( assuming you believe in functions and accept this rather ad hoc explanation) or infact in general many INTPs stray from social life not just because of absent mindedness, but because of intense dissatisfaction with the results and inappropriate expectations of their own state of mind. So lot of INTPs just hate putting themselves out there when they really just want to sit alone and think. Hermits or narcissist, it doesnt matter, schizoids have emotions and live a interesting life its just not understood. OK thats an understatement. Its completely met with hostility by mental health people and as well in general society.

You might ask why would a loner want to be alone if not for being mentally deranged. Here we arent talking about being busy with work or occupied with ideas, but rather with the fact that schizoids prefer to interact from distance afar as if from behind glass wall.

Now you might be asking why used the word immortality in my thread title and I am getting to that in a moment. First of all some psychoanalytical idiots ( Well technically they arent idiots, but sure as hell have lot of psychoanalyitical baggage with them and always pull out some Freudian tool out of it trying tell you that all you want is sex with your mother), but they are completely off base as far as I am concerned. Schizoids are considered narcissistic in that they have fragile egos and lack the proper gut reaction. The fact is it is none of that, nor is it about self adoration on basis of preserving one self.

However it might get confusing right now, because now we are getting to the immortality part. Schizoids hate to be vurnelabl, and hate to redefine their own relationship with the world. IN fact schizoids prefer to live in sort of incubators. THey prefer to be untouched by the enviroment. They love their internal bubble and prefer it over the rigid life style of constantly flexing social muscle trying to fit in and divide attention between themselves and others. They cannot integrate others into their internal bubble and hate to contaminate it with anything alien to themselves. Thats truly confusing as schizoids are humans as any other, its just that the emotions they have must not touch or interact. Its simply the fact of life for schizoids that they never want to change and consider it sort of death on to their psyche. Schizoids maybe outgoing and outspoke and consistently extroverted as if they really are, but they do it only to mask the fact they dont fit in really and its sort of miming technique in oder to not get their precious world contaminated and flooded by emotions of others they cannot deal with. The true only advantage of schizoid people is their ability to turn of their mentalizing mind in order to not get it hacked by reactive people.

The true goal of schizoid is the fear of death and by overcoming this fear, by preserving the sense of self that they posses. This is not based on just ego, but their whole understanding where they fit in. SO where do they fit in exactly. Well nowhere and thats exactly the point. They dont fit, because their egos are rigid and unflexible so trying to have a vurnebal schizoid is like trying to squeez a round peg through a square hole. All in all its a disaster and it wont work.
Schizoids hate emotional, intellectual or even physical vurnelability. They avoid it like plague. Its not that they dont realise or infact think they are immortal, or that they are infact superior or they think themselves as truly capable of living in a bubble. Its just that the affirmation of real world that we indeed must die one day incapable of preserving our vurnelabl selfs means to us the great discomfort in everyday life. These mentalizations of fear of death leads us to go further astray from normal life, but it doesnt give us discomfort. It would would be a normal life that would lead to discomfort.

 

[Cogitant]

Well according to this test: http://illnessquiz.com/schizoid-personality-disorder-test/

"You have 100% chances of schizoid personality disorder."

Also FYI I don't fear death, but I'm pretty morbid.
I see decay everywhere and am poignantly aware of human mortality.
I do believe in infinity/immortality, however, Perhaps not of the ego, but of the [multi/uni]verse.

 

[Jennywocky]

While INTPs share traits that traditionally line up with Schizoid disorder, please remember that a disorder is actually pretty damn disordered... it prevents you from functioning in life to a very large degree. So having some of the symptoms but still being able to function successfully means you probably are not clinically disordered.

There's a difference in severity between feeling depressed, likewise, and in having Depressive Disorder. And so on.

People are too quick to self-diagnose themselves as having a psychological illness based on pages they read on the Internet. It's one of the Con's of the internet, versus a benefit.

A real psychiatrist who has seen hundreds or thousands of patients are usually far more aware of the severity difference.

 

[Rixus]

Well according to this test: http://illnessquiz.com/schizoid-personality-disorder-test/

"You have 100% chances of schizoid personality disorder."

"You have 65% chances of Schizoid personality disorder."
Some of those questions are pretty stupid. Do you get better results when you work alone? Well, yes because I'm surrounded by incompetent stupid people. Do you have less interest in sex? Seemingly so compared to the rabid dog mentality, but not really I just have control over myself. I'd expect any introvert with above average intellect to score highly on this test.

Back to the thread topic:

I agree with Jenny. The problem with Dr Google is that we can spend hours diagnosing ourselves with everything under the sun. I know we all like to think ourselves pretty smart, but there's a reason an MD spends years studying their field. I wouldn't presume to tell an astrophysicist how to interpret a radio telescopic image just because I'd read about it on the internet, and the same applies to any self diagnosis. It's no different to the time my next door neighbour thought he had a debilitating life threatening illness and got himself all worked up, but it turned out to be hay fever.

I went through a stage of trying to diagnose myself with a mental disorder. I always figured the reason I didn't fit in anywhere had to me and not the rest of the world as I was the odd one out - and that meant trying to find the right mental disorder. I fitted Avoidant Personality Disorder pretty well, maybe Schizoid I wasn't sure, Asberger's or some other form of high functioning ASD was possible, as was depressive Personality Disorder, maybe even Stizotypical when I'm at my most introverted, but what if I was just Dysthymic or was it just social anxiety? I cold go on.

The problem with personality disorders is they're so easy to diagnose. Around 25% of people fit the diagnostic criteria for at least one. Are 25% of people really mentally ill or are we putting far too much stock in any deviation from the norm? Because everyone is not the same, and any deviation from normality is not a disorder. You only have a mental disorder when it causes severe functional issues in your life.

You sound as though you want to be one - you speak of them almost in admiration. As if you view it as a mental strength rather than a disorder. If you really believe you have serious issues in your life and feel that you have difficulty functioning in the real world, you should speak to your doctor. They're the ones qualified to tell you, so go to an expert in the field rather reading what's on the internet. And my experience is that you should NEVER under any circumstances consult a mental health forum. Seriously, never ever ever go to one. Everyone on them is self diagnosed, lying about medication and treatment and giving advice from Wikipedia or even worse, from some random blog they've found.

 

[Cognisant]

I think the desire for immortality is a desire to overcome vulnerability entirely, to make everything and everyone else irrelevant, if time heals all wounds then perhaps with the passing of eons the free-spirited openness of innocence can be restored.

 

[ZenRaiden]

You sound as though you want to be one - you speak of them almost in admiration. As if you view it as a mental strength rather than a disorder. If you really believe you have serious issues in your life and feel that you have difficulty functioning in the real world, you should speak to your doctor. They're the ones qualified to tell you, so go to an expert in the field rather reading what's on the internet. And my experience is that you should NEVER under any circumstances consult a mental health forum. Seriously, never ever ever go to one. Everyone on them is self diagnosed, lying about medication and treatment and giving advice from Wikipedia or even worse, from some random blog they've found.

Jenny and you have good point. But you have to understand that I am seeing a mental health professional. Its not me, its them. I never would have said that I have schizoid personality disorder.

Its all a controversial topic, because schizoids often dont come to a doctor with this problem. Niether did I. Very few if any get diagnosed because of the disorder. Many go to the doctor with different problems and end up with this diagnosis.
Sort of like going to a doctor for a routine check up or because of some pain or something and the doctor telling you that you have cancer and have to go to chemotherapy.
The difference obviously being that schizoids dont die like cancer patients do.
Many think its a cultural thing and not a real disorder. Its just a personality type that was considered disorder because of social expectations rather than actual distress.

 

[ZenRaiden]

While INTPs share traits that traditionally line up with Schizoid disorder, please remember that a disorder is actually pretty damn disordered... it prevents you from functioning in life to a very large degree.

According to them it does prevent me from functioning. I am not sure about that.

 

[Rixus]

What I wonder is the Schizoid Personality Disorder doesn't technically exist anymore. It hasn't for a few years since the DSM-V, I think. There is Avoident Personality Disorder with Schizoid tendencies. But it's not really resembling a lot of the reasoning you mentioned.

Not sure where you're from, though. I know in the UK they wouldn't have told you. The policy is just to say "a personality disorder" and they don't tell you which one for specifically the reason of how much you've analysed it. It's mostly for the benefit of the psychologist so that they know which areas to concentrate on and how to approach your issues. Best suggestion is to try to let the psychiatrist help you.

 

[ZenRaiden]

What I wonder is the Schizoid Personality Disorder doesn't technically exist anymore. It hasn't for a few years since the DSM-V, I think. There is Avoident Personality Disorder with Schizoid tendencies. But it's not really resembling a lot of the reasoning you mentioned.

Not sure where you're from, though. I know in the UK they wouldn't have told you. The policy is just to say "a personality disorder" and they don't tell you which one for specifically the reason of how much you've analysed it. It's mostly for the benefit of the psychologist so that they know which areas to concentrate on and how to approach your issues. Best suggestion is to try to let the psychiatrist help you.

Id like to know why that is. I didnt notice that DSM V doesnt have it. I am not from US nor UK.
Id also like to mention they didnt tell me anything either at first.
If I didnt ask they probably wouldnt have told me either.

Also note that reasoning about disorder of mental nature is much based on many tangential facts that come from observations of habits and outcomes. There is really no rational framework for these things.
Like in a disorder there are lot of subjective factors that cannot and never can be objectively validated. They cannot be uncovered unless you accept that there is lot of subjective stuff happening there that people just dont understand.
Jung considered these subjective factors same as did Freud and that essentially became a psychoanalytic school of thought. They were wrong about lot of stuff. Its likely that. They helped a lot of people, but they fall short of helping lot of people too. Thus psychoanalysis is doomed to be a complete subjective mind game.

For example happiness can be measured objectively to some degree. It can also be a very subjective experience that has no measuring stick.