one thing that i'll never understand is that when like autistic people mask they're not trying to deceive anyone and it's sad they've been forced to mask because of social pressures (obviously) but when people with personality disorders mask they're automatically trying to "manipulate" everyone around them so that they can "abuse" them and "trick" them ??? like what

I think something that often gets overlooked about the Lonely is that it isn’t just the fear of being rejected, abandoned, and unloved.

It is that, but it’s also the heavy sense of dread that settles in your bones when you realize that whatever danger you’re in, you have to deal with it on your own. It’s the realization that no one is around to hear you scream and that no one is coming to save you. It’s the feeling of calling emergency services (911, 119, etc.) and asking the operator when help is coming, only to be told that no one is coming, because they’re all tied up on other calls right now, so it may be another hour or so before anyone gets to you. It’s the visceral terror you feel when you finally realize that the help you need is never going to come, or if it does, they won’t be there until it’s already too late for you. It’s realizing that you’ll never see your loved ones again, and wondering if anyone will ever find your body, if anyone is going to care that you’re gone, if anyone is ever going to find out what happened to you, if anyone is even going to realize that you’re dead.

Me: I really wish I had a deeper connection to this friend. Maybe I should just tell them about my psychological struggles and bond with them over it?

Me to me: Create a fake scenario in your head where all of this happens in the perfect way without ever actually sharing the information with them

Me: Omg, you're a genius. *Spends the rest of the time daydreaming to avoid socializing*

can you explain what szpd is from the perspective of someone who has it?

szpd from the perspective of a schizoid is having a difficult time expressing and feeling different emotions, to the point that I usually just describe myself as "empty" because the way I feel emotions is much different than non-schizoids. I'm also not "empty" all the time, emotion (or a schizoids version of emotion) can visit, but it's not often.

I prioritize my worlds I've created through daydreaming, and will go hours in these worlds. I don't need external validation much, if any at all. I have literally caught myself thinking "Why does the outer world matter if I have these worlds inside of me? I could just daydream all day!"

I don't really care for socializing, but will do it to make the people around me feel more comfortable and less awkward. (Also I have only recently learned that when asked how your day was, you are socially obligated to ask the question back! Who knew!)

Some schizoids will be different with their experience obviously, so this is just one of many examples.

being schizoid is like "uhm here starts my personal space, let me now daydream and chill by myself"

i've often tried to explain why i'm friend-repulsed – what is so uniquely distressing about friendship to me, compared to other interpersonal bonds – so here's one part of it.

friendships feel distinct from other types of relationships in that they usually start without any agreements, and can be entered into without even realizing. growing up, this was frightening to me; to hear a teacher declare we had to be friends with every student in the classroom, or to be called friends with someone i was just polite or kind to. when i did see models of “people asking if they can be your friend”, it was in children's books about how rejecting them makes you a bully. there was, and is, no escape. to suddenly hear that someone considered me a friend, and that i would be an evil oath-breaker if i left them or failed to be a “good friend” or sat there and did nothing at all, was bone-chilling. i made no oath!

i'm a scrupulous person, and i was even worse as a kid, so my society's friendship norms hurt me a lot. i didn't have any cultural example of how to say “no” to “do you want to be my friend?”, no script to turn down a kind and well-intentioned request for friendship, no means of egress that didn't make me a villain. i would regularly end up in – what seemed to me – servitude to some other child, not sure how i got there but unable to leave until they lost interest in me. i felt bent to the will of one person after the other, each one oblivious to how i felt their every friendly action as suffocating, consuming, as knives carving me into an empty statue who would do what they wanted. i was given no model for negotiating a friendship contract, but always reminded that there was a contract, one that i could not see or understand or alter.

...of course, there are always unspoken rules in social interaction, and culturally-approved coercion, and awful norms around consent. but there's something about how harmless friendship is seen as, and how socially discouraged it is to deny it, that hurt me a lot. i didn't have a drive towards friendships, so my friends were decided by whichever child was pushy and domineering enough, and i assumed that was just how things worked. i never even noticed when my friends actually treated me unfairly, because all of it hurt so much that i couldn't tell the difference. until i found the apl community, i couldn't find the language or ideas to even begin to think about it!

i think in most possible worlds, i would still be aplatonic. but it's this – my own experience of friendship as an inescapable torment, tearing chunks out of myself and offering them to whoever was strong enough, while the adults around me called me “such a good friend” – that made me friend-repulsed.

I know someone that calls people their best friend upon a day of meeting them. Do people not get tired of faking? Pretending you love and care for someone? Are you really so desperate for friendships and connections that you will believe such an obvious lie, enjoy it, or even tell such lies of “you’re my best friend” to someone you met 1-2 days ago?

what schizoid traits do you see in sayaka?

Ah, I think that Sayaka is canonically closer to a BPD interpretation, so the schizoid traits I see in her are more comorbid with the latter itself. Personally, however, it is more so of my own comfort to headcanon Sayaka as "schizoid" because of the themes of her alienation. Sayaka struggles with reconnecting with others and forming relationships that she desires, all the while isolating herself further and further away from her childhood best friend, Madoka. There are also codes of apathy and indifference regarding how she perceives her own body (a corpse) as an inhuman mobile, and how she eventually succumbs to her loneliness, a sentiment that carries over even to her witch form. As Oktavia, she drowns out reality by confining herself in a world she created - being in the centre of attention on a stage, something that she would not have achieved in the "human" reality. I think how Sayaka perceives reality and how she fails to be in tune with other magical girls is the biggest buzzer here. A person so out of place among even those with magic (as she is inexperienced, unstable and regarded as ineffective compared to the rest of the Holy Quintet), yet rejected as a human with the idea that she is inherently undesirable and unlovable, which perpetuates her mechanisms of "I can't be loved because I am not human and therefore I will not maintain any meaningful relationships".

As opposed to explicit traits, I feel that there are "codes" with her character/arc which resonate with my experiences more.

I feel why szpd is less well documented (and widely known) is because it's one of the most harmless personality disorders. It brings the least harm to the people around you. Any harm would come in a subtle way, and it isn't something someone would be madly concerned over, including the schizoid individual themself. What bothers the most is the frustration of being the way you are, the lack of understanding and acceptance from others.

I think most of the harm szpd can cause to other people is through passivity - the lack of interest in interaction. In our presence, they would only feel uncomfort, annoyance, confusion or self-doubt by our lack of engagement, all of which can be solved by simply distancing yourself from the schizoid individual, who aren't known to chase after people either. Simply ignore them like how we ignored them in the first place. The amount of input has to be equal, nothing receiving nothing. Szpd doesn't actively bring harm through interaction, it passively does it through disengagement. And can it harm any relationships if bridges were never built in the first place? But those who were misled by the act of masking would be hurt the most out of all. Lacking a will to maintain relationships, you wouldn't start any of them either unless it's unavoidable. This way whatever harm that might come is minimalized, but this act itself is arguably what brings the most harm, disengagement.

people online love saying things like, unpopular opinion but introverts actually suck. Or, if you're quiet you need to work on that no one likes people who don't interact with them.

And it's like??? Duh? This is not actually unpopular at all lmao like yeah people hate introverts and quiet people and people with lackluster presence. At no point in time has there been like introvert supremacy or whatever.

my relentless cycle of oh god i dont want people to be afraid of me or think im Too crazy and then a person approaches me and i am like doing the most insane bullshit

Dr Who: The Brigadier is a silly military man. He's stubborn, and unflappable, and extremely loyal to the Doctor and his men (soldiers). This man can deal with anything, like a champ. Water off his back, yknow?

Lethbridge-Stewart books: This dude is getting traumatised every single day and he doesn't get a moment's break. Anything that could happen to him, will. Will he cope with the trauma? not really. He's a resilient dude, but he'll just pretend most of it didn't happen, for his own sanity

SzPD culture is attracting people who are emotionally dependent and have a strong need for emotional support while you want them to leave you alone cause you can't provide any of that

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if i said i was doing iasip deep dives and am feeling a spiritual connection to dennis reynolds would you guys still love me.

being ( possibly ) schizophrenic and a horror fan sucks so fucking bad dude

analog horrors are one of my major interests and i recently watched the boiled one phenomenon and for the first time in awhile i was actually Disturbed by something and everything was fine until it got to be really late at night... i usually go to bed between 10-11 and i was up until 12-1 two nights in a row because i so scared to turn off my lights or go into my bathroom to shower because i was convinced that ugly red bitch was gonna GET ME!!!!!!!!!!! i haven't been so paralyzed by fear in such a long time and i wonder why it even happened in the first place... but it definitely confirmed that i need counseling or medication or something.