The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Is "schizoid personality disorder" a real thing that the medical industry can help me with? I did some psychometric testing a while ago and was told I might have that -- I suspect primarily based on some questionnaire responses where I indicated that I was content with not really having any friends or engaging in any social activities. (I still mostly feel that way, but it's a bit of a panic whenever I need to scrounge up an emergency contact or a personal reference for something, and I sometimes wonder if it's like one of those Mr. Beast videos where a guy sees color for the first time and can finally appreciate the full richness and beauty of human existence.)
I'll caveat that most online and some in-person psychometric tests are little more serious than Myers-Briggs. So don't overthink it.
To second Throwaway05, it's one of the situations where the neurodiversity and diagnosis-as-a-social-thing arguments are strongest. Most personality disorders are extremes of common personality types taken to such a point that they interfere with normal functioning, and schizoid (and to a lesser extent, schizotypal personality disorder) are the places where that division is fuzziest. Very few people with even deep schizoid personality types actually have disordered thinking or even dislike their social adaptations; the extent that the disorder even 'causes' problems, it's mostly from non-schizoids marginalizing them, combined with a sort of failed stoicism.
So the second matter worth evaluating is what your problem or problems actually are.
If your problem is just that you're missing social references, schizoids can absolutely develop friends and acquaintances. It's just that it's something they have to work at, even more than neurotypicals. On the upside, if you actually try to do it, it's a lot less stressful, because you don't need it. On the downside, it's always going to be some effort, and it's always going to be something you'll want to put off for tomorrow until several months pass. Online relationships tend to be easier(ish), but there are benefits to schizoids actually having meatspace friends, not least of all that it makes it much easier to distinguish between friend and acquaintances and rando-in-same-circles.
((For similar reasons, I'll recommend a lot of not-social-animal people, whether schizoid or just loners, take a class focused on public speaking, or join a Toastmasters club, or volunteer for education groups: you won't develop the skills and confidence needed unless you do it badly first, and your natural instincts will prevent you from trying it at all.))
If your problem's the failed stoicism - and I would strongly recommend seriously and critically looking at your life plans, as painful as it is, if you genuinely believe you fall on the schizoid spectrum - then that's... going to be harder. It's a personality type that shies away from that sort of hard self-criticism of one's own future plans, and it's important, and it's never going to be easy without the neurotic personality traits that make normal people find it hard to stop thinking about.
If your problem's that you want to want social activity, that's the hardest. The only real arguments I've seen along those lines are just 'fake it til you make it', and most people who try that never really make it. Even those who make the mask fit, get into a kinda ugly squeeze between liking the social activities and just finding them as a responsibility that they can't avoid.
((Uh, mainstream arguments.))
I would also discourage the use of hallucinogens and marijuana for people who believe that they're schizoid (or schizotypal), either as a disorder or merely as a personality type. The supposed link to full-blown schizophrenia seems to spurious or a common shared factors matter, but at minimum the resulting impact on motivation and focus are more debilitating for people without the grounding of other social events and schedules.
I think this is a really stellar comment!
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