The Secret Schizoid

May 29, 2009

I conveniently forgot to tell my friends that when I was in high school, someone did this psychological test on me, and the findings showed that I was a schizoid. What with my brother already showing real symptoms of schizophrenia back then, I didn't take the test result seriously. Our household doesn't have enough room for two crazy people under one roof.

Back then, especially during my high school days, I've always had this feeling that I am different from my classmates. That my thoughts and emotions aren't the same (that feeling persists up to the present). And it didn't help that for a while I was ostracized by my classmates and even by my closest friends.

I was actually waiting for the signs of schizophrenia to manifest themselves since I learned that I have a 10% risk factor for having it too. But they should've appeared before I turned 21 so I guess I'm safe. From schizophrenia at least.

I've been taking online tests to determine whether I really have this condition or not and I've always tried to answer the questions as honestly as I could. I know they're not really that reliable, but at least they may give me some more light onto my psychological condition. Better than not knowing anything at all, right? And wow, the results showed that aside from being a schizoid, I also have other personality disorders.

I am not really proud of it (who would?) but it is a comfort to know that there is a valid scientific explanation for why I've been behaving erratically all my adult life. The sad thing is, this feeling of "relief" is itself, a part of my psychological disorder.

Let's go over the symptoms of my condition and tell me if I'm wrong about myself:

SELF-CONCEPT

• cynical (I really don't know if I am)
• inauthentic (Dunno)
• depersonalized (Don't think so)
• alternately feeling empty robot-like and full of omnipotent, vengeful fantasies (True)
• hidden grandiosity (Very true! Albums anyone?)

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS

• exquisitely sensitive (True!)
• deeply curious about others (Chikadora)
• hungry for love (Need I say more?)
• envious of others' spontaneity (No)
• intensely needy of involvement with others (Quite)
• capable of excitement with carefully selected intimates (...No)

SOCIAL ADAPTATION

• lack clarity of goals (100% true)
• weak ethnic affiliation (Correct)
• usually capable of steady work (Uh huh)
• sometimes quite creative and may make unique and original contributions (Haha!)
• capable of passionate endurance in certain spheres of interest (Of course!)

LOVE AND SEXUALITY

• secret voyeuristic interests (Hihi)
• vulnerable to erotomania (Hahaha! Nakakahiya man but SO true)
• tendency towards compulsive perversions (...)

ETHICS, STANDARDS, AND IDEALS

• moral unevenness (I can accept that about me)
• occasionally strikingly amoral and vulnerable to odd crimes, at other times altruistically self sacrificing (I can see myself like that)

COGNITIVE STYLE

• autistic thinking (I can't say)
• fluctuations between sharp contact with external reality and hyperreflectiveness about the self (They happen)
• autocentric use of language (I don't know what that word means)

Here's something which disturbs me for some reason:

"...there are many fundamentally schizoid individuals who present with an engaging, interactive personality style which contradicts the timidity, reluctance, or avoidance of the external world and interpersonal relationships as emphasized by the DSM-IV and ICD-10 definitions of the schizoid personality. Klein classifies these individuals as secret schizoidswho present themselves as socially available, interested, engaged, and involved in interacting in the eyes of the observer, while at the same time, he or she is apart, emotionally withdrawn, and sequestered in a safe place in his or her own internal world. So, while withdrawnness or detachment from the outer world is a characteristic feature of schizoid pathology, it is sometimes overt and sometimes covert. While it is overt it matches the usual description of the schizoid personality offered in the DSM-IV. According to Klein, though, it is "just as often" a covert, hidden internal state of the patient in which what meets the objective eye may not be what is present in the subjective, internal world of the patient. Klein therefore cautions that one should not miss identifying the schizoid patient because one cannot see the patient’s withdrawnness through the patient’s defensive, compensatory, engaging interaction with external reality. Klein suggests that one need only ask the patient what his or her subjective experience is in order to detect the presence of the schizoid refusal of emotional intimacy. Descriptions of the schizoid personality as hiddenbehind an outward appearance of emotional engagement have long been recognized, beginning with Fairbairn's (1940) description of 'schizoid exhibitionism' in which he remarked that the schizoid individual is able to express quite a lot of feeling and to make what appear to be impressive social contacts but in reality giving nothing and losing nothing, because since he is only playing a part his own personality is not involved."


Oh reader. I really don't know.

Maybe. Maybe not.

An open-ended entry.