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Hypnotized
Snowy Owl
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22 Apr 2021, 9:59 pm

It's been a while since I've been on here and a lot has happened. I've recently been thinking a lot about my personality and questioning why I am the way I am. I looked up personality disorders and came across the Wikipedia page for Schizoid Personality Disorder. A whole new world opened up to me, it was as if I was reading a manual to my own personality.

I'll be referring to my 2 sides as the Partaker & the Spectator now. In reality they don't really have names, it's just to make it easier on the reader.
Also no, this isn't just conscious and subconscious. They are separate identities.

2 different sides
As for now, I think of myself in 2 parts. The 'Partaker' is the body that's learned to interact with the outside world and properly function in society. If I had the choice though, I would much rather not take part in society at all. I'd much rather be invisible, without others knowing I exist. The 'Spectator' is the part of myself I identify with. I don't really show the Spectator side of me a lot, because when I see people I automatically have the Partaker take care of my life.

This specific part of myself I only realized last week. I went home with a friend and had them do sexual things to me. He repeatedly asked me for consent, but I just couldn't say no. As he was doing things to me I was literally trying to reconnect the wires in my head. It felt as if the Partaker and the Spectator were disconnected in such a way, I couldn't bring myself to do anything about the situation I was in. On the way home I did some thinking, and came to the realization I have the part of me that deals with life, and I have the part of myself I identify with. The Partaker is incredibly dumb and socially awkward. Even as social situations are happening, the Spectator knows exactly what to say, and the Partaker says completely different things. I'm not sure why, I guess it's as if being autistic blocks the Spectator out in social situations that need them the most.

I honestly just wish I didn't have to be in social situations. I wish I didn't have to go to work, have people stare at me or approach me when I'm outside. I wish I could live as the Spectator, completely leave the Partaker behind. Unfortunately that's not how life works.

Emotional coldness
I don't get emotionally attached to anything. The only people I am emotionally attached to, are my mom, dad and my brother. Anything outside of that, I will either just brush off, or have the Spectator deal with it (aka still brushing it off). Nothing gets to me when it's not related to family. If I could not have emotions at all I'd rather not, though I feel as if I'm close enough anyway. A lot of people confuse my emotional coldness as being down / depressed, but this is not the case. I'm never happy, I'm never sad. I'm just always 'okay'. Sometimes I feel as if that makes me better than other people, because people cry over things that I wouldn't even turn my head twice for. I've lost the ability to be empathic or understanding towards other people over time, and I don't mind it. Those who I consider 'friends' know they shouldn't come to me for emotional support.

This only scratches the surface of why I think I have Schizoid Personality Disorder. I would rather do activities by myself, I have a very rich imagination and daydream a lot, I have extreme kinks but rarely act upon them because I'm not interested in partaking in sex, I only have a small handful of friends, and 100% feeling like I'm watching life from a distance, rather than taking part in it (the Spectator is no 3rd person view though, more like watching through the Partakers eyes). Like I said, reading up information about SPD is like reading a manual to my own personality- especially the part about 'secret schizoids'.

Frustration
Even though I feel so strong about these issues, I am very frustrated that I haven't been diagnosed / labeled / stamped with SPD yet. I keep questioning whether I'm making this up, exaggerating it, twisting & spinning it and so on. That's the only reason I'm currently seeking a psychiatrist. Getting stamped with SPD would just enable me to completely own my personality, knowing I'm not imagining things. Until then I'll have to keep questioning myself. I'm not going to seek treatment for it. Just stamp me with the label, or any other label for that matter & I'll move on with my life...
I filled out long form yesterday & their waiting time is about 6-8 weeks currently, thankfully much shorter than I had expected. I'll update once they get back to me.

I just needed to get this out to somebody. I guess I just need people to know the Spectator even exists. They don't really get to show their side a lot.

For some reason the Spectator is genderless, idk why. The Partaker is female and happily female too. There's just not really a gender the Spectator identifies with.



techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
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22 Apr 2021, 10:21 pm

TY for sharing this.

I've wanted to know more about other... lets say profoundly formative... sets and settings, the world as it is right now really makes me wonder how many human modalities might hold keys to what could be done differently.

From what your talking about though it reminds me of Iain McGilchrist's 'Master and His Emissary' having a sharp divide and it's a bit like your locus of consciousness might be running from the right side rather than the left.


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magz
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23 Apr 2021, 3:45 am

I don't know what labels are correct but your Spectator and Partaker sides are relatable to what I called "layers" in myself:
One layer experiencing violent emotions
and
One layer observing and making notes.

My actions were controlled by the observer because it was a lot safer this way.

I remember it since at least 4th-5th grade but at some point in adulthood, they got so disconnected from each other that it led me to becoming completely unfunctional, resulting in my misdiagnosis.

I find it generally some form of dissociative disorder. A way of coping with reality that was often a torture for me but I knew no other reality and I had to function in it.
Rare moments when the two got connected felt like mystical revelations.

A lot of my therapy - after I got out of the misdiagnosis and found a competent psychologist - focused on connecting the two layers back again and learning to
1. understand the messages the emotional layer was sending - they often hinted my needs;
2. care for my needs properly instead of cutting myself out from the reality.

Kind of, my layers learn to work together to be the full me.


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alpacka
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07 May 2021, 10:08 am

Schizoid is unfortunately not common these days to be diagnosed with as before.


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