SPD, schizoid personality disorder and autism

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I feel like I fit the criteria for SPD and probably ADHD. SPD is a nasty diagnosis, no one seems to be able to help it, and it's going to be broken down into avoidant personality disorder or schizotypal personality disorder in the next version of the DSM probably. There aren't really proper tests for it. It's basically avoidance of people and lack of emotions.
ADHD I presume is more widely known.
Both of these things if I have them are pretty similar to autism. The major difference is the lack of social ability. Of course, maybe I don't have the social ability I think I have-I don't socialize anymore. I used to at different points in my life, but I was never popular.
Although undiagnosed, my dad for sure has some form of autism (he is THE absent-minded professor, didn't speak apparently until he was like, 5, etc). My mom...I think my mom could honestly fail the Sally Ann test. Her empathy is sorely lacking.

So yeah, don't like socializing, my emotional maturity is non-existent, (but my emotions do exist, but only when they bubble to the surface past my schizoid mask), have concentration and memory problems. So it really sounds like a form of autism, except I'm obviously verbal.

I feel like if I were to displace my emotional processing and move it to, say, language, I wouldn't have made it through school and there would be no question of me not having autism. But this is also all very weird too, because it wasn't until recently that I ever really considered that my entire emotional processing is really, really f****d up. It is normal to me, but I am also incredibly immature and when I don't reign my emotions in tightly to the point of not experiencing them, I functionally seem to fall apart.

this is all just frustrating to me. I have a psychiatrist appointment, first of 2, 1-hour long sessions for me to get assessed...again. Last psychiatrist I saw didn't do anything for me except suggest antidepressants (again with the antidepressants, always the antidepressants) and tell me that I couldn't have therapy there because I would be moving in 2 months and I needed a lot more time in therapy. I am so very nervous for this psychiatrist appointment.

I am very sad that because I lack the ability to convey how I am because I am unaware of it, they will see me, I'll look fine, I'll be able to talk, I'll share eye contact and the whole shebang, they will dismiss any possibility for me to have autism. "Just tell them what you wrote right here!" you say. I wish I could bring that much concentration and memory with me, but I will be unable to.

I feel perhaps like I have supressed my emotions because to experience them while experiencing the rest of the world is too much for me to process, and because of that, I do not have the difficulty that I otherwise would in life, difficulties like being overstimulated. I have largely successfully separated a whole part of myself from my consciousness so that I can deal with the rest of the world, and it only cost me my ability to form relationships and have meaning. Sure, I can form them, I know what to do, but I lack the emotions to go with it so I don't bother to anymore. Is eye contact disturbing for me? No, it's just a thing that if it were to cause me emotional response, I just dump the emotion into the void. Do I know how to read social cues? Yes. Extremely well I think. I hide what seems to be over-sensitivity quite well, unless I'm with family, who I try to avoid like the plague.

Why is it nasty? It seems like the mildest PD to me: no dangerous or flamboyant behavioral issues, no seriously bizarre thought processes.



My understanding is that this is largely due to the people who have it not seeking out or sticking with treatment, not so much as the mental health field failing them. Not sure if that's what you meant.


I hope not; it seems different enough to me.


That's the case with all PDs, though, isn't it? Personality questionnaires like the MMPI are probably helpful.


Depends on why you don't like socializing. Also, I think one could make the argument that schizoid PD involves some stunted emotional functioning.

Print out your post! Or write something up before the appointment. Or just go and say that you lack self-awareness and need to be prompted with lots of questions.