Ever feel like you have social schizophrenia?
Sometimes I can't tell what is real and what is in my head when it comes to social interactions. As an example...
A friend and I (also an aspie) were walking through his apartment complex just a few minutes ago. We were engaged in a conversation about warfare and population dynamics, so did not pay a lot of attention to the cute girl walking toward us. As our paths met, she stopped and waited a moment for us to pass. It occurred to me later that she stopped just in front of us, faced us, made eye contact with me, and smiled. We both presumed that she was just waiting patiently for us to pass so that she could use the sidewalk we were occupying. But, was this an opening for us to say hi? Was she interested in one or both of us? We analyzed the situation, but he admitted to not even noticing the things that I did.
However, now I am questioning my memory. Did I just inject the smile into my memory? Was it not really there? Did she actually face us? Was she just dodging us, as he postulated? I can't tell if it was real or not. I certainly have my own hormone-fueled, egotistical reasons for wanting to believe that she did want me to say hi. So, it is entirely possible that I altered the memory to better fit what I would like to have happened.
I can even do this in near-real-time interactions. I often feel like I really cannot tell what is real and what is not when it comes to social interaction, at least when it pertains to women. I have social schizophrenia.
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My Aspie score: 119 of 200
My neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 92 of 200
I seem to have both Aspie and neurotypical traits
I know what you are talking about. Once i was in a tv show and the girl of the program asked me something and i was paying attention to other things like usual, then i thought of the question and answered but my partners told me after we got out of there that i got scared when she asked me the question.
i don't remember being scared, i wasn't paying attention but i wasn't scared. Or maybe i was. Still to this day I can't really tell.
“Misunderstanding social situations and interactions are core deficits in schizophrenia,” said Sohee Park, Gertrude Conaway Professor of Psychology.
I had to look up the term "social schizophrenia" to see if it actually existed.
Schizophrenia is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality. Distortions in perception may affect all five senses, including sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch, but most commonly manifest as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking with significant social or occupational dysfunction.
I suppose you can see someone smile and you but your brain interprets it as something else. I know some people have their own definition of social schizophrenia. To wit:
1. As the role of the Community Manager has evolved, a condition has emerged which I call Social Schizophrenia. For those of us who manage multiple communities, and or multiple social profiles, we often take on multiple personalities representing multiple brands, with multiple messages going across multiple channels.
2. My take: Unfortunately, this type of behavior [customer service and customer satisfaction at mismatched levels] is becoming more common as the wave of social media excitement continues to crest. In order to better understand this disorder, I’ve given it a name — “Social Schizophrenia” — which I defined as: Providing levels of service in social media that differ significantly from service levels in other channels
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auntblabby
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