I was thinking, I sometimes just come here out of a need to be heard and recognized as a human being. Pretty pathetic, right?
Before and early in the course of my illness I was very schizoid. I interacted with no one and got my sense of novelty and stuff from roaming around my neighborhood and city. Being schizoid, I think I was very satisfied to just follow my routines and things and attached positive feelings to things like locations and objects (my running shoes, the songs I listened to) and just drew into an unhealthy internal world where I made the rules as to what was important and could control things. But I felt a pesky need for social interaction on occasion, to scratch that itch I came to the internet and looked at sites like facebook and followed vloggers I liked on youtube.
And it makes me think, do those of us who suffer from having limited social interactions supplement or substitute this forum and the internet in general to get our needs met? I know many of us have social interactions outside this site, but also feel that those people must come on here because they have legitimate questions or just feel a sense of connection with us which they don’t feel with normies. I also acknowledge that there are probably as many varied reasons people come here as there are users on the forum, so my situation does not represent everyone elses at all.
But as for those whom it does at some point in their cycle of being active and inactive on here over the years, I pose a question.
Do you feel unsatisfied with your other social areas in life, like non sz forums and social media or actual real life friends in any setting, and do you feel like those interactions have failed to be able to give you the emotional support and cameraderie you get here?
Am I just bsing and overthinking things? In other words, when we start binging and overusing/checking the forum, does it have no meaning other than we us just feeling like doing what we wanna do?
TLDR: When u frequently use the forum, why do u do it? What is driving you to come here?
You can get likes on other sites like facebook too though, from people you actually know irl.
Good point, I also feel that need to have someone’s approval, really anyone at all. I actually have like a heirarchy, so don’t place equal value on people’s attention. So if I get borath’s approval its ten points on my mental scoreboard and far cry’s approval is 15 pts etc.
Makes me wonder if the reason I went insane in the first place was that I was interacting only with myself for months at a time…
Minimal positive human interaction is important for our sanity.
I’m not lonely at all. I have family and friends in reality. But I still came here frequently. I like to come here because interactions with the friends in reality were demanding for me. It always made me tired as I could not follow the pace of my friends. As a Sz person I am less energetic and am a bit slow. Interacting with other Sz people makes me feel comfortable cos we are similar in nenergy level.
Internet interactions are not anywhere in the same field as in person social interaction. However they are still valuable for gaining perspective or sharing ideas/experiences and being able to speak openly and honestly or just plain vent.
I’ll admit it. I’m addicted to this forum. I have only one non virtual friend in the world and I only get to see her rarely because she has advanced Alzheimer’s and has a legal guardian and can’t drive and doesn’t own a car. So I am very isolated. I have two acquaintances that I eat dinner with every night and one of them has very advanced Alzheimer’s and I am paranoid of him. He seems like he doesn’t like me very much and I can’t tell if this is real or if it is my paranoia. These thoughts make me very uncomfortable. I don’t get really bad hate vibes from anyone on this forum. Only non favor vibes.
I am also paranoid and can count my friends off this forum on one hand. I am also unemployed so I don’t really interact meaningfully outside of this forum. It’s been that way sibce before I fell ill so I don’t think its paranoia, its just the way I’m wired. I’m not autistic since childhood, in fact I talk a lot in person, I just have a hard time reading people and listening to them. Or even enjoying their company.
I feel a sense of camaraderie with fellow people with sz and sza. I also am always curious what other people really think. I just get curious how others think. I spent a couple of years on a Christian forum because I liked the idea of sharing my faith with people curious about Christianity. I was hooked on it especially right after I was diagnosed and dropped out. Being on there gave me a sense of purpose. Because I had already read the whole Bible i could look for verses that I vaguely remembered online and find relevant verses for people that were interested in it. But there was an insane amount of hostility on that forum and i eventually stopped going less and frequently . Right now I have a family and a job at my dads office and school and a club I joined so I actually have fairly regular contact with other people. I come here so that I can be around people I relate to
That’s exactly how I felt about being with my frineds in reality. They spoke fast, walked fast while I was slow and felt difficult to react to them. We Sz just lost the ability to be social even though there were plenty of oppotunity for us to get around people.
Well, at least you’ve achieved those important things such as having a family and friends…
You remind me of why I started this topic, or at least one reason why. Because I believe there may be people who are socially integrated but who suffer with feeling different or disconnected from the healthy people they interact with, probably because they have unique and unusual life experiences.
I came here because for many years, I was unable to talk about certain symptoms with anyone around me without a certain amount of fear and lack of understanding.
It was nice to be able to talk about the illness with others who had similar issues. The forum is well run and active enough that it’s almost like a chat, but better.
I also like the diversity of the members and their individual experiences and observations. On top of that, almost everyone is really nice and understanding. And those that may be having a rough time and may be a little on the hostile side keep it to a minimum, where I rarely see any problems come up.
The moderators do a great job keeping things civil and seem to be pretty well-versed when it comes to comments and advice.
My family I live with are my parents and brother. I’m not married or have kids. I’m still kind of connected to society but I’m not super close with anyone outside my family. My mom is also diagnosed with schizophrenia and my sister probably has it too. But they both don’t hear voices and have perfectly normal lives. My sister didn’t get it until after me so she went on Meds right away and lives a completely normal life and my mom didn’t get it until after we were kids.
You have a very interesting family when it comes to the illness! I also have a lot of family history, though no parents. Siblings…we’ll have to wait and see. Late onset schizophrenia is rare, so your mother is an unusual case. Thanks for telling me, I suspect that my adult siblings might develop sz too at some point and stories like yours help me understand the possibilities. Like that they might be worse off or better off than me.
I get a lot of socialization at school, which is good. Also plenty with my family. I kind of look at the forum as my tribe, though - I can talk about things here I don’t elsewhere. Both are important.
I wish I had more real life connections. Most of my connections are going to have to be work related when I get a job and if people don’t want me for that, they only talk to me if they want something. I guess that’s why I like having online relationships more because it feels like there is something more to the interactions.
Honestly, I kept getting hurt too much irl…damn it I’m tearyeyed. My bff had a baby before inwent into the hospital for long qts and had thought I was epileptic but found out I was sz and didn’t visit me or answer texts. My husband talked to her husband and because I was mentally ill she feared for her baby’s life
Plus no family. Not gonna say muchcuz religion…but my dad’s second wife wanted me to “go to camp” to have the demon washed outta me… I know slapon wrist for being a non no, but I thought pertinent. Also I hallucinated at work and then explained to my mgr about illness and was let go the next day with tha assistant mgr of entire co flew in. My boss was at lunch…when he came back and found out what happened, he turned in his notice. My moms in a locked down nursing home cuz raging alcoholic. All my siblings live far away…and I only get out a little.
You guys have fulfilled a need of interaction “ where” I can talk about how ■■■■■■up I am and not say I’m sorry I heard you were sz, I don’t feel safe around you bs. Stigma sux