My depressive-psychotic symptoms lead to a lot of illogical paranoia and intense feelings of never being able to fit in anywhere. They also lead to a lack of pleasure in things most people enjoy; heck, in things I used to enjoy. All of these issues combined can cause me to isolate and kind of withdraw into my “own little world”, so to speak. Not saying this is the healthiest way to cope, but it’s the easiest one to turn to when I’ve reached my limit of dealing with normal life effectively.
I can come across as aloof, even uncaring to people who don’t know why I act like this. It’s never anything personal, but it’s hard to reassure people of that. I’m trying to do better but it seems to be just as hard to try to improve. It’s frustrating knowing this is how I’m widely perceived; it’s really something that I can’t do much about at this moment though I will reiterate that I am trying.
What are things you wish more people understood about the way your illness affects your behavior/life in general?
People are always trying to read my emotions, that irritates me, with flat affect half the time it’s very difficult for people to read me. I wish they would just ask me if they wanted to know how I’m feeling. I don’t like hearing later that they made assumptions based on false information. For them to assume that I have little or no emotion about a subject is wrong and I wish people would understand about flat affect.
Yes, @antidepressant044@Leaf i would wish people would know something about flat affect, and that i have a very normal empathy even though they cant always feel og see it. I’m also regarded aloof, but i’m not, but often confused and out of touch.
@Newlyborn I have a part time job, with periods on benefits, unemployed, when i’m unemployed people see a man in his best age going around and doing nothing and get annoyed. I cant tell them all that its due my schizotypical disorder
I guess as my psychiatrist tells me, that it simply isn’t my fault. I didn’t choose this. And I am not responsible for this. My neurochemistry is just a bit haywire in the mesolimbic and mesocortical pathways and Gabaminergic system.
That 99% of the time I am just like an ordinary person that is maybe a little more sensitive to stress than they might be. That they would have no idea I have this unless I confided in them when I am in remission and feeling well.
In my early twenties I dreadfully feared going through the world alone; living day to day in a menial job I hated working just to experience another empty and lonely day.
It became quickly apparent that I wanted a relationship that I could trust like I trusted my parents and friends whom I would trust like family.
But when your only parent and company left in the world is a mother who is dying and your brothers and sisters are all hardcore Trump conservatives who feel strongly that you were an unnecessary and excess child you begin looking to strangers.
That field of strangers is filled with people who are too damaged, superficial and self-centered to really bother with someone of average looks and low income.
You start to realize that there are only a few like you in this world; a person who sees others as company but most of those others regard the people around them as disposable, rent-able and upgrade able like automobiles.
The vast majority of humans also fulfill ego by belonging to various constituencies rather they are seemingly sharing the same religions, politics or attitudes and collectively act passive-aggressively; discriminating those who don’t subscribe to their same spoon-fed templates.
In this world your brother is not your keeper, your partner is only there until they can afford better and your employers will respect you as nothing more than an easily replaceable and expendable machine.
Despite all of the above, the trick to contentment is simply to sit back quietly, under radar and watch and learn.
You’ll find that no matter how dreadful the road up ahead looks you will make it by on a wing and a prayer and you’ll also find hobbies and other interests that make each day worth a bit more to wake up to, thus even if we don’t really ever find that world sold to us when we were children.
Because I am pretty sure that everyone here on Earth is broken in some manner and why we are here in the first place; it’s not a good place to set up nest.
Or as Toad once revealed to Mario; “Sorry, Mario but your princess is in another castle.”