September 11, 2007: Here is an example of a person with schizotypal or schizo-affective syndrome. I do not consider his behavior odd because he has been like that for the 15 years I've known him.
He is worse when he is around his older sister; who behaves similarly but with a tendency to interpret deep emotional upset as due to external spiritual influence and an artistic interpretation of her own personal spiritual development, where she referred to abstract art she did as 'angels'.
Earlier, the family experienced trauma consisting of death of younger brother and death of father.
A couple days ago, I visited my friend and he only spoke to me twice out of the whole six hours I was there.
While we did not discuss greys or Zeta Reticuli, being the topic of an earlier discussion a year ago, apart from me bringing it up, he just expressed a strong belief in Jesus for about two minutes and returned to his room.
IMHO I doubt if he is schizophrenic; it appears to be either schizotypal or schizo-affective, whichever one has a love for nature and solitude.
However, his behavior is no different from 15 years ago, except that he spends more time reading the Bible.
He is less fanatical though, because he knows of my Buddhist background. This implies that he is compassionate and cares about my feelings as much as I care about his feelings.
Now if he'd only get out more and socialize...
Perhaps my friend actually appears to have Kretschmer's syndrome.
It consists of the following triad of symptoms:
(1) unsociability, quietness, reservedness, seriousness, and eccentricity;
(2) timidity, shyness with feelings, sensitivity, nervousness, excitability, and fondness of nature and books, and
(3) pliability, kindliness, honesty, indifference, silence, and cold emotional attitudes.
If he is schizoid, then my friend is exhibiting neither schizophrenic nor schizo-affective nor schizotypal behavior. Rather he exhibits Kretschmer's triad of symptoms and might be typically schizoid, without any ongoing psychosis -- apart from the only recent occurance of a brief psychotic episode in 2004.
In my own case, I share the quality of "fondness of nature and books" but am sociable, open with my feelings, and have warm emotional attitude. If anything, I admit to being mildly schizoid under stress, but feel that overall I am mildly depressed due to the recent deaths of my father and a close friend.
However, I feel that I do not exhibit any of the behavior associated with my original diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, even when under mild stress.
In different ways, I may exhibit the triad of behavior associated with schizoid syndrome similar to my friend. However, my parents' marital stability has not added trauma to my life.
I feel this is because the traumatic loss in my family happened to me in adulthood, while in the case of my friend, it occurred in childhood (loss of brother) and adolescence (loss of father and breakup of relationship between parents).
Thus I challenge the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. For I feel that I am relearning the skills necessary to control the negative aspects of the BPD, especially risk of suicide, and to accentuate its positive aspects, especially extroversion and willingness to take risks.
As well, it is becoming less difficult to control the comorbid disorder of depression. I have adapted to the mild hypomania that exhibits as insomnia by using the time while awake to express myself on this blog.
As for my friend I do not know of his own creative efforts. While I wish he would participate more often online, his anxiety about exposing his inner thoughts to public scrutiny may moderate any desire to be more friendly and outgoing.
However, the only way this is to come about is to accept his unsociability as a constant that has been there since I first met him over 15 years ago.
All this does for me is to become less schizoid, if such a thing is possible.
Perhaps I have borderline personality disorder. Being abandoned in the hospital at age 5 would have deeply affected me at the time, but it made me fiercely independent to the point of near unsociability.
Hopefully I am not over-analyzing myself in this entry.
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