This may not be well known, but those with personality disorders typically do not know or feel that they are abnormal or different. Those with SPD are no exception. In general, they do not feel like aliens compared to other humans. Usually, the only reason as to why they know that they are different from others is because people often tell them such. As such, it follows that they don't know how or why they are different, and neither do other people; they just are what they are.
Frankly, this can cause a lot of grief. Not knowing what your problems are leads to not doing anything about them, and one can also get the feeling that they will never have a connection with others in this world. They may always be the outliers of society, never getting to the truth of the matter why no one is like them or even why they have problems to begin with. It can drive someone insane. In fact, it would probably drive anyone insane.
When you have a lack of insight, what do you do? Ask other people. And with those with SPD, other people either are ignorant themselves, or wrong (just because you don't know what you are, doesn't mean that you don't know what you are not). Rarely does anyone else have to deal with so much misunderstanding. So as a result, people with SPD can't do anything. They are looking to open a locked door that has no key, solve an equation that has no answer, and find their kind-people that probably don't exist.
We live alone.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Autistics as Researchers, Schizotypes as Theorists
It has been a while since I have last made a post. I apologize for that.
For the past week or so I have been pondering about the roles mental illness/diagnoses plays in terms of academia. It has been noted by quite a few people that there exists a significant minority of autistic people who are researchers and professionals. They tend to be in fields that are related to the hard sciences (although their presence in the liberal arts is not unheard of) and their roles tend to be those of fact-finding. This would make sense because some of the key symptoms of autism include a fixation to parts of a system as well as undisturbed focus in their interests. While their work is very important to the progression of the sciences, they nonetheless seem to lack the imagination and type of thought that is required to create new fields of science; their fixation on axiomatic systems limits their ability to "think outside of the box."
Enter the schizotype, who is in this respect probably the polar opposite of the autistic in terms of academia. Although quite a few schizotypes are highly intelligent, they often cannot finish what they start and as such they would be late in finishing projects and assignments, if they ever finished at all. Unfocused and easily distracted, most schizotypes would be mediocre researchers at best, and entirely dysfunctional at worst. However, their disability does not entirely make them unsuitable for academia, and in fact there may be some parts of it that would help them. Schizotypes generally have a great imagination, and they can come to very profound conclusions through their thinking patterns of loose association. These things would potentially make them very suitable as theorists, and indeed, many great discoveries have been found by those who seemed to have a schizotypal personality. The fact that they can't create facts for themselves would be irrelevant; they could simply cite the results of studies already accomplished by others to support their theories.
Perhaps this is all an over-simplification, but it is nonetheless something to think about.
For the past week or so I have been pondering about the roles mental illness/diagnoses plays in terms of academia. It has been noted by quite a few people that there exists a significant minority of autistic people who are researchers and professionals. They tend to be in fields that are related to the hard sciences (although their presence in the liberal arts is not unheard of) and their roles tend to be those of fact-finding. This would make sense because some of the key symptoms of autism include a fixation to parts of a system as well as undisturbed focus in their interests. While their work is very important to the progression of the sciences, they nonetheless seem to lack the imagination and type of thought that is required to create new fields of science; their fixation on axiomatic systems limits their ability to "think outside of the box."
Enter the schizotype, who is in this respect probably the polar opposite of the autistic in terms of academia. Although quite a few schizotypes are highly intelligent, they often cannot finish what they start and as such they would be late in finishing projects and assignments, if they ever finished at all. Unfocused and easily distracted, most schizotypes would be mediocre researchers at best, and entirely dysfunctional at worst. However, their disability does not entirely make them unsuitable for academia, and in fact there may be some parts of it that would help them. Schizotypes generally have a great imagination, and they can come to very profound conclusions through their thinking patterns of loose association. These things would potentially make them very suitable as theorists, and indeed, many great discoveries have been found by those who seemed to have a schizotypal personality. The fact that they can't create facts for themselves would be irrelevant; they could simply cite the results of studies already accomplished by others to support their theories.
Perhaps this is all an over-simplification, but it is nonetheless something to think about.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Autism and SPD: Two Different Shades of Grey
Hello; I haven't been able to post for a while because of technical difficulties. As you may be aware, I have mentioned autism quite a bit in this blog, even though this blog does not center around autism in the slightest. One may wonder as to why I have. The answer is simple: most people with SPD nowadays get misdiagnosed as being autistic; I was no exception to this. One may ask whether or not this matters, and I would say that it does. It can cause a great amount of identity dysphoria and psychological regression in the misdiagnosed person, as well as the fact that other people continue to believe that they are something that they are not. Personally, I can say that a good decade of my young life was conflicted by these issues for the aforementioned reason. This is especially true when the misdiagnosis is introduced during adolescence (which was true in my case), since this is the developmental period where one develops their own sense of identity. It can really destroy one's mind and soul.
But enough of that. I will state why autism is oftentimes confused with SPD, and it is this: both autism and SPD cause a tremendous amount of interpersonal dissonance and social awkwardness. And there is virtually little to no difference as to how these are manifested in either group. However, the causation of the surface features are quite different between the two. In autism, there is a lack of emotional understanding and empathy; essentially this means that their emotions work differently than the normal person's and that they cannot relate to others emotionally. Cognitively, however, they are perfectly logical and concrete, and as such they generally have no problem in relating to other people's thoughts and ideas; most autistic people are surprisingly fairly normal outside of their limited social abilities.
With SPD, one's emotions are no different than from anyone else; while they may have a flattened affect, they understand the emotional and intuitive processes of the normal person, or at least the ability to do so isn't especially limited. In terms of thoughts, though, they are usually very tangential and off-the-wall, making seemingly unrelated connections between ideas and coming to absurd conclusions; their minds are considered to be very bizarre to many, and most with SPD have little to no insight as to why this is so. As such, they cannot relate to normal people despite having normal or near normal emotional faculty.
From this, it becomes apparent that while autistics and those with SPD may have symptoms that seem nearly identical on the surface, the underlying dynamics between the two are almost completely different. It is important to keep this in mind.
But enough of that. I will state why autism is oftentimes confused with SPD, and it is this: both autism and SPD cause a tremendous amount of interpersonal dissonance and social awkwardness. And there is virtually little to no difference as to how these are manifested in either group. However, the causation of the surface features are quite different between the two. In autism, there is a lack of emotional understanding and empathy; essentially this means that their emotions work differently than the normal person's and that they cannot relate to others emotionally. Cognitively, however, they are perfectly logical and concrete, and as such they generally have no problem in relating to other people's thoughts and ideas; most autistic people are surprisingly fairly normal outside of their limited social abilities.
With SPD, one's emotions are no different than from anyone else; while they may have a flattened affect, they understand the emotional and intuitive processes of the normal person, or at least the ability to do so isn't especially limited. In terms of thoughts, though, they are usually very tangential and off-the-wall, making seemingly unrelated connections between ideas and coming to absurd conclusions; their minds are considered to be very bizarre to many, and most with SPD have little to no insight as to why this is so. As such, they cannot relate to normal people despite having normal or near normal emotional faculty.
From this, it becomes apparent that while autistics and those with SPD may have symptoms that seem nearly identical on the surface, the underlying dynamics between the two are almost completely different. It is important to keep this in mind.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
The Possible Problem of Memory
This article talks about how a researcher in the computer science field gave a computer a form of "simulated schizophrenia" by adjusting its learning algorithms to the point where it did not forget details fast enough, so as such it seemingly made absurd associations between different subject material that the computer was given. This is relevant to the study of schizophrenia and related disorders in that there is a leading theory among academia that schizophrenics in general have a working memory that is able to include more items for longer periods of time, which in turn could explain why loose associations form in the brain of the schizophrenic.
Now, it should be said that one should be critical of this study. One must take into account that computers do not yet process information in the way that humans do, as well as the fact that these results have yet to be replicated in further scientific research.
But what really intrigues me about this is that from the layman's point of view, this does seem to be true from just looking at the appearance of things. I personally have a very good memory, and due to this I am able to make connections that others cannot. It was not uncommon in the classroom setting for me to bring up a related fact that was not being currently discussed, and for the teacher to deny the fact and basically say that it was unrelated. Maybe it wasn't that my mind was faulty, but rather enhanced due to being able to focus on both a fact from an unrelated past and what I was currently engaged with, whereas normal people seem to only focus on one thing at a time due to their limited working memory. It is something to think about.
Now, it should be said that one should be critical of this study. One must take into account that computers do not yet process information in the way that humans do, as well as the fact that these results have yet to be replicated in further scientific research.
But what really intrigues me about this is that from the layman's point of view, this does seem to be true from just looking at the appearance of things. I personally have a very good memory, and due to this I am able to make connections that others cannot. It was not uncommon in the classroom setting for me to bring up a related fact that was not being currently discussed, and for the teacher to deny the fact and basically say that it was unrelated. Maybe it wasn't that my mind was faulty, but rather enhanced due to being able to focus on both a fact from an unrelated past and what I was currently engaged with, whereas normal people seem to only focus on one thing at a time due to their limited working memory. It is something to think about.
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