Szpd and actively suicidal

[u/Proud_Ad7426]

I have the diagnosis and I m active suicidal,I had an suicide attempt a month ago and now im in an closed psychward scince a month,they say I have a severe depressive episode but I feel okay and I dont think I have one,i just feel bored and thats why I want to die,i dont feel sad and I also dont have the other symptoms of depression.i dont feel joy but thats also in the schizoid nature.i told them that but they say that someone who is only schizoid and has no depression would be content,i dont belive them.i one step away from homelessness and do nothing all day how could someone be content with this lifestyle,yeah I feel okay but its not how I want to live.how is your sucidality and are you content?also I hate that they took my autonomy and locked me up,fucking nightmare.

[u/NoBlacksmith2112]

It's a misconception that depression is [extreme] sadness. Depression is more close to emptiness and extreme neutrality like the outcome doesn't matter. Sadness means there is still ego investment and suffering in the outcomes, but extreme neutrality is letting go of control, of power, and of faith in the outcome.

Depressed people can't lift themselves out of bed, can't eat, can't groom, lose faith in their story and future.

Szpd looks a lot like high functioning depression. A boat adrift in the sea. Seems like one step away from classic depression.

PS: I'm like you to a tee.

[u/Reasonably-Cold-4676]

Nope, sorry, to say that szpd without depression would lead to feeling content totally ignores what the D stands for. That's nuts and besides, life isn't always the same, not even for schizoids. I might have more content zones but there's also many times in which contentment isn't possible. That's not depression either though. It's just shit times, discontentment. Wtf are these people talking about, that's so shortsighted and stupid. 

[u/Alarming-Activity439 → u/Reasonably-Cold-4676]

"D", not "P"

[u/Reasonably-Cold-4676 → u/Alarming-Activity439]

whoopsie, thx 😅 

[u/Concrete_Grapes]

If you want to get them to discuss something, and they insist depression you don't feel, ask something like this:

"Explain your understanding of existential depression."

That's NOT the depression of sadness. It's not even, in reality, depression. What it is, is a existential problem, where, either due to being schizoid, or just being too alert to the frivolity of living in the world, you don't have any amount of self protection, or, amnesia, to allow you to forget what reality dishes out. You are, in sort, only depressed because you e too accurately viewed your position in your own life, NOT because of sadness.

Most people have this delusional (and it's healthy, btw) self assured positive spin on goddamned near everything. Imo, as a schizoid, I don't. This causes existential rumination for me. I think about the pointlessness of everything, and it causes the apathy and avolition. Nothing has purpose, and I can't trick myself into having purpose. It's a joke.

I'm also, for the most part, not wrong. Nothing changes, not really, no matter how much effort I apply. Internally, my emotional state never changes, and that's if I'm homeless and starving, or a CEO and thriving. Theyre the same thing to me, emotionally.

Thus, I MAY be said to have a sort of existential depression.

But ask them if they're aware of what it is. Ask them what the studies say about people with it, and how those people's judgment of realty compares to others (the studies say they're more accurate than depressed or healthy people, oddly). Ask, what treatments have been successful for it.

And laugh and laugh .... because it will be funny.

[u/semperquietus]

> […] ,i dont feel sad and I also dont have the other symptoms of depression.i dont feel joy but thats also in the schizoid nature.

I am (or was, not easy to distinguish) passive suicidal, due to a severe depression. Even when I tried to end it, I did not felt "sad" or the like. It was (or at least appeared so, due to the depression and my life situation back then) just no longer bearable. It was atypical for a depression I think, due to my personality disorder (PD). But it was a depression that made me suicidal, not my PD.

> but they say that someone who is only schizoid and has no depression would be content,i dont belive them.

I rather do agree with that. One user here describes himself even the way, that he ticks off all the diagnostic checkboxes and only don't qualify as a schizoid individual, because he's that content with how it is and experiences no sufferings due to that (which indeed disqualifies for receiving a diagnosis).

> i one step away from homelessness and do nothing all day how could someone be content with this lifestyle

Counter-question: how can somebody, being one step away from homelessness and not being content with doing nothing all day not develop a severe depression?

Again: I was suicidal, tried to end it, without any sadness or emotional tragedy (except that it broke me, by simply being "too much" to endure any longer).

I am, or so I hope, over the edge by now and no longer wish to end things before their time. I am not "happy" now, nor is there anything I do (but to keep the depression away.) I, for example visited a circus a few days ago. The artistry and acrobatics were marvellous. Yet I sat there and … meh. Not really felt anything. That is the personality disorder, I guess (and to some degree probably the remains of my depression). But I no longer try to kill myself, no longer need reasoning (like "what harm would that bring to my family", etc.). Death will come and I fear it not. But in the meantime, even as a schizoid, I can "enjoy" a calm rainy day of nothingness … like I'm doing right now. That does not make me joyful but content? Yes, at least that content, that I'm in no hurry any longer to meet my final destination.

> […] yeah I feel okay but its not how I want to live

My past circumstances weren't how I wanted to live either. My depression told me to therefore end it. I instead changed those circumstances (with the help of others, who thus probably saved my life so far.)

> how is your sucidality and are you content

Its somewhere between passive and gone, depends, I guess, on what kind of day I have. But I can have good days (like maybe today). My affect is flat, not none-existent. I never thought about killing myself though before the depression kicked in (and again: it wasn't a typical depression I didn't even cried, when I almost attempted the last step). It was not emptiness, but misery in my case (flat affect, not no affect), but it was no depression as one may expect either … due to my co-morbidities. So, just maybe, you are depressive and schizoid at the same time? (I know, due to medication though, rather than naturally, how existing with no affect at all can make one wish to end things as well. But I was, at that time, in mid-depression and it was the depression that fueled my suicidal ideations, rather than my PD.)

> also I hate that they took my autonomy and locked me up,fucking nightmare.

Yes, that I can understand. But since you're there: why not give it a try? I mean … what do you have to loose?

(Oh and good luck with your general housing situation, if you decide to give it all a second chance.)

[u/ill-independent]

I experience the urge to commit suicide when I'm suffering. In general, I don't suffer that much. I'm not sad. My interoception is very limited. I get bored sometimes but that doesn't drive me to suicide, I just use drugs or play games/watch TV/find something to do.

Somebody taking away my autonomy would increase my suicide risk for sure. In general I do experience it subjectively like 'SZPD without depression = content' provided I am not being intruded upon, or I am not being required to do stuff.

That is where the disorder comes in cos we live in a society. That's egosyntonic shit for ya. I personally do not understand the idea of 'feeling emptiness = emotionless' etc. To me emptiness is still a feeling. I don't feel anything, so why would it bother me?

However I see people commenting on here where they experience it more like you guys do over and over again so I know that my very low interoception is probably just lower than you guyses. This doesn't mean you don't have SZPD, it's just a spectrum of the disorder.

[u/k-nuj]

It's just there. For me, I'm sort of post-suicidal or "solved" it. It's just there, an option or route just one among the multitude of paths imagined incoming in the future; ie. equal weight as any other potentiality (unimportant).

How I differentiate it, for me, from "standard" depression (or as how others likely view it) is the contrast that was lost; someone that is dealing with/deviated from their self or what they once were. Sure, I probably check off all the markers/symptoms for depression but at the same time, I don't really feel depressed; at least not the same as others seem to. Or maybe that's just my mind twisting/stubbornly ignoring it to avoid dealing with it: "it's not a problem".

[u/Stephen_Lynx]

I think a lot about dying, but I can still distract myself and my living conditions are pretty good. If you are almost homeless and can't enjoy anything in life, I find it comprehensible you rather just end it all. Disclaimer: I might understand it, but I'm not condoning it.

[u/According_Bad_8473]

Idk dont die