Schizotypal??

After three hours of psychological testing and a week of anxiously waiting, the psychiatrist told me I don’t have BPD, I am schizotypal. Of course all I heard was the schizo and cried. 

I am so tired of crying and wanting to be “normal.” My SO acts like mental illness is a farce because there is no medical proof. I reminded him that there was no medical proof for cancer years ago. That gave him pause, but he still doesn’t believe it. He thinks that it’s just another thing for me to blame. “If you give it a name and energy, it’s already won.” No, if I give it a name and energy, I know what I’m battling. As the kids cartoon shows used to say, knowing is half the battle.

Right now I’m just exhausted and I’m not sure I’m up for the other half of the battle. 

The suicidal thoughts have gotten better with the antidepressants, but I still wonder if my family and friends would be better off without me. 

So after I regained my composure and went home, I did some research. Here is what schizotypal PD is:

Schizotypal personality disorder signs and symptoms can include:

• Being a loner and lacking close friends outside of the immediate family
• Incorrect interpretation of events, including feeling that external events have personal meaning
• Peculiar, eccentric or unusual thinking, beliefs or behavior
• Dressing in peculiar ways
• Belief in special powers, such as telepathy
• Perceptual alterations, in some cases bodily illusions, including phantom pains or other distortions in the sense of touch
• Persistent and excessive social anxiety
• Peculiar style of speech, such as loose or vague patterns of speaking or rambling oddly and endlessly during conversations
• Suspicious or paranoid ideas, hypersensitivity, and constant doubts about the loyalty and fidelity of others
• Flat emotions, or limited or inappropriate emotional responses

Signs of schizotypal personality disorder, such as increased interest in solitary activities or a high level of social anxiety, may be seen in the teen years.

While some of the symptoms match my behavior (the ones in italics), BPD is still more similar. Or so I thought until I found this site:

Out of the Fog explains that STPD can have a variety of symptoms beyond what the DSM Criteria for Schizotypal Personality Disorder (STPD) states. These include the majority of my symptoms:

• Always/Never statements
• Anger
• Avoidance
• Blaming
• Catastrophizing
• Circular Conversations
• Depression
• Sense of Entitlement
• Fear of Abandonment – HUGE for me
• Identity Disturbance
• Invalidation
• Lack of object constancy
• Low self-esteem
• Mood Swings
• Shaming
• Splitting

This feels like it came on suddenly, while I know I’ve had it my whole life. The dramatic escalation has been recent. So if it came on so quickly, why can’t I make it stop just as quickly? So sick of fighting it and being exhausted.

My SO is tired of it and emotionally exhausted by it as well. At least he can walk away from it and not have to face it every day when he wakes up. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this. Just so tired.

How do other people see life?

After the last few months of some serious emotional turmoil, I’m seeing that “normal” people don’t think or see things the way I do. At least that’s what it’s starting to look like. So my question to you is, how do normal people see the world?

A. When someone hurts you, they no longer like you/they now hate you.
Or
B. When someone hurts you, they didn’t necessarily want to hurt you, it may have been an accident.

A. When you make a mistake all of your progress is erased, you’re back to square one and it means you’re not a good person.
Or
B. When you make a mistake it’s part of growing, you may have had a slight setback, but you are a good person and can learn from it.

A. Your SO has female friends so he must be cheating on you.
Or
B. Your SO has female friends because he’s a good, like-able man.

Offline and no one noticed

I’ve been offline all weekend, except for this blog. I told one girlfriend about it because I know she would worry.

No one noticed. My closest “friends” who know I’m seriously struggling right now didn’t check in to make sure I’m ok.

Guess I have my answer to who gets the friends in a divorce.

And here I thought the new antidepressant would stop the suicidal thoughts. Realizing my “friends” aren’t there for me has negated any help from the antidepressants.

And now next time I see them I’m supposed to be happy and everything is supposed to be alright. I guess my SO was right, I should be ashamed of telling people about my issues. No one wants to hear it… They would all be better off without my shit.

Black or white? Up or down?

The constant yo-yo of emotions has got to be difficult for those around me, I cannot imaging what they think of me. However, most days I can’t imagine what it would be like to be able to think straight all day and not change my mind about a topic eight times in five minutes.

I can go from knowing something is true in the morning to thinking the complete opposite in the afternoon to not knowing what the hell by evening.  It’s horrifically stressful for me and those around me. There are times I feel like everyone’s actions are about me (when their actions are negative) and then there are times when I think that they must want something from me based on their actions. No one can ever be nice to me because they like me. I’m just not that likable. 

I love him and can’t live without him – I hate him and never want to see his face again.

I’m a terrible person and the world would be a better place without me – I’m ok.

I’m a good person – I made a mistake so I must be worthless.

Welcome to my yo-yo. There’s never any in-between – it’s always black or white. 

 

 

[note: I am using this blog to dump my feelings so that I don’t burn out my friends. My SO thinks I shouldn’t talk about my illness as if it is something I should be ashamed of. I have spent so much of my life blending into what other people think, I’m trying desperately to find my own voice. So sometimes this blog may make sense, and sometimes it’s just a dumping ground to get some of the pain out.]

 

Divorce – who gets the friends?

I’ve never made friends easily. I don’t know if it’s because I’m afraid to let someone in or afraid to be left out. But now I’m pretty sure I’m on the brink of divorce and the few close friends I have are his friends too.

So who gets the friends? The one who is easy to get along with and very social or the one with the mental illness who has severe episodes of depression…

Another med

I stopped taking my antidepressant at my SO’s request. He thought it was giving me the rage issues. I had a PD appt the next week. I told him I felt better off the antidepressant and that my new therapist wasn’t sure what it is, but I’m definitely crazy (yes, that’s how I’m dealing with it).

After 3 appts with her and no firm diagnosis, she said if things didn’t improve in a few months she could recommend a psych eval. I said why wait?!? I’ve been dealing with this for 20 years – even when I didn’t know I was dealing with it. Now that I’ve been working on it for over a year with little progress, I need to know what is wrong with me. Or is my SO right and I’m just lazy…

Went to the psych eval specialist Monday. LOVED her! She was kind and not judgmental when I told her about some of my stupid decisions lately. She had me come back to finish my testing on Tuesday. Originally she said results would take two weeks. At the end of my second appt she said she would take my files home over the weekend and have results by next Wednesday. My talk therapist is on vacation for two weeks— gotta love that— so I would have had to wait until the beginning of next month! The specialist gave me a discounted rate so that I could go to her for the results. And her only open appointment is on Tuesday- She said she’d be ready for me.

I’m kinda terrified to find out the results. I’ve been very depressed on the mood stabilizers for the last two weeks. And I’ve woken up almost every morning thinking about killing myself. It’s never been this bad. When I found out that my family will be out of town for a variety of events one night next week and my first thought was, that would be the perfect time to kill myself, I called my PD and scheduled an appt for first thing this am. Luckily, he could fit me in and prescribed a new anti that works with the leveler. He said to take half a pill each day for the next week so I wouldn’t get nauseous. I said I’d rather be nauseous than suicidal and took a full pill at lunch.

Hopefully, with the new meds, the results of the tests this next week, I can finally get somewhere. My SO is still “done,” but I’m at a point where I cannot care about that. I want to be happy and his attitude/behavior is his issue… Now if I could only believe that for a full day and not ride the roller coaster of doubt…