Void

Hello. I'm writing this because I am starting to run out of ideas what to do for quite a while now. It just seems pointless to communicate with people about it anywhere for numerous reasons, one of them being, it's not like anyone else is going to solve my issues. Often I am drifting in confusion what to think at all, I am tired of trying to motivate myself that I have some understanding and control of my problems and that I need to try move on, but it's just inconsequential in the long run whenever I try. There are some things happening in my life and I probably have some understanding of it all, but after 2 years I am nowhere close to solving the issues that truly matter to me, it feels like I've been having some success in certain life obligations that grant me no joy or quality of life that I wished for.

To cut a long story short, when I was a kid a year or two before the approximately normal time of puberty I began to bloom faster than my peers around me, usually girls are the first to mature in this regard, but I do not remember feeling any similar connection with the people around me with what I felt. I didn't think much of it, what kind of understanding I could have had at that age about sexuality? I simply do not know. Nonetheless, I started to follow my urges with simple masturbation, then from magazines to the access and resources of the internet, in between it all with quite unusual deviations from normal sexuality that early in my life. At age 22 by chance I stumbled across information that related to me how I feel, that made some sense to me why I am the person that I am. Gradually from that point on I concluded that I am emotionally undeveloped, that I have no joy in life, with a lack of interests, understanding of social norms, that I have been living all of my life without a healthy expression of sexuality. The cause seems to be addiction to pornography, sexual dysfunctions that have severely impacted my growth and existence as a human being. Slowly over time while trying to stabilize my addiction I understood more and more how badly damaged I am and what I have missed out in life.

I am diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder, depression and other things that are just some byproducts of the whole package.

I do not know how to meaningfully connect with the people around me on an emotional level, nor with myself for that matter. It's difficult to explain, most of the time I do not understand why and how other people socialize so fluently, spontaneously, how other people enjoy the company of each other. When I am around people I feel like I have nothing to say that would grant some sort of connection, I can lead relatively normal discussions based on intellectual properties, but whenever I need to show true interest and enthusiasm about others, when I need to feel close, respond to others with the same joy, humor, charisma and so on, I feel like there's either something missing in me, something is damaged and not working properly. When I should smile and be happy or the opposite, I often just do not feel what I am supposed to feel. I do not understand how people relate with such compassion, empathy and emotion in general to the events happening to them in their lives.

I feel so empty, void, stagnant, lonely, anxious and I have these ****ed up urges of sexuality that do not portray a healthy desire of communicating with other people, feelings and a lack of motivation to follow and develop meaningful interests in my life. I can't love, there's no purpose.

I have been fighting so hard with the current status quo that I have been periodically burning out in the past 8 months, there are too many days when I simply do not have physical and mental fortitude to continue, very small things become very hard. I have been trying to beat my problems with intellectual wit developing coping patterns and trying to reach higher understanding in hopes of finding answers and perspective that will allow me to move a bit further under the banner of sheer willpower.

As you can see I've pieced together some things, but I am so tired and I've ran in too many "paradoxes" that I cannot resolve. I do not know how to fix myself, I am tired of weighting the probabilities of my actions based on my gut feeling of what the next move should be. At this rate I will get old and even more miserable.

I have managed to get a job, probably for not too long, but the money I will receive at the end of the month partially is going to be spent on a few psychotherapist sessions that I can allow. After 6 days I will meet up with my psychiatrist and get some medication that should help me with burning out.

In the meantime I just lose more time, it's already difficult to withstand my daily state of mind. If you can contribute your experience with similar problems or do you feel that you have something meaningful to say, I will listen.

Submotion,

Welcome, Submotion. I was diagnosed with PDNOS several years ago, not schizoid. But I can understand a lot of what you write. My late husband probably had schizoid. He had a breakdown in his late 30's, before we knew each other well, and he gained access to his emotions through therapy. He was a great guy, a little different but then so am I. I loved him and I definitely felt that he loved me. So . . .I certainly hope that therapy can help you. And keep posting on PC, if you like. I find it helps to have a place where I can be myself and sometimes find people I can connect with here. Online sometimes feels safer to me than in real life, too, though I think the experience and comfort I find here sometimes makes it easier to be with people in person, too.

Bah, they moved it here. I predicted that, should have left out the schizoid part, my problems are largely connected with a form of depression and sexual dysfunction. I find it very pointless to discuss the schizoid traits themselves, they describe the current state of affairs, but do not explain the causes which are uniquely varied among individuals. That's why you don't see people relating much to each other here on these dead personality disorder forums, it's for people who have no idea why they are the way they are, but I have that covered more or less. I could be discussing the schizoid aspect until the end of time, but that is going to accomplish absolutely nothing until the causes are addressed and I'm not a schizoid, because I'm suffering from a schizoid illness or something, there is no such thing. Those are personality trait packages. People, life is ****, but let's use our heads once in a while, alright?

Hey there, thanks for the response.

I have been experimenting with myself in daily conversations with other people, I've had great opportunities to socialize since I am a student and was living near college, now I work and have similar situation, studies will continue later on.

I do believe I can regain more fluid emotions, I just do not know the approach. I need structure and a plan of action. It's not like I do not feel joy, sadness and so on at all, but just not enough to maintain healthy relationships with people. I come off as boring, uninterested, cold, distant, weird to some people, but it's not like anyone actually dislikes me, people are nice to me, they just keep their distance since on an emotional level I am doing the same. You get out of people exactly the same you invest. I need to develop the ability to connect with people just a little bit.

For example, if I abstain from degrading myself with pornography I am much more calm and better at communicating emotions around people, like a lot better, but the addiction and unnaturally high libido has adverse affects on my well being despite improved emotional state from abstaining of sexual thoughts and activity. This is one of the "paradoxes" I mentioned earlier, I hope that medication is going to help me in this regard.

It's nice that you actually enjoy from online conversations, but for me that's simply not a way how I want to "connect" with anyone. I crave eye contact, sense of smile, presence, touch, emotional closeness. I've been fertilizing my monitor for a long time, whenever I would feel lonely, sad, stressed the medication would be a substitute of pornography, but it's not real, it's an illusion. There's no one around to connect with, even while I am typing here, I do not see you, feel you at all, I address the things that you have said to me, but I will never experience the way you said those things, while I am typing here I will always be robbed of the joy of reacting to your emotions. Emotions are the only thing we people understand very well in each other.

I'm not afraid to talk to people, I don't feel how to do it, whenever people are talking around me, I feel so much more better. It's interesting to hear others converse in discussion, but somehow I feel that I just don't have a lot I can contribute. Much of what I say seems very rational, quite a few classmates have even described me as confident, stable and intelligent, I sometimes see that people do appreciate certain traits of mine, but whenever I am left alone with someone, 1 on 1 conversations... it's bad...

I think at some point I will try online dating, but I need to get to that point. I'm way to unstable even for that now.