The schizoid position is a tactical retreat. Being around negativity, neglect, and trauma is very pernicious for the self-efficacy of any human being, let alone a child in their formative years.
Engulfment being exacerbated by proximate people in the family system is a symptom of a larger whole. A whole layered to lean on one another until it radiates all the way to the schizoid.
But that immense pressure also builds a character capable of recognizing their situation, and building and acquiring strategies to overcome their state; and change it.
All our lives we live as if our lives are stories: like a sequence of lifestages and programs we must conclude in a timely and sequential manner. But what if the body can't hold it anymore? What if mental and physical health destroy the individual, thus making him unrecognizable?
Society collapses on the individual. That's what happens.
But the 'schizoid' is a statement of individual sovereignty.
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We've have arived at such lunacy that even mental health fields dismiss people's symptoms as if they were just labels on a sheet of paper.
Everybody is out for themselves taking themselves as the center of their decision making; and this is itself a symptom of a society that is fighting for itself.
Without collective awareness the individual is forced to focus on itself. In many ways we could say that the masses have been in a schizoid position their whole lives fighting for their own turf and livelihood. And it's the schizoid that has been hanging on for dear life trying to hold all the strings together so his social milleau doesn't break into disarray and anomie.
All the strings with each node wanting to disperse, swirl, and eat one another, the schizoid is pulling them all with a tight fist. Why? Because the schizoid was raised to be an emptiness.
Schizoids were raised to be everyone else's food source in an autophagic society.
The schizoid represents the ultimate rot that society can't integrate because it's too dark, it's too overwhelming, and no one wants to touch it. The schizoid is therefore scapegoated as a sacrificial rite (from the word 'sacred') for everyone's benefit.
People hang on the power of words too much and hide at the mere spelling of some words.
I'm not suggesting schizoids are better than other people; I'm suggesting that being a schizoid is nothing to be ashamed of - it's an honor.
From times immemorial, there was always a caste of individuals that had to endure and expiate all the negativity and pain so not to spread it around. The indians have the Dalits, the japanese have the Burakumin, and then there are schizoids.
Schizoids are some of the sweetest creatures God has ever invented. All sweetness, in order to survive, it can also be poisonous. Individuals like schizoids have bigger extremes - they are capable of great acts of kindness, as well as great acts of aggression.
It's exactly the kindness that leads the schizoid to contain his own aggression.
The schizoid is not without aggression. It's one of the most psychologically tough individuals there are. And in its sweetness that it wants to dwelve in - that is punished by the world - the schizoid is forced to self-containment and to create a shell between himself and the world. A shell that thickens with brutality against the gift of kindness; and the schizoid further and further splits himself off from the world.
The 'schism' widens appart. And the individual falls further and further into dissociation.
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It's about time to adress the collection of symptoms that can be displayed in the schizoid individual.
Since the individual is organized formatively - from an early stage - it develops false preconceptions about oneself's relative position in the social fabric. Instead of being self-organized, the schizoid builds a cosmovision around himself and searches to cater to it. Because the schizoid is raised as 'persona non grata'. And he is forced to turn aggression inwards.
So the 'first' symptom is depression - which is repressed self-turned anger.
All the pressure around the schizoid, and all the negative experiences, lead to a build up of stress that becomes translated as 'anxiety', 'general anxiety', or in extremis 'panic attacks'. Anxiety is one of the precursors of a severely tense body. But given the early 'schism' that has been going on in the schizoid due to early life dissociation inducing stress the schizoid has lost track of his body and is therefore immersed in tension, the social narratives and expectations, and calibrating other people's emotions.
This is also a common theme in narcissism and codependency; borderlines seek external sources of emotional regulation, unlike schizoids that are self-contained.
The dissociative state is one that has many different expressions, including memory gaps (writting and not experiencing vanishing words); difficulty recalling events, wording things out; difficulty in concentration due to easily losing presence and dissociating into fantasy, catastrophizing or creating mental scenarios; derealizing, which is essentially an extreme form of body tension leading the person to have an immersive subjective experience of reality; and depersonalizing, consisting of losing touch with one's identity and sense of self (low self-worth, identity diffusion, difficulty having a stable personality frame, etc).
Together with all these there are several symptoms that are exclusive to schizoid individuals, as well as some that come and go commorbidly. Some of these are a lack/flat [of] affect, which is both a strategic defense against emotional manipulation, and a consequence of physical exhaustion; engulfment anxiety, which is due to heightened eroticism because of stress, and because of lack of circumstantial, psychological, or emotional bandwidth, to receive a person into one's life; an additional symptom that drives most of the schizoid pitfalls is due to poor interoception, which may be constitutional, due to poor life habits, and due to extreme or continuous stress; trauma - PTSD/CPTSD - is also one of the main drives behind the intensification and even etiology of schizoid behaviors; and one that I think is the most important to reduce symptomatology is 'armouring'.
I'd like to talk about 'armouring' with more protagonism because it is the most extreme and fundamental driver of schizoid lethargy, anhedonia, depression, anxiety, engulfment anxiety, and the many dissociative states. A portion of schizoids report having had no trauma, but from what I gather there is a great likelihood that they can't even recognize some of what they've been through as trauma or at least neglectful. 'Pampering' and 'infantilizing' can be just as damaging to the process of individuation as 'trashing' or 'adultifying'.
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Unlike what people may imagine given the distinctions associated with schizoid personality disorder, the schizoid individual is very much the opposite of what they advertise. They are very pure and sensitive individuals; but they create a barrier between themselves and others as an attempt to defend against what they perceive as invasive intimacy; but also to make others not take advantage of their sensitive and kind nature. The schizoid, like no other, understands people and human nature. Because schizoids need to tip toe around people to not stirr them up nor to give them any room whatsoever to take advantage of the most welcoming side of the schizoid nature.
The matter has a particular increased density when we consider that schizoids are made inside pathological family systems - which are made out of individuals of 'narcissistic' persuasion. The constant back and forth, positive-negative reinforcement, the constant enmeshment, the infantilization, the parentification, the spoiling, the neglect, all these lead to insecure attatchment styles (anxious-avoidant), and ossify into an individual that lives in what is known as the 'schizoid dilemma'. The skeleton of the schizoid dilemma is the 'master-slave unit' and the 'sadistic object/self-in-exile unit'. In essence, these two explain the tension the schizoid individual lives under as they relate to people in their proximate circle. Schizoids are very protective and so this leads to a very black-and-white way of relating to people in so far as either everyone is an enemy against the family, or close ones. For the schizoid the tribe is a very small circle around them. Wherever they are becomes their caring focus. Schizoids can be very flexible this way. Their intelligence and wisdom allows them to use their personality diffusion, but the cost is the level of intimacy that comes with connecting with people strongly. And this is what then creates the feelings of engulfment as an attempt to fend off inappropriate and exagerated eroticism, emotional and psychological intimacy.
See, a human needs to be efficacious and lead their life prioritizing their goals that advance their survival, but the personality adaptation is very contrary to the demands of life. This is where masking takes its part as an attempt to withold the true self and allow other people to make the heavy lifting of pushing the schizoid individual away preemptively. I wouldn't so much say that the individual is incapable of detatchment, but there is a deep psychological bond even miles away, even as the people only belong in the past. But it is somehow amelliorated by spatial distance. The many contradictions of schizoids allow them to live with people with ease even though they suffer simultaneously. The schizoid thus therefore pay full negative price for a full positive return. If some individuals have different experiences with different people, the schizoid seems to be able to conjure an attatchment of full commitment, naturally. Which is why the schizoid builds the very adaptations that keep him intact and shielded from other people - unaware and uncaring of his needs. This is what ultimately breeds a sort of schizoid quick built agression and intensity - similar to narcissistic rage, although less inspired by abandonment fears.
As of consequence, schizoids are capable of doing the most incredible things for those they love; but with that comes also heightened bottled up emotions of frustration, anger, and self-neglect.
This page is an ode to schizoids, which have been ostracized, misunderstood and marginalized; and they ought to be treated better by society at large. I write this page in an attempt to lay out who schizoids are for any reader, in a palatable manner, in order to inaugurate a new era of social approval, so as to cleanse the past image of dark, dangerous, cold, detached and uncaring individuals that few people know and imagine the inner gold schizoids hide within them.
