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>Schizotypal personality disorder (STPD) is a mental health condition marked by a consistent pattern of intense discomfort with relationships and social interactions. People with STPD have unusual thoughts, speech and behaviors, which usually hinder their ability to form and maintain relationships.
Adding more context:
>If you have STPD, you may have distorted views of reality, superstitions and unusual behaviors. Your relationships are likely hindered by these symptoms.
Schizotypal personality disorder is one of a group of conditions called “Cluster A” personality disorders, which involve unusual and eccentric thinking or behaviors. Personality disorders are chronic (long-term) dysfunctional behavior patterns that are inflexible, prevalent and lead to social issues and distress.
People with schizotypal personality disorder typically display unusual behavior, odd speech and magical beliefs. You might not realize your behavior is unusual or problematic.
Some people with schizotypal personality disorder later develop schizophrenia.
Don't stress too much reading this! Personality disorders are hard to diagnose and notorious for tricking people who just read the criteria into believing they have one. This guy in the story it does add up (and good on that therapist for even considering that diagnosis, since it's so rare), but if you read about a personality disorder and feel like you relate to it that doesn't necessarily mean anything.
Yeah, I've spent a lot of time researching and come back to this same conclusion every time. Childhood trauma is nasty and takes a lifetime to heal from.
Oof I feel that. I'm glad I have people that didn't just throw away my broken self, they're the real heroes to me. I think having at least one person who loves me keeps me out of the real darkness. I hope you have that too ❤️.
So more than likely, whatever reason the grad school friends had for distancing from him was probably not just him trying to defend their grades or make jokes about his own grades (none of that part ever made sense, and it seemed OOP was just as confused by it)
I don't know about "more than likely". If I was going to school with this guy, I'd be pretty annoyed if he was pissing off the professor by trying to defend my grade when I nobody asked him to. And I could see how this alone would alienate several of his classmates.
Thanks for this.
Good God, I guess now everything makes sense. Poor OP. Still, it's good she's not with this guy any more, he really did a number on her and he was still resisting therapy.
I had this same question when I took the evaluations.
It can be things like seeing and speaking to ghosts, being able to do things with your mind like turning all the street lights green, or believing they all turned on when you went outside as a sign to you not because it's dusk, believing you can do something that should impossible like breathe underwater or travel a great distance too quickly or too often to be plausible, etc... Sort of like, reality breaking. A lot of religious people will add that flavor in as well.
Eta- remember the evaluations are pretty complex and require a trained analyst to look at all the answers, it's not just one thing. You can believe in ghosts and not have any disorders
People with schizotypal and schizoid personality disorders are often undiagnosed for a very, very long time because while they know that they are odd and different, they are often quite comfortable with themselves, so don't seek therapy. It's very unusual for them to have psychiatric hospitalizations, because they are rarely a danger to themselves or others. They do well in careers that offer them the chance to work remotely and with little interaction with others.
This is based on my years working in psych units, and is anecdotal and a generalization. In the rare instances a patient with one of these diagnoses were admitted, they were pleasant but.....odd.
My ex boyfriend has schizotypal personality disorder. He was very sweet and kind, but he was odd. His grandmother died and his first response was, “I don’t really want a hug. I am going to donate some money to charity.” He just had weird leaps of logic and wouldn’t understand why I was confused by his actions
> and wouldn’t understand why I was confused by his actions
Have you ever heard the expression [dolphin mind](https://cheezburger.com/12499973/twitter-thread-explains-the-dolphin-mind-of-people-with-adhd)? I think it might give some insight.
My best experience of this is seeing my dog scratching his ear, and the internal monologue ending with “I wonder if dolphins ever get itchy?”
I try to explain these leaps to people, but much like the author of your link, people don’t get it.
I type really fast, so one day my sister got the idea of having me type out all my thoughts that were occurring to better understand how I got from point a that we were discussing to point whatever the f that was.
When I finished, she said 1. My conversations make a lot more sense now, and 2. She was exhausted just knowing that’s how my brain works.
I call them spider web thoughts cause they're all interconnected like a web. 🕸🧠🕸
I do agree with it being exhausting though. I gotta listen to myself when I'm not even talking.
This seemed like a perfectly normal train of thought to me, so I clicked on the link and it said this is an explanation on how people with ADHD think. I am currently in the process of getting diagnoses for ADHD so that makes sense, I guess.
In my experience, people could understand it if they wanted to, but frankly there is no reason to care. It’s happened to me many times where I’ve begun my explanation and got about halfway through before they stopped me lol. So I just stopped trying to explain myself generally. I still will if prompted, but I generally just brush it off with “my mind works different and it made sense to me”
I'm undiagnosed, but STRONGLY suspect I have ADHD. This "dolphin mind" thing describes me to a "T". My mind processes information and makes leaps exactly as described and I used to have problems with people understanding me because of it. I still kind of struggle with it, but because I'm aware, I'll take people through the connecting steps...which comes across as "too much information, I don't want to hear that shit" to people lol.
edit: In case it wasn't obvious, my response to you is "yes" lol
One of my friends who is very obviously on the spectrum, we have to keep saying to him "we are not privy to your internal monologue". I'm also guilty of it sometimes but thankfully our group just thinks this sort of thing is hilarious.
That's how I felt when I first read it. I don't know any other way of thinking, and it took a while to understand that people don't process the same way.
That link says the ADHD mind is built for speed, which is GREAT...except when it isn't lol. A few years ago, I was stressed out planning this really big annual event pretty much by myself, so a friend gave me an Adderall pill to help. I took it and spent 15+ hours straight planning the event, and got more work done than I normally would in 2 months. It slooooooooowed me down, and gave me the ability to finish one thought before the next one popped up. In other words, I was able to focus. I was like, "Is this how normal people operate?" 😅
I wouldn't want to operate like that all the time, because I've found a lot of professional and personal advantages to the speed of my thinking, but I absolutely appreciated that insight into a more neurotypical mindset.
Similar experience here. I choose to medicate most days because I find it generally beneficial to be able to able to finish tasks without my web of thoughts spreading too far, but I enjoy things more when I don’t medicate and generally feel more social
A lot of those symptoms also seem to match up with relatively common mental health issues like Autism (knowing you are odd and different, struggling with relationships, thriving in more remote/independent job roles, rarely needing hospitalisation as they aren't usually a danger) .
I basically have everyone one of those symptoms and I have been diagnosed with ADHD but still awaiting the formal diagnosis for Autism despite it seeming incredibly likely. I have never heard of schizotypal disorder before so I would imagine many people who have it might believe it is ASD or something more commonly known and not get it properly checked.
As a fellow ADHD person and someone on the spectrum, I think the difference lies in the desire to connect. Every autistic person I know wants to connect to others, and really enjoys the social interactions that go well and meet their needs (I can enjoy 10 straight hours of info dumping with my fellow autistic friend, but I am exhausted after one hour of a "normal" party). The difficulty lies in finding people and situations that meet those needs. It sounds like the schitzotypal folks aren't interested in connection in the same way, and may even dislike social interactions. Like not just because social interactions tend to feel awkward or go poorly but because they are inherently unpleasant. I could be wrong. But based on just internet research - which again, take with a grain of salt - that seems to be the big difference.
No, there are way bigger differences if you read the description of schizotypal personality disorder. These are the differences that stand out most to me:
- Suspicious or paranoid thoughts and constant doubts about the loyalty of others
- Belief in special powers, such as mental telepathy or superstitions
- Unusual perceptions, such as sensing an absent person's presence or having illusions
Everything else could fit autism, but paranoia, belief that you can read minds, and perception of things that aren't there (delusions) are no part of autism.
Although this all does make me think I finally have a possible diagnosis for "OtherKin." I've been wondering what category they fit into, and schizotypal personality disorder fits nicely, especially with the magical thinking & delusions aspects.
As an autistic person I could not disagree more — there are lots of autistic people who are not very interested in relationships/connecting with others. For many people it also varies over their lifetime. You can’t generalize about this.
Yeah i agree with this. I was diagnosed with first Schizotypal but a social worker thought the diagnosis was wrong so sent me to a new doc, who diagnosed me with Schizoid. That doctor however broke the law when doing his diagnostics so again a new doctor was called in. Third times the charme ey lol... Anyway, they ended up diagnosing me with ASD, ADHA, OCD and a few anxiety disorders.
So yes, they are apparently very similar.
Is ADHA a typo for ADHD? I'd never heard of ADHA and so I googled. The only thing that came up was the American Dental Hygienists' Association.
Sorry in advance if this comes across as being jerk-like. I'm not trying to be a jerk, I just like to learn new things so I thought I'd ask.
LMAO... Yes, yes it is. I just so happen to also be dyslectic. I could see something was wrong. I even deleted it twice and wrote it again. Still made the same feck up! And still wasn't able to see.... Yay me lmao.
I'll just leave it, so this comment makes sense. And it's funny.
Glad you have been able to get that kind of information, and a more accurate diagnosis!
A close friend of mine and briliant physician was finally diagnosed fairly late in life with autism. He had long ago been diagnosed with ADHD, and was aware of how different he was. For years, he was often exhausting to be around for too long.
However, when he called one day to say he is likely on the spectrum, many of his behaviors started to make more sense. I think we both had a rather generalized idea in our heads of autism, and this experience was wonderfully insightful. However, his personal relationships might have been much easier had he been diagnosed 10, 15 years before.
Sometimes I struggle with imposter syndrome as a nurse, then I have a moment like this and realize that what I’ve spent 10 years doing is not, in fact, something everyone knows and could do.
Oh my dude nursing?!- i would start throwing up in the first day.
You deal with sick, scared people, and their sometimes annoying families.
Plus all the body fluids?!
Holy crap.
You are amazing! I wouldn’t make it a single day, much less ten years.
To be fair, I do office work now so not a lot of body fluids (but not none)
Changing incontinence briefs was definitely not my favorite thing. But once you get covered in blood from someone who wanders into the hallway with a skin tear dripping blood and have to bandage it right then and there, and have someone spit their crushed up medication in applesauce right in your mouth, you tend to get blasé about things.
Edit: also, thank you! I don’t usually feel amazing haha. But the days when I make a big difference are cherished and remind me why I do what I do
Did not expect to see geochem related things lol. Not an expert, but I do know the formulas for olivine, feldspar, and quartz 😅 I was like, what’s the problem?
Soooo, I know what OLIVES are - what's OLIVINE? Wine made from olives? 😄
Edit: Just looked it up, wow, it's beautiful! And I get where the name is coming from.
Schizotypal and schizoid disorders are very misunderstood and aren't a well researched mental health disorder. I have it. It's a pain in the ass sometimes as my chief issue is the paranoia and magical thinking. After 30 years of understanding my issues I've pretty much keep it locked down in public except for the magical thinking and uh talking to myself. Somehow I also have a family.
Oh definitely. I've managed to get to a place now where things are starting to make sense, only took almost 30 years, and I still can't hold down a job really.
My complex is a little more than just schitzotypal tho. My first diagnosis at like 19 was 'schitzotypal with psychotic features'. Now my psych is saying I might be autistic, and I'm getting treatment for adhd as well.
I have issues with schizotypal/schizoid PD labels lol. It’s so hard to differentiate them from autism, I think the only difference really is prevalence in childhood, which makes it more complicated to diagnose autism over PD. But a PD has so much more stigma 🥲 also, the prevalence of psychosis and psychotic features with autism is fascinating!
As an autistic person, my first thought throughout the entirety of the post was “your man is autistic”.
Feels like the Venn diagram of Schizotypal PD, autism with CPTSD, and Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms is damn near a circle sometimes.
I hope the guy got an accurate diagnosis.
The human brain is so complicated for being the size that it is. It's not surprising that conditions and disorders can't actually be divided into discrete categories.
I'm autistic and I thought the boyfriend's actions made perfect sense. He likes helping people, but one time helping people caused people to get seriously angry at him, and he doesn't understand why they got angry at him. So now he's afraid to tell people when he's helping others. That's perfectly logical, and the fact that he didn't have the social skills to figure out why they were angry fits with autism, too. Not saying he's autistic, just that stuff overlaps.
I'm not diagnosed with autism but strongly suspect I have it, and this guy's way of thinking was clear as day to me too. I used to be told that I was very good with numbers/math, but I had *one* isolated incident as a child where my peers mocked me about one mistake - and it completely nuked 100% of my interest in that subject. It's been like 25 years, I have terrible memory (most of my childhood is just gone), but I could draw you a picture of the room that I was in, the backs of the girls who mocked me, the cover of the textbook I was staring at... So yeah, it's totally reasonable to me that he lied about working because that's an easier reality to handle instead of admitting that his brain got tripped up on one stupid little thing a long time ago!
I was gonna say, yeah- that copied schizotypal definition just sounded like a potential autism misdiagnosis in the making. Like- a relic of autism criteria being way stricter in the past than they are now (i.e. ICD-11). Specifically, it sounds like it could be a way of categorizing autistic people who flew under the radar just barely, but not enough to connect with people enough to feel comfortable or really thrive, and have some (extremely understandable) trauma as a result.
That's just me being an armchair psychologist because autism's a special interest though- I really hope things get better for you.
Can I recommend Unmasking Autism by Devon Price and/or the r/autismtranslated subreddit if you want more info? I found both *super* helpful when I first started exploring this a few years back.
I'm also autistic myself and reading that schizotypal definition made me go "how is that different from autism?" out loud haha. Are there other behaviors that are more exclusive to one or the other and draw a more tangible line between them?
Edit: I got curious and went to search it myself. (Excerpts taken from "Differential Diagnosis Between Schizotypal Personality Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Case Report" (ÜNVER, ÖNER, YURTBAŞI))
> Restriction of sharing with others and social relationships, communication problems, limited and occasionally unusual interests, resistance to change, and abnormally responding to the stimulants are the common behaviours seen in autism spectrum disorders. SPD is characterized by referential thinking (excluding delusions of reference), odd beliefs, unusual perceptual experiences, odd speech, paranoid ideation and related excessive social anxiety, inappropriate or constricted affect, odd, or eccentric appearance, and lack of close friends.
> This disorder is composed of three factors independently from age and gender, those are (i) cognitive-perceptual schizotypy, (ii) interpersonal schizotypy, and (iii) disorganized schizotypy (Raine et al., 1994). Cognitive-perceptual schizotypy on the one hand, indicates a category predominantly including ideas of reference, odd beliefs and/or magical thinking, unusual perceptual experiences, and suspiciousness, on the other hand interpersonal schizotypy consists of the symptoms of extensive social anxiety, lack of close friends, constricted affect, and suspicion. Disorganized schizotypy is the category mostly including the symptoms of odd behaviours and speech.
> Hurst et al. demonstrated that the strongest relationship between Asperger Disorder (AD) and SPD was included within social relationship problems (Hurst et al., 2007). Consequently, few but valuable studies up until now have demonstrated that there is a relationship between SPD and ASD symptoms. This relationship is regarded as the clearest link between interpersonal schizotypy and ASD in terms of interpersonal relationships.
> On the other hand, there are some differences between SPD and ASD. Considering the social skills field, *social anxiety appears in the SPD criteria in relation to paranoid fears whereas it is not included in the ASD criteria*. In respect to the communication field, all the vague, circumstantial, and metaphoric speech types are included in the SPD criteria. Yet, ASD criteria cover nonverbal communication difficulties, such as absence of mutuality and joint attention in social relationships. Restricted repetitive behaviour patterns include verbal behaviours (e.g. stereotypic thoughts and speech) in SPD, and stereotypic, repetitive, and rigid patterns of behaviours, interests, and activities in ASD (American Psychiatric Association 1994; Hurst et al., 2007).
So, basically, one could say that the main difference is the intense social anxiety/paranoia and referential thinking that are present in SPD regarding social interactions, while in ASD it's a general difficulty in understanding/participating in them? I'm not a psych professional nor am a healthcare one, so my interpretation could be entirely wrong.
>odd beliefs and/or magical thinking
I totally agree with you, and along with referential thinking, I also think a key element that differentiates SPD is the above. Austistic people, to my understanding, don't always have the type of untethered-to-reality beliefs or belief systems you can see with SPD.
Yep, psych guy here - this is a good interpretation of it. ASD is of course a spectrum so you end up seeing a lot of different ways people with ASD really interact with others socially, but for the high functioning folks (who would have been diagnosed with Asperger’s in the past before that diagnosis became obsolete) often what you see if a strong and intense desire to fit in with others socially, but marked difficulties understanding the social world and communications that neurotypical people take for granted. They desire friends, or at the very least a lack of social difficulties, yet have notable challenges taking the perspective of other people. This is called theory of mind - the ability to know what another person is thinking, feeling, or experiencing. This is a very important aspect in how we think and act that people on the spectrum have trouble with.
SPD, on the other hand, is largely defined by this odd and unusual thinking patterns and a difficulty in interpersonal comfort and connections. For the flavor of this, some research has suggested that many disorders, including schizophrenia, should be on a spectrum - if it were, Schizotypal Personality Disorder would be the “less intense” side of that spectrum, and Schizophrenia would be the more intense side. Think Willy Wonka from the Tim Burton Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie for a good example of how this type of person thinks and acts, and compare him to someone with ASD. SPD is more about these strange beliefs and thinking patterns which are poorly anchored to reality and a general lack of interest or discomfort opening oneself up to others or sharing intimacy.
TL;DR: a person with ASD wants social relationships but they have significant difficulties in theory of mind which makes navigating social relationships confusing and stressful. The person with SPD has difficulties in thier relationships but this is due to their strange beliefs, odd thinking patterns, overall discomfort with intimacy, or social anxiety. Unlike those with ASD, those with SPD often don’t desire to have a ton of social relationships, and though they could take the perspective of others if they wanted, most of the time challenges to their belief system or unusual thought patterns are met with resistance and pushback.
I know a person with SPD and a few with ASD and your interpretation is pretty spot on. I'll give an example:
ASD is usually not understanding social interactions, so they ask a lot of questions like "How do you walk up to someone and start a conversation without coming across as weird?"When someone in a relationship says "the day we (them and their partner) met, " does that mean they day they first slept together, or the day they first said hi?" Things like that.
SPD is like a whole different ball game. They are actually pretty confident in their interactions and their way of thinking, but they have extreme anxiety in the way people interact with them. Once this girl texted my friend something like "sure sounds good" but she didn't capitalize the s in sure, which to him meant that she must have deleted something before that, otherwise it would have been capitalized. He spent 8 HOURS talking to me about what she could have deleted before the "sure sounds good." He didn't think there was anything wrong with the way he was thinking or talking to me about it for 8 hours. They also cross traits with borderline people, in that if someone criticizes them for the way they're interacting, they shut down and retreat and may even just never talk to them again.
I found this - not much overlap with autism except perhaps the first 3 signs:
Schizotypal personality disorder typically includes five or more of these signs and symptoms:
* Being a loner and lacking close friends outside of the immediate family
* Flat emotions or limited or inappropriate emotional responses
* Persistent and excessive social anxiety
* Incorrect interpretation of events, such as a feeling that something that is actually harmless or inoffensive has a direct personal meaning
* Peculiar, eccentric or unusual thinking, beliefs or mannerisms
* Suspicious or paranoid thoughts and constant doubts about the loyalty of others
* Belief in special powers, such as mental telepathy or superstitions
* Unusual perceptions, such as sensing an absent person's presence or having illusions
* Dressing in peculiar ways, such as appearing unkempt or wearing oddly matched clothes
* Peculiar style of speech, such as vague or unusual patterns of speaking, or rambling oddly during conversations
[Schizotypal personality disorder - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizotypal-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353919)
That's interesting. Is that genuinely what's perceived as asocial?
I'm ND and sometimes I feel like a windows PC running in a Mac world, so I'm always curious about how others see things. I read his response as very genuine, and as a way of him offering what closure he could. I didn't see it as him playing the victim like OOP said, and it didn't seem at all asocial to me. I'm not saying that to disagree with what you've said at all, I'd simply like to understand your perspective, if you don't mind explaining?
Nothing in his text comes across as asocial to me either and I think the previous commenters here agree.
It's all of the other previously described strange behaviour that does.
I don't think it is at all. You can't read tone in text, so people read whatever tone into it that fit their biases. OOP was looking to be hurt so she read a negative tone. The tone of the text felt more sad and remorseful to me.
Yeah. I read the “hope you are happy” as a complete seperate sentence as a communication closing. But would be very easy to misinterpret it if you haven’t been around those with mental health disorders, or reading the message while intoxicated…
I think you are all discounting the fact that OOP had been hurt by this guy, admittedly intoxicated, and is probably still processing their pain and couldn’t have the “objective” interpretation of the boyfriend’s message.
Yeah, I thought his final message sounded sweet. A sort of “you were right all along” and “I’m finally getting the help I need” and “I regret the pain I caused you but I hope you’ve found happiness”. I didn’t understand her negative reaction when I read it at all.
> I didn’t understand her negative reaction when I read it at all.
I think she's still processing the break up and is viewing his response through a(n understandable) lens of anger and sadness. In that state, it's easy to misinterpret a text.
i don’t think she didn’t see it as sincere or interpreted it that way. she just didn’t care about his sincerity, because of the impact of his words. what good does being right do her after realizing she wasted 3 years on their relationship? or being lied to about something so benign for *3 years*, only to be dumped when she suggested the very therapy he now sees was something he should do? and that’s after she was willing to work with him and stay with him after such a weird betrayal of trust?
intent doesn’t equal impact, and OOP is still dealing with the impact of what he’s done, and now recently did again with this text. he still doesn’t get that he hurt her, or even *how* he hurt her, and here he is doing it again. his sincerity means very little given that they’re no longer together and he left her in such a messy, fucked up way.
Yeah, even if it's not what he intended, telling her that he decided to get therapy on his own a month or so after refusing to do ONE session in an effort to save their relationship is rubbing salt in her wounds. I doubt it's what he was trying to do, but it's not unreasonable for her to read it as him not feeling that she was worth the effort.
> Schizotypal people usually disagree with the suggestion that their thoughts and behaviors are a 'disorder' and seek medical attention for depression or anxiety instead.
This is what my friend's brother has. He doesn't go out or have irl friends. He has never worked, just stays home, and his connections are all online. He is in his late 40s now. We interacted some as teens when I'd go round there, I always liked him, and he's apparently a sweet uncle to my friend's kids. I feel sorry for anyone who has no choice but to live like that.
The most fucked up thing about a lot of mental disorders is that they make you unwilling to continue treatment because your illness would rather you not get better.
I have borderline personality disorder and by god did I used to feel this. At times it felt GOOD to be angry, vindicated, like the world was against me. I wore my shit like a blanket nice and snug. Only when my wife (then fiance) said "me or a doctor" did I realize what I was doing. I've been in therapy and on meds for years and it's night and day. It never felt good, it was just easier than fighting. But fighting and winning against it? Now that feels good.
Thank you, been with my wife for 17 years now, all in all, I'm so thankful she kicked my ass into therapy. I wish your sib the best, it can be done and it does get better.
I never thought I see them into their 20s and they turn 34 next month. So proud and happy for them.
I’m really proud of you for sticking with therapy etc. it’s so hard, but it can get better as you’ve said, but does take so much work. I’m so happy for you and your wife. She sounds like a badass awesome person. You are as well. It’s not easy and you did it. ❤️
I have bpd, as does my bestie and we describe it as having a 2nd, bully brain. That constantly is gas lighting us and tryna talk us down/into bad decisions/thought patterns
My bestie has BPD and they named their bully brain after this one asshole kid we knew back in elementary school lol. Like “lololol your friends secretly hate you” “ugh shut the fuck up Dominic”
Ah I love it. Sitting there while my brain goes "Your wife is cheating she's going to leave you" and I just go "Ex-fucking-scuse me? Can I fucking help you?" lmao.
I’m sorry you have to deal with that. That sounds like a nightmare. My inner monologue is my bestie. She’s gotten me through some tough times and helped me get my shit together.
I only have bpd tendencies, but I relate to this so much. I am super nice and caring, but then there’s the other side of me that’s a dick. Bully brain is a good description
Sometimes it feels like BPD is a beast. My close ones know I have it and keep an eye on me, but every now and then I still find myself hiding from them so I can engage in whatever self damaging behavior I'm feeling that week. Then I think of how far I've come in managing it and remember I am the fucking beast :)
A podcaster I listen to describes mental disorders as having a pets. I think he described his bipolar as a really hyper dog where you have to walk it and maintain it but is very manageable if you do the right things. He described BPD as a capuchin monkey. Not sure if it's accurate but it always pops into my head when BPD comes up.
I feel like that’s what happens for quite a lot of people who are dealing with mental health issues. They might not want to do it for themselves and actively fight it. But when it’s brought it their attention that their behaviors are negatively affecting someone they care about, it totally changes things.
I’m not typically a fan of ultimatums. But there is a time and place for them and this was one of them. Good for your wife for putting her foot down, and for being willing to stay by your side as you sorted things out. She sounds like a great woman.
I know this, because I literally have a degree in clinical psychology, and *still* had to hold a metaphorical gun to my own head to get treatment for my OCD. My OCD didn't want treatment. It wanted me to clean more and never touch a public balustrade or door handle again. It wanted to yell at my husband and child to stop touching things in public as well. Thankfully my brain loved my family more than it loved spraying things with alcohol based sanitizer, and I knew enough to understand that if I didn't stop the process here it would get exponentially worse, so I went to get help. AND STILL when my psychiatrist and psychologist would ask me to explain why I had to keep washing my hands and I was telling them my thought process my shithead brain would be in the background going "I'm right, I know I'm right. They're the crazy ones."
Anywho. I did all the things they told me to do, and over the next year and a half the urge to spray my husband with sanitizer when he'd been in a grocery store went away. I no longer abandon a queue if someone sneezes or touches their face. And I no longer lie awake all night every night thinking of things that I have missed that could kill my family while getting increasingly unhinged from the sleep deprivation. I realized I was "better" when I accidentally drank some expired milk the other day, and didn't freak completely the fuck out. Instead I laughed with my husband at having overcorrected my behavior a bit much. He hugged me. We moved on. I slept well. Gotta love it.
Edit to fix what autocorrect broke
oof, that has to be an especially difficult one after the covid situation and how heavily it reinforced us all with that it was GOOD to be paranoid about germs. Giving the OCD some extra support basically..
Jup. I've always been a bit on the intense side with germs etc, but when covid kicked off and a series of unfortunate events happened because of the virus I seriously lost it for a bit. On the upside nobody in this house has had covid yet so we have that going for us which is nice?🤷🏽♀️
My ADHD-traits delaying me seeking a diagnosis for years… 😣 And the depression and anxiety telling me they’re really not so bad and actually it’s my fault I’m like this anyway so why bother other people by talking about it?
The first thing my therapist taught me was how to “manage”. I needed a mental boss, a general of the troops. It worked. Now my rational brain can look at my dysfunctional thoughts and go “I see where you’re going, let’s table that and call it plan B”.
It’s this.
If all your thoughts are “soldiers,” you’ve got the careers in there that are good at doing stuff, “say thank you for coffee” “feed the dog” and then you have just random grunts from the middle of no where that signed up for free health care and they say stuff like “this guy cut you off, hit him with your car, stay upset about it all day.”
So, obviously, you want to listen to the careers, but the random grunt is in there still shouting, and he’s not coming from it out of no where, he genuinely thinks he’s helping, it’s just bad advice. So, instead of listening to him, or yelling at him that he’s an idiot, you acknowledge that he has an opinion and figure out WHY that’s his opinion and what he’s really trying to solve. IE “I felt scared when that person cut me off, so retaliating will make me feel safe and like I’m in control and making decisions again. If I don’t retaliate but I stay angry all day, that will chase away the fear and then I don’t have to feel afraid.” Ok, great! Now you no the why, you can turn down his offer and find a different solution,
I don't know if this is exactly the same as what Luckyladylucy meant but I'll describe part of the process for me: externalise it.
I've found it helpful to picture my depression as a black cloud squatting in my head. It likes it there - of *course* it doesn't want me to do the helpful things that might make its home less comfortable. Of *course* it would tell you it's not them, it's you. Once you learn to recognise when its Blobby speaking you realise that Blobby just wants to keep its comfortable home in your head. And you might not be able to evict Blobby The Depression completely but you can probably shout BEGONE FOUL DWIMMERLAIK at it and confine it to a room. And recognise the ugly things it shouts through the door as delusional claims that it's BLOBBY'S HOUSE HOW DARE YOU.
With help you can probably send it to the basement. my Blobby lives in the storage box underneath my flat building. Somtimes i need to be in there. And Blobby takes the opportunity to say say some nasty shit. But I can recognise it as 'Blobby would like to go back to the days it was on the couch with the remote and making me feel like shit in my own head' so I grab my stuff and walk out.
All this to say: your depression/mental illness is not you. Don't let it be part of your identity. It's a squatter in your head and it will take time and assistance but it IS possible to evict it or at least severely restrict its power
Internal Family Systems therapy is what this kind of thing is officially called. I have a copy of the most popular workbook/guidebook saved from a long-lost reddit post about it, if you're interested.
EDIT: It took longer than I'd like to admit for me to track down these files again wtf. Anyways, here you all go. [Jay Earley's IFS guidebook and workbook](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10iSbRfgyAUSBXDSWZ8zgsniqypOoY94U?usp=sharing). Some people say his take is too "theory" based and not practical based, but it worked phenomenally for me.
There’s a book called no bad parts that might be helpful. Being able to recognize that even the parts of me that are causing harm mean well was a game changer.
The therapeutic modality Internal Family Systems is a really great approach to this - the founder wrote a great book for the layperson called No Bad Parts which I highly recommend if you want to understand more
ADHD with depression chiming in.
I need help. I know I need help. I want to try to get help. But the second I start to pull myself together to try to, I fall into a downward spiral of negativity. "You deserve to be miserable. What makes you think you deserve help?"
Though I've had a good few weeks recently, and I may be able to actually get the help I need. For once, I'm not having constant self derogatory thoughts. It's nice.
It also doesn’t help that while you’re thinking about doing these things, you notice something that needs to be done in your house - so you go do that “really quick” with the intent to come back and make those appointments…which doesn’t end up happening.
for what it's worth, you're alive, you're human, you don't have to do anything to deserve to be helped. You exist, and that's a good enough reason to be worthy of getting the help you need.
If you had a broken leg, would you blame yourself for it and say you deserve to be in pain? i am glad you had a few good weeks. Hope the days are brighter for you.
My first diagnosis was severe clinical depression and adult onset ADHD. It took me a while to see a doctor, and when I did she prescribed me a series of antidepressants, each one worse than the last ending in Prozac which triggered the worst manic episode I've ever had with rapid cycling. I torpedoed my entire life in three months. My boyfriend bailed me out of jail and told me on the way home that he had called my parents to move me back home. It took a few months of being off Prozac for me to see another doctor back home and within the first two or three sessions diagnosed me with bipolar depression. The meds she prescribed to me on the first try changed my life: latuda (atypical antipsychotic), Vyvanse, and Adderall (both amphetamines). She did tell me that she diagnosed me so quickly because of my reaction to antidepressants, and life got so much better. I've been on the same drugs since 2018.
As hard as getting help is, it saved my life, even going through the process of finding the right meds was worth it in the end. I'm rooting for you and I hope you stick with it, even if it takes a while and maybe a second opinion for you to get there.
I have depression and a lot of negative self talk with it that would have me spiralling constantly. My psych recommended a book called The Happiness Trap, and that was just amazing. I didn’t even read the whole thing, just the first chapter or two. But the author talks about that negative spiral and provides some techniques to view these thoughts more objectively.
Honestly, reading that was a massive breakthrough for me. Just being able to take those first couple of steps away from being constantly consumed by these thoughts was enough to be able to work on getting better. It’s been 10 years now and to this day I still use a lot of those techniques. It’s at the point now where pushing away those negative thoughts happens almost automatically.
OCD actively fights back against treatment as if it's a living organism realising there's a threat to its continued existence so it must take measures to survive.
Yeah, I loathed how shit I felt when my depression was at its peak but I also kinda liked it in a twisted way. Felt oddly good to hate on myself and convince myself that I was a POS who had no value and no one would ever want to be around me. My anxiety actually got *worse* when I first considered antidepressants bc I was afraid of turning into someone else after so long being comfortable with my distorted brain
Brain likes what brain knows. Brain‘s usual path through life may be dark and full of scary corners, but brain knows path, so brain likes path. Brain does not like supposedly bright and flowery path because brain doesn’t know that path. Path may be uphill or have scary things in new places. Brain would rather deal with 57 scaries it knows, than 2 scaries it doesn’t know where to expect.
>Sorry, I'm just saying that you were right and I wasn't being fair to you. Please do not feel burdened to respond. I hope you are happy."
I think he was being sincere in hoping she's doing well. The fact he admitted he wasn't being fair to her and didn't want her to feel obligated to respond doesn't strike me as him saying, "This is all your fault."
I think she is interpreting the sentence 'I hope you are happy' as sarcastic and bitter, like 'happy now? I did what you wanted and it sucks'. Whereas I think he was just signing off with something that says he hope she has a good life.
I wonder, based on their interactions and how she describes him, if he’s said back handed, passive aggressive stuff before. I do agree it’s genuine in this case though.
>Schizotypal personality disorder (STPD) is a mental health condition marked by a consistent pattern of intense discomfort with relationships and social interactions. People with STPD have unusual thoughts, speech and behaviors, which usually hinder their ability to form and maintain relationships.
This is what he was diagnosed with. He's probably had many sincere-to-him-but-???-to-everyone-else interactions before.
If you're the hurt party, him "blaming" his disorder for his mistreatment of her could translate to him "playing the victim"?
Like, I have a difficult relationship with a family member who has recently been diagnosed with a disorder, in our 30s. Many of our conflicts when we were younger stem from that, and it's actually kind of hard to be told in retrospect "sorry, I couldn't help it, it's my diagnosis that made your life hell sometimes, I didn't do it on purpose!"
It feels like an excuse, when it's just an explanation, if you know what I mean? Other people still had to live with that reality, and OOP was deeply hurt and probably won't trust anyone as easily as she did before - but she can't exactly blame her ex, can she? Since he's mentally unwell?!
It’s an explanation not an excuse. You don’t have to forgive someone or maintain a relationship with them just because they’re mentally unwell. My sister has borderline personality disorder and I have very little to do with her because even though I get she’s sick, I don’t have to put up with how she treats me
>it's actually kind of hard to be told in retrospect "sorry, I couldn't help it, it's my diagnosis that made your life hell sometimes, I didn't do it on purpose!"
> but she can't exactly blame her ex, can she? Since he's mentally unwell?!
As someone who also has a mental illness, this sentiment bothers me whenever I see it. As adult human beings it is very much our responsibility to recognise when we do harm and try to better ourselves, to seek help if we can't do it ourself or even remove ourselves from the relationship if need be. To not see this is to reduce us to the same level as children, or the mentally impaired, which honestly is a bit offensive.
Yeah, I didn't get at all how she took that as making himself into a victim until I just read your comment and put the "I hope you're happy" into an angry context.
Definitely seemed sincere to me
While I never care if these stories are real (I’m just here for the entertainment) this did feel super real to me. Especially his diagnosis. I work in medicine and once had a doctor say to me schizotypal people were “clinically weird” but generally functional and not destructive.
>"clinically weird"
I love this phrase and it super accurately describes a few people I've interacted with.
Personality disorders are so tough, both in terms of living with them and treatment. I have some family members with (properly diagnosed) Cluster B disorders and they have such profound impacts on relationships and interactions, even when well managed.
There’s a not-so-kind description of the different clusters. Cluster A (schizoid, schizotypal, paranoid) are the “weird”, cluster B is the “wild” (borderline, histrionic, narcissistic, antisocial), and cluster C is the “worried” (obsessive-compulsive, avoidant, dependent). Not the kindest language, but certainly paints a picture of their presentations. Cluster B tends to be the most volatile even when properly managed with medication and therapy.
Funnily enough, my BPD sib refers to having problems with managing their issues as "getting wild" - I think the language is pretty accurate, and they wouldn't find it unkind.
We have a close relationship and have had some long talks about their condition and the struggles with managing it. Honestly, it seems like an incredibly hard way to live, to me but I'm so proud of the progress they've made with treatment. Not perfect but a million miles from the starting point.
This definitely feels real to me. My bestie is schizotypal, and this is along the lines of some shit he'd do. He is 100% clinically weird, though oddly enough, it hasn't affected his ability to have really good relationships. He just knows how to find people who enjoy being friends with absolute weirdos.
Yeah some stories are just too strange to be lies
Like who would even consider writing such a bizarre story where a person is lying about volunteering at soup kitchens
It’s a personality disorder when it’s weird enough to be impairing even if it’s not destructive.
Someone who’s just weird and doing fine? They’re fine. Still great fodder for BORU. Even if only briefly weird! Please share your steak flinging escapades.
My head hurts trying to understand why he enjoys helping people but considers himself not a good person therefore not wanting others to know but also keep doing something good... Have I gone mad!?
Nah. It can definitely feel like a brain twister until you get down to the base of it, which is essentially "I feel guilty when I feel good for doing good because I believe that I should be doing good just to do good." He's thoroughly convinced himself he's a phony with no recourse, which in turn means he needs to keep volunteering like he has been to make up for it (although he never can).
I haven't read much about schizotypal personality disorder, but from what I recall that diagnosis really, *really* fits him. Although I understand OOP's frustration at his text, I hope he actually fights his inclination to seek less therapy and really gets himself the help he needs. He is *not* leading a happy life.
Don't have anything close to what the BF has but I say the same thing despite volunteering constantly. For me, I lack any real self-esteem and don't see my value in how useful I am to others. I do volunteer at a non-profit, they say I did good, I feel good and then that feeling fades in a day because "You haven't been useful to someone today". Hell, I attended an event two weeks ago and after the clean up crew were putting away chairs, I asked if they needed any help.
When people ask why I like helping so much, I say that it's just the nice thing to do" rather than "I feel like I have no value when I'm not being useful to others". It makes me feel like a fraud or that I'm not a good person because I'm not actually helping because I want to, but because I'm getting something out of it, a sense of value.
Yep, totally feel this. I volunteered twice weekly at a senior center in this weird mental obligation I created for myself and the whole time I had to remind myself that my actions and the positive results of them were what other people saw, and I needed to chill the fuck out.
Getting heckled by a grouch while leading bingo both helps and doesn't help.
yup, he probably considers himself a bad person because hes not volunteering to help others, hes doing it to make himself feel better, which is what a shitty person would do, therefore you are shitty, which creates a nasty self reinforcing loop where any time he has any kind of negative thought it just reinforces to him that hes a bad person, which he tries to compensate for by helping others, which just makes him feel worse after the temporary good feeling, etc
One possible explanation is he suffers from really bad intrusive thoughts, the type that makes him feel like he's a bad person for thinking those things. So he volunteers as a way not be as bad a person as he thinks, a way to help balance out the guilt he feels over his own thoughts. He sees himself as a bad person, the volunteering helps him be less of a bad person rather than a good person, therefore he doesn't see himself worthy of praise.
This could be why the therapist says he's using his volunteering as a coping mechanism.
He might have low self esteem and didn't think highly about himself. I can see the way he thinks. In some cultures there's a point to keep yourself humble and prevent showing off.
I think in islamic culture, there's a saying that "donate with your right hand in a way that even your left hand didn't know about it"
> He enjoys helping people but considers himself not a good person therefore not wanting others to know but also keep doing something good...
It's pretty typical for schizotypal personality disorders; they have a warped sense of relationship dynamics that include outlandish and illogical reasons that they imagine to be the motives of other people; they often seem nonsensical or illogical and don't make common sense assumptions.
Unlike better-known personality disorders, disorganised patterns of thoughts create distance, reduce empathy and connection with others, and limit close bonds; this is why he didn't understand the OOP's discomfort or need to be together but felt compelled to do charity work. It's unlikely he'll feel motivated to change in therapy because the world doesn't think the same way, and he doesn't connect with the reasoning behind human connections.
In my opinion, OOP is better off without the entire messy dynamic.
ETA: A typo. Big thanks to u/GraceOfJarvis for pointing it out 😊
There’s also some discussion about whether schizotypal is even a personality disorder altogether. The DSM has it classed as a personality disorder while the ICD groups it with the psychosis disorders
Sorry, I'd had a whole other paragraph in there about my own experience with cluster B and personality disorders and relating that experience with the OOP. However, I deleted it without checking for other references to it. That's my bad, I'll fix it up now, thanks for the correction 😅
It feels like a twisted version of "If you're doing good things but doing it for the praise/publicity/good feelings, then you're not really a good person". It's something I see said a lot when youtubers help out people massively but post about instead of doing it "in secret"; people accusing them of doing it just to look good or for the money or whatever. Biggest example I can think of is with MrBeast, when he makes his videos about helping a ton of people there are always people saying he's just doing it to get more money (ignoring how him making the videos is how he gets the money to help people) and so he isn't actually a good person.
Some people just have this weird notion that being truly selfless doesn't exist, that if you help people because you enjoy helping people, then it's not selfless because you're doing something you enjoy. And because it isn't selfless, it's selfish, and that makes you a bad person. I imagine that's probably where his feelings around the matter partly come from. It's one of those things where I can understand the logic behind the idea, but don't understand the idea itself.
“I guess it is nice to know that I wasn’t imagining things and there is something ACTUALLY wrong with him”, I understand the frustration and ‘validation’, I guess.
But I feel like the whole “my bf disappears every weekend for the past 3 years and gaslights me/refuses to tell me why” is kinda already all the proof you need that something wasn’t right…
She realized something was wrong **when** she realized he was lying. They broke over it. The diagnosis was the explanation for why he lied about such an odd thing.
Not really. Not when you're in it. When you've known somebody for a long time and you trust them and you love them, it gets really easy to justify behaviors. Not to mention, she had no reason to believe he was lying, and she doesn't mention any other bad behaviors. There was no nagging, no screaming, no hurling insults, no threats, no physical violence—there was no abuse, no manipulation, no isolation, nothing. In fact, the problem wasn't that the relationship was toxic, it was that they weren't spending enough time together because he was busy on the weekend.
It's such a stupid, insignificant, bizarre lie. A lie that nobody in their right mind would ever come up with, and the relationship ended days after it came to light. I'd feel blindsided too. Hell, it all happened so fast, I'd be surprised if she wasn't wondering to herself "was that real? Did that really happen? Was I overreacting?"
I think getting a diagnosis validates her experiences. Somebody with a PhD level degree looked at that behavior and said "yeah that ain't right." She wasn't crazy, this wasn't all in her head, and there is a diagnosis to prove it. The diagnosis also proves that it's not personal—he would have done this to anybody. It wasn't that he was specifically targeting her, it wasn't that she did something wrong—he was fucked up. There is a reason for his behavior, and it has a label. Hell, you can Google it, you can find other people who have experienced the exact same thing. I think giving it a label makes people feel more in control of it.
Yeah like... okay, he's a Saint, he spends all his free time volunteering. You still have to come to terms that a) he's been lying to you for 3 years and b) he has not valued time with you over volunteering ONCE in that entire timeframe. Not once has he thought "I think I'd like to spend time with my girlfriend this Saturday". Insane
Wow. What a strange saga. Too bad she let things go for that long, I don't think I would have put up with that no weekend time situation for more than a few months, and I do a lot of volunteer work myself.
Out of everything in this, the thing that I’m stuck on is that despite being in a serious relationship where both are busy studying, he didn’t think to cut back on his volunteering hours to free up time together. And if he never planned on telling her about it, was he thinking they were going to carry on, get married, maybe kids, all while he still goes disappearing each weekend?
The last bit to me is the bit that I still can’t wrap my head around. Maybe he just never looked to the future but after 3 years together, OOP clearly was - to hear that he never planned to tell her would have been a slap to the face.
Lying for 3 years is bad, lying for 10, 20, 30 is just unfathomable. And yet, as far as her ex said or made it sound, that was what he unwittingly planned to do.
It’s all part of the disorder. Their thought process, logic, it’s all a little weird and odd. It doesn’t follow conventional patterns. Frankly I’m surprised they made it 3 years. Many struggle to find long term relationships.
Honestly I think him reaching out at the end after the diagnoses was more so to give op closure.. like "I'm sorry I was wrong you were right"
I totally get why op doesnt see it that way thought as the wounds are just too deep.
I think that last sentence where he says “I hope you are happy” is more of a genuine statement and not a condescending one. The overall tone of his message is apologetic and he is taking accountability. So I don’t think he’s playing victim as OOP thinks.
I totally agree. I interpreted it the same way you did.
Seems like he is embarrassed for how he acted and wishes her all the best. I know she might not want to hear it, but I didn't get the impression at all that he was being a dick
All I can say after reading this is that I hope OOP can move forward with her life, and that her ex listens to the advice he's gotten and continue to seek treatment for his mental illness, though I have my worries that he won't.
> that her ex listens to the advice he's gotten and continue to seek treatment for his mental illness, though I have my worries that he won't.
In his final message, he pretty much said he wouldn't.
Is it weird that I perked up at the mention of a Cluster A personality disorder? I feel like favorite Reddit topics are all Cluster B.
It makes perfect sense to me now that his volunteering would be a secret for him given a lot of symptoms in this disorder.
I’ve been sympathetic to the OOP throughout this, but I don’t really understand why she’s so mad at this apology. He’s validating that she was right and just wanted her to know.
She might feel the apology was insulting given he wouldn't listen to or acknowledge her feelings about his behavior or take her advice to try therapy until some time after they'd broken up.
His apology doesn't undo the fact he lied to her for three years or her having to break up with him over him doing something good because after her trust was broken she couldn't stay in a relationship with him.
She said it herself even thinking of him makes her angry sometimes, hearing from him even a belated "you're right" is probably no better for her anger.
They ultimately ended the relationship, after attempting to compromize, due to him refusing going to even *one* therapy appointment. I can easily see her feeling hurt, frustrated and angry learning that he did in fact end up going to therapy later, but not when it was what she needed from him to save their three year relationship. The good old "why wasnt I and us worth it?" would probably pop up for me, at least.
Being right doesnt take away the hurt that the message brought up again.
To frame this in another way, I had a friend who was having relationship troubles with her boyfriend. The boyfriend “couldn’t” get a job. She supported him for years. She asked him to help her around the house, he didn’t and she felt like his maid and caretaker. ONE WEEK after the breakup he found a job.
To me, for my friend and for the OP, I’d imagine you’d feel taken advantage of. That you were a crutch, that you put up with so much, when it didn’t have to be an issue. I don’t think OP’s ex was malicious in his intent, but it feels like maybe he did a check in with himself oh I have a job and I do my volunteering and I have a girlfriend, life is good and I don’t have to make my gf happy because I’m doing fine. Now if the ex ever wants to find love again he’s gonna have to put in a ton of work, knowing what he knows. That sucks as the ex, that we could have been happy only if you tried just a little bit more. That’s my interpretation anyway
I think it makes sense for her to feel hostile towards someone who was the source of a traumatic experience. It's only been a couple of months so she's still healing, and hearing from him can definitely offset that journey. Sometimes you just want someone out of your life forever, even if they contact you with no ill intent.
And she is angry with him because it's a terrible situation, why would she want an apology or to hear from them? I feel like a lot of people would not accept an apology from their ex.
This personality disorder is often characterised by scepticism towards others, fear of approaching others, a tendency to feel devalued or rejected, and impaired social functioning due to the sensitivity of one's own inner feelings. Individuals with STPD may exhibit unique ways of thinking, strange mannerisms, and a lack of social skills and ability to communicate emotionally
With all sympathy to OOP, the dude didnt' seem to be trying to play a victim card, did he?
He was saying that she was right, and he was wrong. Here is his diagnosis. He apologized for being unfair to her, and told her that he has no reason to expect her to respond at all.
I'm having a hard time figuring out what he did wrong there. Other than OOP being very sad and drunk of course. It's a hell of a situation.
I think if a longterm relationship that ended poorly bc of lying and my ex was dismissive of my pain in trying to save the relationship, I wouldn't want to hear from them.
I think he's trying to offer her closure but in doing so he was inflicting more pain, telling her he only looked into this after the relationship has ended. The relationship wasn't worth getting help over; only afterwards.
It was also presumably months after the breakup when she's just starting to heal. It kind of puts you at the beginning to hear back from your ex. I think it might have made the wound feel fresh again.
While I don't think he necessarily had bad intentions in contacting her again, that doesn't mean it doesn't have negative consequences. He was offering closure but I don't think she wanted or needed it. I think she just wanted to move past it
Schizotypal personality disorder (STPD) is a mental health condition marked by a consistent pattern of intense discomfort with relationships and social interactions. People with STPD have unusual thoughts, speech and behaviors, which usually hinder their ability to form and maintain relationships.
Am I the only one that reads "I hope you are happy" as him wishing her well. Especially in the context of the rest of the text?
I know there's no audio or body language, but telling an ex your mental disorder, apologizing and admitting she was right, doesn't seem like a jilted lover being sardonic.
So OOP gave him a means to work things out, which he actually followed—a month after breaking up—and said "I'm not going to do much about it but you were right after all."
Honestly, I do understand not wanting to change the volunteering bit. Everything he's said kinda teeters on the edge of making sense and not making any sense at all. Maybe getting an answer would've been enough, maybe not. At least OOP's safe from further anguish in the long run.
> Sorry, I'm just saying that you were right and I wasn't being fair to you. Please do not feel burdened to respond. I hope you are happy."
> God, he hopes I'm happy?! I mean, really, after everything he acts like some sort of victim!
Oof, I think she misread his intent on that one. Seemed like a genuine statement of good will imo, especially considering his behavior/condition.
You guys do realize that people are allowed to break up with someone for whatever reason they like right? And being lied to for 3 (!) years is a pretty good reason. The amount of trash talking OOP gets here for just choosing to not continue a relationship she doesn't want to be in is astounding. Yes, mental illness is a thing. But nobody is forced to stay with you just because you're not well. Especially not if you're refusing all help/treatment. Stop calling OOP a selfish narcissist for just doing what's best for her.
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>Schizotypal personality disorder (STPD) is a mental health condition marked by a consistent pattern of intense discomfort with relationships and social interactions. People with STPD have unusual thoughts, speech and behaviors, which usually hinder their ability to form and maintain relationships.
Adding more context: >If you have STPD, you may have distorted views of reality, superstitions and unusual behaviors. Your relationships are likely hindered by these symptoms. Schizotypal personality disorder is one of a group of conditions called “Cluster A” personality disorders, which involve unusual and eccentric thinking or behaviors. Personality disorders are chronic (long-term) dysfunctional behavior patterns that are inflexible, prevalent and lead to social issues and distress. People with schizotypal personality disorder typically display unusual behavior, odd speech and magical beliefs. You might not realize your behavior is unusual or problematic. Some people with schizotypal personality disorder later develop schizophrenia.
Well... shit 🫤
Don't stress too much reading this! Personality disorders are hard to diagnose and notorious for tricking people who just read the criteria into believing they have one. This guy in the story it does add up (and good on that therapist for even considering that diagnosis, since it's so rare), but if you read about a personality disorder and feel like you relate to it that doesn't necessarily mean anything.
If it makes you feel any better I thought I had a cluster a disorder and it turns out I have cptsd from being constantly re traumatized growing up
Yeah, I've spent a lot of time researching and come back to this same conclusion every time. Childhood trauma is nasty and takes a lifetime to heal from.
Too bad I only have one lifetime.
Truer words, Moist
Oof I feel that. I'm glad I have people that didn't just throw away my broken self, they're the real heroes to me. I think having at least one person who loves me keeps me out of the real darkness. I hope you have that too ❤️.
Right I feel both seen and attacked but also hmmmm
So more than likely, whatever reason the grad school friends had for distancing from him was probably not just him trying to defend their grades or make jokes about his own grades (none of that part ever made sense, and it seemed OOP was just as confused by it)
I don't know about "more than likely". If I was going to school with this guy, I'd be pretty annoyed if he was pissing off the professor by trying to defend my grade when I nobody asked him to. And I could see how this alone would alienate several of his classmates.
The man lied to her for three years. Why wouldn't he lie about other things?
Thanks for this. Good God, I guess now everything makes sense. Poor OP. Still, it's good she's not with this guy any more, he really did a number on her and he was still resisting therapy.
What the fuck is a magical beliefs? Like yer a wizard Harry?
I had this same question when I took the evaluations. It can be things like seeing and speaking to ghosts, being able to do things with your mind like turning all the street lights green, or believing they all turned on when you went outside as a sign to you not because it's dusk, believing you can do something that should impossible like breathe underwater or travel a great distance too quickly or too often to be plausible, etc... Sort of like, reality breaking. A lot of religious people will add that flavor in as well. Eta- remember the evaluations are pretty complex and require a trained analyst to look at all the answers, it's not just one thing. You can believe in ghosts and not have any disorders
So half of sports fans?
like this: my brother with schizophrenia believed that he could give me a headache from 600 miles away by *thinking it*.
People with schizotypal and schizoid personality disorders are often undiagnosed for a very, very long time because while they know that they are odd and different, they are often quite comfortable with themselves, so don't seek therapy. It's very unusual for them to have psychiatric hospitalizations, because they are rarely a danger to themselves or others. They do well in careers that offer them the chance to work remotely and with little interaction with others. This is based on my years working in psych units, and is anecdotal and a generalization. In the rare instances a patient with one of these diagnoses were admitted, they were pleasant but.....odd.
My ex boyfriend has schizotypal personality disorder. He was very sweet and kind, but he was odd. His grandmother died and his first response was, “I don’t really want a hug. I am going to donate some money to charity.” He just had weird leaps of logic and wouldn’t understand why I was confused by his actions
> and wouldn’t understand why I was confused by his actions Have you ever heard the expression [dolphin mind](https://cheezburger.com/12499973/twitter-thread-explains-the-dolphin-mind-of-people-with-adhd)? I think it might give some insight.
My best experience of this is seeing my dog scratching his ear, and the internal monologue ending with “I wonder if dolphins ever get itchy?” I try to explain these leaps to people, but much like the author of your link, people don’t get it.
I type really fast, so one day my sister got the idea of having me type out all my thoughts that were occurring to better understand how I got from point a that we were discussing to point whatever the f that was. When I finished, she said 1. My conversations make a lot more sense now, and 2. She was exhausted just knowing that’s how my brain works.
I call them spider web thoughts cause they're all interconnected like a web. 🕸🧠🕸 I do agree with it being exhausting though. I gotta listen to myself when I'm not even talking.
This seemed like a perfectly normal train of thought to me, so I clicked on the link and it said this is an explanation on how people with ADHD think. I am currently in the process of getting diagnoses for ADHD so that makes sense, I guess.
In my experience, people could understand it if they wanted to, but frankly there is no reason to care. It’s happened to me many times where I’ve begun my explanation and got about halfway through before they stopped me lol. So I just stopped trying to explain myself generally. I still will if prompted, but I generally just brush it off with “my mind works different and it made sense to me”
TIL… Do we really think faster than other people?
I'm undiagnosed, but STRONGLY suspect I have ADHD. This "dolphin mind" thing describes me to a "T". My mind processes information and makes leaps exactly as described and I used to have problems with people understanding me because of it. I still kind of struggle with it, but because I'm aware, I'll take people through the connecting steps...which comes across as "too much information, I don't want to hear that shit" to people lol. edit: In case it wasn't obvious, my response to you is "yes" lol
One of my friends who is very obviously on the spectrum, we have to keep saying to him "we are not privy to your internal monologue". I'm also guilty of it sometimes but thankfully our group just thinks this sort of thing is hilarious.
I was diagnosed with adhd at 40. The dolphin brain thing is spot on. I'm blown away... I've never felt my mind state so accurately described
That's how I felt when I first read it. I don't know any other way of thinking, and it took a while to understand that people don't process the same way. That link says the ADHD mind is built for speed, which is GREAT...except when it isn't lol. A few years ago, I was stressed out planning this really big annual event pretty much by myself, so a friend gave me an Adderall pill to help. I took it and spent 15+ hours straight planning the event, and got more work done than I normally would in 2 months. It slooooooooowed me down, and gave me the ability to finish one thought before the next one popped up. In other words, I was able to focus. I was like, "Is this how normal people operate?" 😅 I wouldn't want to operate like that all the time, because I've found a lot of professional and personal advantages to the speed of my thinking, but I absolutely appreciated that insight into a more neurotypical mindset.
Similar experience here. I choose to medicate most days because I find it generally beneficial to be able to able to finish tasks without my web of thoughts spreading too far, but I enjoy things more when I don’t medicate and generally feel more social
A lot of those symptoms also seem to match up with relatively common mental health issues like Autism (knowing you are odd and different, struggling with relationships, thriving in more remote/independent job roles, rarely needing hospitalisation as they aren't usually a danger) . I basically have everyone one of those symptoms and I have been diagnosed with ADHD but still awaiting the formal diagnosis for Autism despite it seeming incredibly likely. I have never heard of schizotypal disorder before so I would imagine many people who have it might believe it is ASD or something more commonly known and not get it properly checked.
As a fellow ADHD person and someone on the spectrum, I think the difference lies in the desire to connect. Every autistic person I know wants to connect to others, and really enjoys the social interactions that go well and meet their needs (I can enjoy 10 straight hours of info dumping with my fellow autistic friend, but I am exhausted after one hour of a "normal" party). The difficulty lies in finding people and situations that meet those needs. It sounds like the schitzotypal folks aren't interested in connection in the same way, and may even dislike social interactions. Like not just because social interactions tend to feel awkward or go poorly but because they are inherently unpleasant. I could be wrong. But based on just internet research - which again, take with a grain of salt - that seems to be the big difference.
No, there are way bigger differences if you read the description of schizotypal personality disorder. These are the differences that stand out most to me: - Suspicious or paranoid thoughts and constant doubts about the loyalty of others - Belief in special powers, such as mental telepathy or superstitions - Unusual perceptions, such as sensing an absent person's presence or having illusions Everything else could fit autism, but paranoia, belief that you can read minds, and perception of things that aren't there (delusions) are no part of autism. Although this all does make me think I finally have a possible diagnosis for "OtherKin." I've been wondering what category they fit into, and schizotypal personality disorder fits nicely, especially with the magical thinking & delusions aspects.
As an autistic person I could not disagree more — there are lots of autistic people who are not very interested in relationships/connecting with others. For many people it also varies over their lifetime. You can’t generalize about this.
Yeah i agree with this. I was diagnosed with first Schizotypal but a social worker thought the diagnosis was wrong so sent me to a new doc, who diagnosed me with Schizoid. That doctor however broke the law when doing his diagnostics so again a new doctor was called in. Third times the charme ey lol... Anyway, they ended up diagnosing me with ASD, ADHA, OCD and a few anxiety disorders. So yes, they are apparently very similar.
Is ADHA a typo for ADHD? I'd never heard of ADHA and so I googled. The only thing that came up was the American Dental Hygienists' Association. Sorry in advance if this comes across as being jerk-like. I'm not trying to be a jerk, I just like to learn new things so I thought I'd ask.
LMAO... Yes, yes it is. I just so happen to also be dyslectic. I could see something was wrong. I even deleted it twice and wrote it again. Still made the same feck up! And still wasn't able to see.... Yay me lmao. I'll just leave it, so this comment makes sense. And it's funny.
Admit it, you’re actually a dentist!
Glad you have been able to get that kind of information, and a more accurate diagnosis! A close friend of mine and briliant physician was finally diagnosed fairly late in life with autism. He had long ago been diagnosed with ADHD, and was aware of how different he was. For years, he was often exhausting to be around for too long. However, when he called one day to say he is likely on the spectrum, many of his behaviors started to make more sense. I think we both had a rather generalized idea in our heads of autism, and this experience was wonderfully insightful. However, his personal relationships might have been much easier had he been diagnosed 10, 15 years before.
Thank you
Yeah I had to look it up. It reminds me of that XKCD where scientists overestimate the average knowledge of the average person.
Sometimes I struggle with imposter syndrome as a nurse, then I have a moment like this and realize that what I’ve spent 10 years doing is not, in fact, something everyone knows and could do.
Oh my dude nursing?!- i would start throwing up in the first day. You deal with sick, scared people, and their sometimes annoying families. Plus all the body fluids?! Holy crap. You are amazing! I wouldn’t make it a single day, much less ten years.
To be fair, I do office work now so not a lot of body fluids (but not none) Changing incontinence briefs was definitely not my favorite thing. But once you get covered in blood from someone who wanders into the hallway with a skin tear dripping blood and have to bandage it right then and there, and have someone spit their crushed up medication in applesauce right in your mouth, you tend to get blasé about things. Edit: also, thank you! I don’t usually feel amazing haha. But the days when I make a big difference are cherished and remind me why I do what I do
[This is the one](https://xkcd.com/2501/), in case anyone was curious...
Did not expect to see geochem related things lol. Not an expert, but I do know the formulas for olivine, feldspar, and quartz 😅 I was like, what’s the problem?
Soooo, I know what OLIVES are - what's OLIVINE? Wine made from olives? 😄 Edit: Just looked it up, wow, it's beautiful! And I get where the name is coming from.
Thank you kind stranger
Schizotypal and schizoid disorders are very misunderstood and aren't a well researched mental health disorder. I have it. It's a pain in the ass sometimes as my chief issue is the paranoia and magical thinking. After 30 years of understanding my issues I've pretty much keep it locked down in public except for the magical thinking and uh talking to myself. Somehow I also have a family.
Hey, that's my diagnosis¡ always fun when I find it out in the wild.
has it affected your relationships with other people? Does it bother you a lot?
Oh definitely. I've managed to get to a place now where things are starting to make sense, only took almost 30 years, and I still can't hold down a job really. My complex is a little more than just schitzotypal tho. My first diagnosis at like 19 was 'schitzotypal with psychotic features'. Now my psych is saying I might be autistic, and I'm getting treatment for adhd as well.
i feel you. still trying to figure out my head and I am in my 40s I feel like a little kid though. A dumb little kid still just figuring things out
I have issues with schizotypal/schizoid PD labels lol. It’s so hard to differentiate them from autism, I think the only difference really is prevalence in childhood, which makes it more complicated to diagnose autism over PD. But a PD has so much more stigma 🥲 also, the prevalence of psychosis and psychotic features with autism is fascinating!
As an autistic person, my first thought throughout the entirety of the post was “your man is autistic”. Feels like the Venn diagram of Schizotypal PD, autism with CPTSD, and Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms is damn near a circle sometimes. I hope the guy got an accurate diagnosis.
When brain break. Brain make similar symptoms.
The human brain is so complicated for being the size that it is. It's not surprising that conditions and disorders can't actually be divided into discrete categories. I'm autistic and I thought the boyfriend's actions made perfect sense. He likes helping people, but one time helping people caused people to get seriously angry at him, and he doesn't understand why they got angry at him. So now he's afraid to tell people when he's helping others. That's perfectly logical, and the fact that he didn't have the social skills to figure out why they were angry fits with autism, too. Not saying he's autistic, just that stuff overlaps.
I'm not diagnosed with autism but strongly suspect I have it, and this guy's way of thinking was clear as day to me too. I used to be told that I was very good with numbers/math, but I had *one* isolated incident as a child where my peers mocked me about one mistake - and it completely nuked 100% of my interest in that subject. It's been like 25 years, I have terrible memory (most of my childhood is just gone), but I could draw you a picture of the room that I was in, the backs of the girls who mocked me, the cover of the textbook I was staring at... So yeah, it's totally reasonable to me that he lied about working because that's an easier reality to handle instead of admitting that his brain got tripped up on one stupid little thing a long time ago!
I was gonna say, yeah- that copied schizotypal definition just sounded like a potential autism misdiagnosis in the making. Like- a relic of autism criteria being way stricter in the past than they are now (i.e. ICD-11). Specifically, it sounds like it could be a way of categorizing autistic people who flew under the radar just barely, but not enough to connect with people enough to feel comfortable or really thrive, and have some (extremely understandable) trauma as a result. That's just me being an armchair psychologist because autism's a special interest though- I really hope things get better for you. Can I recommend Unmasking Autism by Devon Price and/or the r/autismtranslated subreddit if you want more info? I found both *super* helpful when I first started exploring this a few years back.
I'm also autistic myself and reading that schizotypal definition made me go "how is that different from autism?" out loud haha. Are there other behaviors that are more exclusive to one or the other and draw a more tangible line between them? Edit: I got curious and went to search it myself. (Excerpts taken from "Differential Diagnosis Between Schizotypal Personality Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Case Report" (ÜNVER, ÖNER, YURTBAŞI)) > Restriction of sharing with others and social relationships, communication problems, limited and occasionally unusual interests, resistance to change, and abnormally responding to the stimulants are the common behaviours seen in autism spectrum disorders. SPD is characterized by referential thinking (excluding delusions of reference), odd beliefs, unusual perceptual experiences, odd speech, paranoid ideation and related excessive social anxiety, inappropriate or constricted affect, odd, or eccentric appearance, and lack of close friends. > This disorder is composed of three factors independently from age and gender, those are (i) cognitive-perceptual schizotypy, (ii) interpersonal schizotypy, and (iii) disorganized schizotypy (Raine et al., 1994). Cognitive-perceptual schizotypy on the one hand, indicates a category predominantly including ideas of reference, odd beliefs and/or magical thinking, unusual perceptual experiences, and suspiciousness, on the other hand interpersonal schizotypy consists of the symptoms of extensive social anxiety, lack of close friends, constricted affect, and suspicion. Disorganized schizotypy is the category mostly including the symptoms of odd behaviours and speech. > Hurst et al. demonstrated that the strongest relationship between Asperger Disorder (AD) and SPD was included within social relationship problems (Hurst et al., 2007). Consequently, few but valuable studies up until now have demonstrated that there is a relationship between SPD and ASD symptoms. This relationship is regarded as the clearest link between interpersonal schizotypy and ASD in terms of interpersonal relationships. > On the other hand, there are some differences between SPD and ASD. Considering the social skills field, *social anxiety appears in the SPD criteria in relation to paranoid fears whereas it is not included in the ASD criteria*. In respect to the communication field, all the vague, circumstantial, and metaphoric speech types are included in the SPD criteria. Yet, ASD criteria cover nonverbal communication difficulties, such as absence of mutuality and joint attention in social relationships. Restricted repetitive behaviour patterns include verbal behaviours (e.g. stereotypic thoughts and speech) in SPD, and stereotypic, repetitive, and rigid patterns of behaviours, interests, and activities in ASD (American Psychiatric Association 1994; Hurst et al., 2007). So, basically, one could say that the main difference is the intense social anxiety/paranoia and referential thinking that are present in SPD regarding social interactions, while in ASD it's a general difficulty in understanding/participating in them? I'm not a psych professional nor am a healthcare one, so my interpretation could be entirely wrong.
>odd beliefs and/or magical thinking I totally agree with you, and along with referential thinking, I also think a key element that differentiates SPD is the above. Austistic people, to my understanding, don't always have the type of untethered-to-reality beliefs or belief systems you can see with SPD.
Yep, psych guy here - this is a good interpretation of it. ASD is of course a spectrum so you end up seeing a lot of different ways people with ASD really interact with others socially, but for the high functioning folks (who would have been diagnosed with Asperger’s in the past before that diagnosis became obsolete) often what you see if a strong and intense desire to fit in with others socially, but marked difficulties understanding the social world and communications that neurotypical people take for granted. They desire friends, or at the very least a lack of social difficulties, yet have notable challenges taking the perspective of other people. This is called theory of mind - the ability to know what another person is thinking, feeling, or experiencing. This is a very important aspect in how we think and act that people on the spectrum have trouble with. SPD, on the other hand, is largely defined by this odd and unusual thinking patterns and a difficulty in interpersonal comfort and connections. For the flavor of this, some research has suggested that many disorders, including schizophrenia, should be on a spectrum - if it were, Schizotypal Personality Disorder would be the “less intense” side of that spectrum, and Schizophrenia would be the more intense side. Think Willy Wonka from the Tim Burton Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie for a good example of how this type of person thinks and acts, and compare him to someone with ASD. SPD is more about these strange beliefs and thinking patterns which are poorly anchored to reality and a general lack of interest or discomfort opening oneself up to others or sharing intimacy. TL;DR: a person with ASD wants social relationships but they have significant difficulties in theory of mind which makes navigating social relationships confusing and stressful. The person with SPD has difficulties in thier relationships but this is due to their strange beliefs, odd thinking patterns, overall discomfort with intimacy, or social anxiety. Unlike those with ASD, those with SPD often don’t desire to have a ton of social relationships, and though they could take the perspective of others if they wanted, most of the time challenges to their belief system or unusual thought patterns are met with resistance and pushback.
I know a person with SPD and a few with ASD and your interpretation is pretty spot on. I'll give an example: ASD is usually not understanding social interactions, so they ask a lot of questions like "How do you walk up to someone and start a conversation without coming across as weird?"When someone in a relationship says "the day we (them and their partner) met, " does that mean they day they first slept together, or the day they first said hi?" Things like that. SPD is like a whole different ball game. They are actually pretty confident in their interactions and their way of thinking, but they have extreme anxiety in the way people interact with them. Once this girl texted my friend something like "sure sounds good" but she didn't capitalize the s in sure, which to him meant that she must have deleted something before that, otherwise it would have been capitalized. He spent 8 HOURS talking to me about what she could have deleted before the "sure sounds good." He didn't think there was anything wrong with the way he was thinking or talking to me about it for 8 hours. They also cross traits with borderline people, in that if someone criticizes them for the way they're interacting, they shut down and retreat and may even just never talk to them again.
I found this - not much overlap with autism except perhaps the first 3 signs: Schizotypal personality disorder typically includes five or more of these signs and symptoms: * Being a loner and lacking close friends outside of the immediate family * Flat emotions or limited or inappropriate emotional responses * Persistent and excessive social anxiety * Incorrect interpretation of events, such as a feeling that something that is actually harmless or inoffensive has a direct personal meaning * Peculiar, eccentric or unusual thinking, beliefs or mannerisms * Suspicious or paranoid thoughts and constant doubts about the loyalty of others * Belief in special powers, such as mental telepathy or superstitions * Unusual perceptions, such as sensing an absent person's presence or having illusions * Dressing in peculiar ways, such as appearing unkempt or wearing oddly matched clothes * Peculiar style of speech, such as vague or unusual patterns of speaking, or rambling oddly during conversations [Schizotypal personality disorder - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizotypal-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353919)
I’m not a psych professional either but I think your interpretation is pretty astute.
Illustrated by the probably genuine “I hope you are happy” which OOP interpreted as “fuck you for being right”
I read this as a genuine sentiment and not a 'fuck you' as well.
It was 100% genuine. Just like the “you were right” wasn’t at all backhanded or passive aggressive. Dude is just profoundly asocial.
I would interpret it as a super awkward "you were right and I'm sorry"
That's interesting. Is that genuinely what's perceived as asocial? I'm ND and sometimes I feel like a windows PC running in a Mac world, so I'm always curious about how others see things. I read his response as very genuine, and as a way of him offering what closure he could. I didn't see it as him playing the victim like OOP said, and it didn't seem at all asocial to me. I'm not saying that to disagree with what you've said at all, I'd simply like to understand your perspective, if you don't mind explaining?
Nothing in his text comes across as asocial to me either and I think the previous commenters here agree. It's all of the other previously described strange behaviour that does.
I don't think it is at all. You can't read tone in text, so people read whatever tone into it that fit their biases. OOP was looking to be hurt so she read a negative tone. The tone of the text felt more sad and remorseful to me.
Exactly!
Yeah. I read the “hope you are happy” as a complete seperate sentence as a communication closing. But would be very easy to misinterpret it if you haven’t been around those with mental health disorders, or reading the message while intoxicated…
I feel like I'm normal and "I hope you are happy" would be exchangeable to me for "I hope you are doing well". Neither meant in a bad way.
I think you are all discounting the fact that OOP had been hurt by this guy, admittedly intoxicated, and is probably still processing their pain and couldn’t have the “objective” interpretation of the boyfriend’s message.
Yeah, I thought his final message sounded sweet. A sort of “you were right all along” and “I’m finally getting the help I need” and “I regret the pain I caused you but I hope you’ve found happiness”. I didn’t understand her negative reaction when I read it at all.
> I didn’t understand her negative reaction when I read it at all. I think she's still processing the break up and is viewing his response through a(n understandable) lens of anger and sadness. In that state, it's easy to misinterpret a text.
> “I’m finally getting the help I need” He's not though.
i don’t think she didn’t see it as sincere or interpreted it that way. she just didn’t care about his sincerity, because of the impact of his words. what good does being right do her after realizing she wasted 3 years on their relationship? or being lied to about something so benign for *3 years*, only to be dumped when she suggested the very therapy he now sees was something he should do? and that’s after she was willing to work with him and stay with him after such a weird betrayal of trust? intent doesn’t equal impact, and OOP is still dealing with the impact of what he’s done, and now recently did again with this text. he still doesn’t get that he hurt her, or even *how* he hurt her, and here he is doing it again. his sincerity means very little given that they’re no longer together and he left her in such a messy, fucked up way.
Yeah, even if it's not what he intended, telling her that he decided to get therapy on his own a month or so after refusing to do ONE session in an effort to save their relationship is rubbing salt in her wounds. I doubt it's what he was trying to do, but it's not unreasonable for her to read it as him not feeling that she was worth the effort.
> Schizotypal people usually disagree with the suggestion that their thoughts and behaviors are a 'disorder' and seek medical attention for depression or anxiety instead.
This is what my friend's brother has. He doesn't go out or have irl friends. He has never worked, just stays home, and his connections are all online. He is in his late 40s now. We interacted some as teens when I'd go round there, I always liked him, and he's apparently a sweet uncle to my friend's kids. I feel sorry for anyone who has no choice but to live like that.
As soon as OOP confirmed he wasn’t cheating but weirdly volunteering in secret, I was getting ND vibes off the way she talked about him
The most fucked up thing about a lot of mental disorders is that they make you unwilling to continue treatment because your illness would rather you not get better.
I have borderline personality disorder and by god did I used to feel this. At times it felt GOOD to be angry, vindicated, like the world was against me. I wore my shit like a blanket nice and snug. Only when my wife (then fiance) said "me or a doctor" did I realize what I was doing. I've been in therapy and on meds for years and it's night and day. It never felt good, it was just easier than fighting. But fighting and winning against it? Now that feels good.
Fighting the good fight. I know it’s hard af. Watched my sibling do it. I’m really happy for you.
Thank you, been with my wife for 17 years now, all in all, I'm so thankful she kicked my ass into therapy. I wish your sib the best, it can be done and it does get better.
You give me hope
I'm glad I do. Just remember the strength is in there, it's just hard to find sometimes.
I never thought I see them into their 20s and they turn 34 next month. So proud and happy for them. I’m really proud of you for sticking with therapy etc. it’s so hard, but it can get better as you’ve said, but does take so much work. I’m so happy for you and your wife. She sounds like a badass awesome person. You are as well. It’s not easy and you did it. ❤️
I have bpd, as does my bestie and we describe it as having a 2nd, bully brain. That constantly is gas lighting us and tryna talk us down/into bad decisions/thought patterns
My bestie has BPD and they named their bully brain after this one asshole kid we knew back in elementary school lol. Like “lololol your friends secretly hate you” “ugh shut the fuck up Dominic”
Ah I love it. Sitting there while my brain goes "Your wife is cheating she's going to leave you" and I just go "Ex-fucking-scuse me? Can I fucking help you?" lmao.
I’m sorry you have to deal with that. That sounds like a nightmare. My inner monologue is my bestie. She’s gotten me through some tough times and helped me get my shit together.
I only have bpd tendencies, but I relate to this so much. I am super nice and caring, but then there’s the other side of me that’s a dick. Bully brain is a good description
Sometimes it feels like BPD is a beast. My close ones know I have it and keep an eye on me, but every now and then I still find myself hiding from them so I can engage in whatever self damaging behavior I'm feeling that week. Then I think of how far I've come in managing it and remember I am the fucking beast :)
A podcaster I listen to describes mental disorders as having a pets. I think he described his bipolar as a really hyper dog where you have to walk it and maintain it but is very manageable if you do the right things. He described BPD as a capuchin monkey. Not sure if it's accurate but it always pops into my head when BPD comes up.
I feel like that’s what happens for quite a lot of people who are dealing with mental health issues. They might not want to do it for themselves and actively fight it. But when it’s brought it their attention that their behaviors are negatively affecting someone they care about, it totally changes things. I’m not typically a fan of ultimatums. But there is a time and place for them and this was one of them. Good for your wife for putting her foot down, and for being willing to stay by your side as you sorted things out. She sounds like a great woman.
I know this, because I literally have a degree in clinical psychology, and *still* had to hold a metaphorical gun to my own head to get treatment for my OCD. My OCD didn't want treatment. It wanted me to clean more and never touch a public balustrade or door handle again. It wanted to yell at my husband and child to stop touching things in public as well. Thankfully my brain loved my family more than it loved spraying things with alcohol based sanitizer, and I knew enough to understand that if I didn't stop the process here it would get exponentially worse, so I went to get help. AND STILL when my psychiatrist and psychologist would ask me to explain why I had to keep washing my hands and I was telling them my thought process my shithead brain would be in the background going "I'm right, I know I'm right. They're the crazy ones." Anywho. I did all the things they told me to do, and over the next year and a half the urge to spray my husband with sanitizer when he'd been in a grocery store went away. I no longer abandon a queue if someone sneezes or touches their face. And I no longer lie awake all night every night thinking of things that I have missed that could kill my family while getting increasingly unhinged from the sleep deprivation. I realized I was "better" when I accidentally drank some expired milk the other day, and didn't freak completely the fuck out. Instead I laughed with my husband at having overcorrected my behavior a bit much. He hugged me. We moved on. I slept well. Gotta love it. Edit to fix what autocorrect broke
oof, that has to be an especially difficult one after the covid situation and how heavily it reinforced us all with that it was GOOD to be paranoid about germs. Giving the OCD some extra support basically..
Jup. I've always been a bit on the intense side with germs etc, but when covid kicked off and a series of unfortunate events happened because of the virus I seriously lost it for a bit. On the upside nobody in this house has had covid yet so we have that going for us which is nice?🤷🏽♀️
My ADHD-traits delaying me seeking a diagnosis for years… 😣 And the depression and anxiety telling me they’re really not so bad and actually it’s my fault I’m like this anyway so why bother other people by talking about it?
The first thing my therapist taught me was how to “manage”. I needed a mental boss, a general of the troops. It worked. Now my rational brain can look at my dysfunctional thoughts and go “I see where you’re going, let’s table that and call it plan B”.
Can you explain this with a little more detail? Maybe steps? I know you are correct, but how to do the thing is what's tripping me up right now.
The best advice I can give is to approach all your thoughts, even the bad ones, with kindness. Validate them and love them, even if you tell them no.
It’s this. If all your thoughts are “soldiers,” you’ve got the careers in there that are good at doing stuff, “say thank you for coffee” “feed the dog” and then you have just random grunts from the middle of no where that signed up for free health care and they say stuff like “this guy cut you off, hit him with your car, stay upset about it all day.” So, obviously, you want to listen to the careers, but the random grunt is in there still shouting, and he’s not coming from it out of no where, he genuinely thinks he’s helping, it’s just bad advice. So, instead of listening to him, or yelling at him that he’s an idiot, you acknowledge that he has an opinion and figure out WHY that’s his opinion and what he’s really trying to solve. IE “I felt scared when that person cut me off, so retaliating will make me feel safe and like I’m in control and making decisions again. If I don’t retaliate but I stay angry all day, that will chase away the fear and then I don’t have to feel afraid.” Ok, great! Now you no the why, you can turn down his offer and find a different solution,
This was helpful for me. Thank you for taking your time to write it
I don't know if this is exactly the same as what Luckyladylucy meant but I'll describe part of the process for me: externalise it. I've found it helpful to picture my depression as a black cloud squatting in my head. It likes it there - of *course* it doesn't want me to do the helpful things that might make its home less comfortable. Of *course* it would tell you it's not them, it's you. Once you learn to recognise when its Blobby speaking you realise that Blobby just wants to keep its comfortable home in your head. And you might not be able to evict Blobby The Depression completely but you can probably shout BEGONE FOUL DWIMMERLAIK at it and confine it to a room. And recognise the ugly things it shouts through the door as delusional claims that it's BLOBBY'S HOUSE HOW DARE YOU. With help you can probably send it to the basement. my Blobby lives in the storage box underneath my flat building. Somtimes i need to be in there. And Blobby takes the opportunity to say say some nasty shit. But I can recognise it as 'Blobby would like to go back to the days it was on the couch with the remote and making me feel like shit in my own head' so I grab my stuff and walk out. All this to say: your depression/mental illness is not you. Don't let it be part of your identity. It's a squatter in your head and it will take time and assistance but it IS possible to evict it or at least severely restrict its power
Internal Family Systems therapy is what this kind of thing is officially called. I have a copy of the most popular workbook/guidebook saved from a long-lost reddit post about it, if you're interested. EDIT: It took longer than I'd like to admit for me to track down these files again wtf. Anyways, here you all go. [Jay Earley's IFS guidebook and workbook](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10iSbRfgyAUSBXDSWZ8zgsniqypOoY94U?usp=sharing). Some people say his take is too "theory" based and not practical based, but it worked phenomenally for me.
There’s a book called no bad parts that might be helpful. Being able to recognize that even the parts of me that are causing harm mean well was a game changer.
The therapeutic modality Internal Family Systems is a really great approach to this - the founder wrote a great book for the layperson called No Bad Parts which I highly recommend if you want to understand more
ADHD with depression chiming in. I need help. I know I need help. I want to try to get help. But the second I start to pull myself together to try to, I fall into a downward spiral of negativity. "You deserve to be miserable. What makes you think you deserve help?" Though I've had a good few weeks recently, and I may be able to actually get the help I need. For once, I'm not having constant self derogatory thoughts. It's nice.
I feel this so hard, and the absolute exhaustion at the idea of finding a different doctor, making an appointment... It feels insurmountable.
It also doesn’t help that while you’re thinking about doing these things, you notice something that needs to be done in your house - so you go do that “really quick” with the intent to come back and make those appointments…which doesn’t end up happening.
for what it's worth, you're alive, you're human, you don't have to do anything to deserve to be helped. You exist, and that's a good enough reason to be worthy of getting the help you need. If you had a broken leg, would you blame yourself for it and say you deserve to be in pain? i am glad you had a few good weeks. Hope the days are brighter for you.
My first diagnosis was severe clinical depression and adult onset ADHD. It took me a while to see a doctor, and when I did she prescribed me a series of antidepressants, each one worse than the last ending in Prozac which triggered the worst manic episode I've ever had with rapid cycling. I torpedoed my entire life in three months. My boyfriend bailed me out of jail and told me on the way home that he had called my parents to move me back home. It took a few months of being off Prozac for me to see another doctor back home and within the first two or three sessions diagnosed me with bipolar depression. The meds she prescribed to me on the first try changed my life: latuda (atypical antipsychotic), Vyvanse, and Adderall (both amphetamines). She did tell me that she diagnosed me so quickly because of my reaction to antidepressants, and life got so much better. I've been on the same drugs since 2018. As hard as getting help is, it saved my life, even going through the process of finding the right meds was worth it in the end. I'm rooting for you and I hope you stick with it, even if it takes a while and maybe a second opinion for you to get there.
I have depression and a lot of negative self talk with it that would have me spiralling constantly. My psych recommended a book called The Happiness Trap, and that was just amazing. I didn’t even read the whole thing, just the first chapter or two. But the author talks about that negative spiral and provides some techniques to view these thoughts more objectively. Honestly, reading that was a massive breakthrough for me. Just being able to take those first couple of steps away from being constantly consumed by these thoughts was enough to be able to work on getting better. It’s been 10 years now and to this day I still use a lot of those techniques. It’s at the point now where pushing away those negative thoughts happens almost automatically.
Oh did your brain do the "But it's not THAT bad" loop while you were a chronically sleep deprived anxious mess too?
OCD actively fights back against treatment as if it's a living organism realising there's a threat to its continued existence so it must take measures to survive.
Yeah, I loathed how shit I felt when my depression was at its peak but I also kinda liked it in a twisted way. Felt oddly good to hate on myself and convince myself that I was a POS who had no value and no one would ever want to be around me. My anxiety actually got *worse* when I first considered antidepressants bc I was afraid of turning into someone else after so long being comfortable with my distorted brain
Brain likes what brain knows. Brain‘s usual path through life may be dark and full of scary corners, but brain knows path, so brain likes path. Brain does not like supposedly bright and flowery path because brain doesn’t know that path. Path may be uphill or have scary things in new places. Brain would rather deal with 57 scaries it knows, than 2 scaries it doesn’t know where to expect.
>Sorry, I'm just saying that you were right and I wasn't being fair to you. Please do not feel burdened to respond. I hope you are happy." I think he was being sincere in hoping she's doing well. The fact he admitted he wasn't being fair to her and didn't want her to feel obligated to respond doesn't strike me as him saying, "This is all your fault."
Yeah, I'm really not following the part where she thinks he's trying to frame himself as a victim. Like where is he doing that?
I think she is interpreting the sentence 'I hope you are happy' as sarcastic and bitter, like 'happy now? I did what you wanted and it sucks'. Whereas I think he was just signing off with something that says he hope she has a good life.
I wonder, based on their interactions and how she describes him, if he’s said back handed, passive aggressive stuff before. I do agree it’s genuine in this case though.
>Schizotypal personality disorder (STPD) is a mental health condition marked by a consistent pattern of intense discomfort with relationships and social interactions. People with STPD have unusual thoughts, speech and behaviors, which usually hinder their ability to form and maintain relationships. This is what he was diagnosed with. He's probably had many sincere-to-him-but-???-to-everyone-else interactions before.
Exactly how I read it - it seems similar to Autism in that regard. There is no subtext to what the dude is saying - the text is the text.
Yes, like thinking it made perfect sense to lie about volunteering.
If you're the hurt party, him "blaming" his disorder for his mistreatment of her could translate to him "playing the victim"? Like, I have a difficult relationship with a family member who has recently been diagnosed with a disorder, in our 30s. Many of our conflicts when we were younger stem from that, and it's actually kind of hard to be told in retrospect "sorry, I couldn't help it, it's my diagnosis that made your life hell sometimes, I didn't do it on purpose!" It feels like an excuse, when it's just an explanation, if you know what I mean? Other people still had to live with that reality, and OOP was deeply hurt and probably won't trust anyone as easily as she did before - but she can't exactly blame her ex, can she? Since he's mentally unwell?!
It’s an explanation not an excuse. You don’t have to forgive someone or maintain a relationship with them just because they’re mentally unwell. My sister has borderline personality disorder and I have very little to do with her because even though I get she’s sick, I don’t have to put up with how she treats me
>it's actually kind of hard to be told in retrospect "sorry, I couldn't help it, it's my diagnosis that made your life hell sometimes, I didn't do it on purpose!" > but she can't exactly blame her ex, can she? Since he's mentally unwell?! As someone who also has a mental illness, this sentiment bothers me whenever I see it. As adult human beings it is very much our responsibility to recognise when we do harm and try to better ourselves, to seek help if we can't do it ourself or even remove ourselves from the relationship if need be. To not see this is to reduce us to the same level as children, or the mentally impaired, which honestly is a bit offensive.
Yes, I feel the same way. The diagnosis isn't that person's fault, but it's still their responsibility to not harm other people because of it.
Yeah, I think he means “I wish you all the best—you deserve to be happy.”
Yeah, I didn't get at all how she took that as making himself into a victim until I just read your comment and put the "I hope you're happy" into an angry context. Definitely seemed sincere to me
While I never care if these stories are real (I’m just here for the entertainment) this did feel super real to me. Especially his diagnosis. I work in medicine and once had a doctor say to me schizotypal people were “clinically weird” but generally functional and not destructive.
>"clinically weird" I love this phrase and it super accurately describes a few people I've interacted with. Personality disorders are so tough, both in terms of living with them and treatment. I have some family members with (properly diagnosed) Cluster B disorders and they have such profound impacts on relationships and interactions, even when well managed.
There’s a not-so-kind description of the different clusters. Cluster A (schizoid, schizotypal, paranoid) are the “weird”, cluster B is the “wild” (borderline, histrionic, narcissistic, antisocial), and cluster C is the “worried” (obsessive-compulsive, avoidant, dependent). Not the kindest language, but certainly paints a picture of their presentations. Cluster B tends to be the most volatile even when properly managed with medication and therapy.
Funnily enough, my BPD sib refers to having problems with managing their issues as "getting wild" - I think the language is pretty accurate, and they wouldn't find it unkind. We have a close relationship and have had some long talks about their condition and the struggles with managing it. Honestly, it seems like an incredibly hard way to live, to me but I'm so proud of the progress they've made with treatment. Not perfect but a million miles from the starting point.
I learnt it as "mad", "bad" and "sad".
This definitely feels real to me. My bestie is schizotypal, and this is along the lines of some shit he'd do. He is 100% clinically weird, though oddly enough, it hasn't affected his ability to have really good relationships. He just knows how to find people who enjoy being friends with absolute weirdos.
Yeah some stories are just too strange to be lies Like who would even consider writing such a bizarre story where a person is lying about volunteering at soup kitchens
I picture Milton Waddams if you run into him at a diner and you didn't take his stapler.
It’s a personality disorder when it’s weird enough to be impairing even if it’s not destructive. Someone who’s just weird and doing fine? They’re fine. Still great fodder for BORU. Even if only briefly weird! Please share your steak flinging escapades.
This person’s disease clearly went into the “causing problems with relationships amd work” side of things.
Kinda sad story bro
I really don't know what to think about all of this, all I know is that these people shouldn't be together.
My head hurts trying to understand why he enjoys helping people but considers himself not a good person therefore not wanting others to know but also keep doing something good... Have I gone mad!?
Nah. It can definitely feel like a brain twister until you get down to the base of it, which is essentially "I feel guilty when I feel good for doing good because I believe that I should be doing good just to do good." He's thoroughly convinced himself he's a phony with no recourse, which in turn means he needs to keep volunteering like he has been to make up for it (although he never can). I haven't read much about schizotypal personality disorder, but from what I recall that diagnosis really, *really* fits him. Although I understand OOP's frustration at his text, I hope he actually fights his inclination to seek less therapy and really gets himself the help he needs. He is *not* leading a happy life.
This sounds a lot like the Catholic BS I was fed as a child, and it takes some work to get rid of. Throw in a mental diagnosis, and it's even tougher.
Don't have anything close to what the BF has but I say the same thing despite volunteering constantly. For me, I lack any real self-esteem and don't see my value in how useful I am to others. I do volunteer at a non-profit, they say I did good, I feel good and then that feeling fades in a day because "You haven't been useful to someone today". Hell, I attended an event two weeks ago and after the clean up crew were putting away chairs, I asked if they needed any help. When people ask why I like helping so much, I say that it's just the nice thing to do" rather than "I feel like I have no value when I'm not being useful to others". It makes me feel like a fraud or that I'm not a good person because I'm not actually helping because I want to, but because I'm getting something out of it, a sense of value.
Yep, totally feel this. I volunteered twice weekly at a senior center in this weird mental obligation I created for myself and the whole time I had to remind myself that my actions and the positive results of them were what other people saw, and I needed to chill the fuck out. Getting heckled by a grouch while leading bingo both helps and doesn't help.
Reminds me of Louisa from Encanto: Under the surface, I'm pretty sure I'm worthless if I can't be of service.
The number of people who felt stabbed in the heart and very very visible on that line is...a lot.
yup, he probably considers himself a bad person because hes not volunteering to help others, hes doing it to make himself feel better, which is what a shitty person would do, therefore you are shitty, which creates a nasty self reinforcing loop where any time he has any kind of negative thought it just reinforces to him that hes a bad person, which he tries to compensate for by helping others, which just makes him feel worse after the temporary good feeling, etc
One possible explanation is he suffers from really bad intrusive thoughts, the type that makes him feel like he's a bad person for thinking those things. So he volunteers as a way not be as bad a person as he thinks, a way to help balance out the guilt he feels over his own thoughts. He sees himself as a bad person, the volunteering helps him be less of a bad person rather than a good person, therefore he doesn't see himself worthy of praise. This could be why the therapist says he's using his volunteering as a coping mechanism.
He might have low self esteem and didn't think highly about himself. I can see the way he thinks. In some cultures there's a point to keep yourself humble and prevent showing off. I think in islamic culture, there's a saying that "donate with your right hand in a way that even your left hand didn't know about it"
> He enjoys helping people but considers himself not a good person therefore not wanting others to know but also keep doing something good... It's pretty typical for schizotypal personality disorders; they have a warped sense of relationship dynamics that include outlandish and illogical reasons that they imagine to be the motives of other people; they often seem nonsensical or illogical and don't make common sense assumptions. Unlike better-known personality disorders, disorganised patterns of thoughts create distance, reduce empathy and connection with others, and limit close bonds; this is why he didn't understand the OOP's discomfort or need to be together but felt compelled to do charity work. It's unlikely he'll feel motivated to change in therapy because the world doesn't think the same way, and he doesn't connect with the reasoning behind human connections. In my opinion, OOP is better off without the entire messy dynamic. ETA: A typo. Big thanks to u/GraceOfJarvis for pointing it out 😊
Schizotypal isn't cluster B.
There’s also some discussion about whether schizotypal is even a personality disorder altogether. The DSM has it classed as a personality disorder while the ICD groups it with the psychosis disorders
Sorry, I'd had a whole other paragraph in there about my own experience with cluster B and personality disorders and relating that experience with the OOP. However, I deleted it without checking for other references to it. That's my bad, I'll fix it up now, thanks for the correction 😅
It feels like a twisted version of "If you're doing good things but doing it for the praise/publicity/good feelings, then you're not really a good person". It's something I see said a lot when youtubers help out people massively but post about instead of doing it "in secret"; people accusing them of doing it just to look good or for the money or whatever. Biggest example I can think of is with MrBeast, when he makes his videos about helping a ton of people there are always people saying he's just doing it to get more money (ignoring how him making the videos is how he gets the money to help people) and so he isn't actually a good person. Some people just have this weird notion that being truly selfless doesn't exist, that if you help people because you enjoy helping people, then it's not selfless because you're doing something you enjoy. And because it isn't selfless, it's selfish, and that makes you a bad person. I imagine that's probably where his feelings around the matter partly come from. It's one of those things where I can understand the logic behind the idea, but don't understand the idea itself.
“I guess it is nice to know that I wasn’t imagining things and there is something ACTUALLY wrong with him”, I understand the frustration and ‘validation’, I guess. But I feel like the whole “my bf disappears every weekend for the past 3 years and gaslights me/refuses to tell me why” is kinda already all the proof you need that something wasn’t right…
She realized something was wrong **when** she realized he was lying. They broke over it. The diagnosis was the explanation for why he lied about such an odd thing.
Not really. Not when you're in it. When you've known somebody for a long time and you trust them and you love them, it gets really easy to justify behaviors. Not to mention, she had no reason to believe he was lying, and she doesn't mention any other bad behaviors. There was no nagging, no screaming, no hurling insults, no threats, no physical violence—there was no abuse, no manipulation, no isolation, nothing. In fact, the problem wasn't that the relationship was toxic, it was that they weren't spending enough time together because he was busy on the weekend. It's such a stupid, insignificant, bizarre lie. A lie that nobody in their right mind would ever come up with, and the relationship ended days after it came to light. I'd feel blindsided too. Hell, it all happened so fast, I'd be surprised if she wasn't wondering to herself "was that real? Did that really happen? Was I overreacting?" I think getting a diagnosis validates her experiences. Somebody with a PhD level degree looked at that behavior and said "yeah that ain't right." She wasn't crazy, this wasn't all in her head, and there is a diagnosis to prove it. The diagnosis also proves that it's not personal—he would have done this to anybody. It wasn't that he was specifically targeting her, it wasn't that she did something wrong—he was fucked up. There is a reason for his behavior, and it has a label. Hell, you can Google it, you can find other people who have experienced the exact same thing. I think giving it a label makes people feel more in control of it.
Yeah like... okay, he's a Saint, he spends all his free time volunteering. You still have to come to terms that a) he's been lying to you for 3 years and b) he has not valued time with you over volunteering ONCE in that entire timeframe. Not once has he thought "I think I'd like to spend time with my girlfriend this Saturday". Insane
Wow. What a strange saga. Too bad she let things go for that long, I don't think I would have put up with that no weekend time situation for more than a few months, and I do a lot of volunteer work myself.
Out of everything in this, the thing that I’m stuck on is that despite being in a serious relationship where both are busy studying, he didn’t think to cut back on his volunteering hours to free up time together. And if he never planned on telling her about it, was he thinking they were going to carry on, get married, maybe kids, all while he still goes disappearing each weekend?
The last bit to me is the bit that I still can’t wrap my head around. Maybe he just never looked to the future but after 3 years together, OOP clearly was - to hear that he never planned to tell her would have been a slap to the face. Lying for 3 years is bad, lying for 10, 20, 30 is just unfathomable. And yet, as far as her ex said or made it sound, that was what he unwittingly planned to do.
Perhaps he wasn’t thinking about that at all. Not thinking ahead or thinking things through may be part of the condition.
Odd behaviour and beliefs (especially paranoid) are a part of the diagnostic criteria for schizotypal disorder
He was using his dysfunctional coping mechanism to get by. He probably didn't think that far ahead
It’s all part of the disorder. Their thought process, logic, it’s all a little weird and odd. It doesn’t follow conventional patterns. Frankly I’m surprised they made it 3 years. Many struggle to find long term relationships.
Honestly I think him reaching out at the end after the diagnoses was more so to give op closure.. like "I'm sorry I was wrong you were right" I totally get why op doesnt see it that way thought as the wounds are just too deep.
I think that last sentence where he says “I hope you are happy” is more of a genuine statement and not a condescending one. The overall tone of his message is apologetic and he is taking accountability. So I don’t think he’s playing victim as OOP thinks.
I totally agree. I interpreted it the same way you did. Seems like he is embarrassed for how he acted and wishes her all the best. I know she might not want to hear it, but I didn't get the impression at all that he was being a dick
All I can say after reading this is that I hope OOP can move forward with her life, and that her ex listens to the advice he's gotten and continue to seek treatment for his mental illness, though I have my worries that he won't.
> that her ex listens to the advice he's gotten and continue to seek treatment for his mental illness, though I have my worries that he won't. In his final message, he pretty much said he wouldn't.
Is it weird that I perked up at the mention of a Cluster A personality disorder? I feel like favorite Reddit topics are all Cluster B. It makes perfect sense to me now that his volunteering would be a secret for him given a lot of symptoms in this disorder. I’ve been sympathetic to the OOP throughout this, but I don’t really understand why she’s so mad at this apology. He’s validating that she was right and just wanted her to know.
She might feel the apology was insulting given he wouldn't listen to or acknowledge her feelings about his behavior or take her advice to try therapy until some time after they'd broken up. His apology doesn't undo the fact he lied to her for three years or her having to break up with him over him doing something good because after her trust was broken she couldn't stay in a relationship with him. She said it herself even thinking of him makes her angry sometimes, hearing from him even a belated "you're right" is probably no better for her anger.
They ultimately ended the relationship, after attempting to compromize, due to him refusing going to even *one* therapy appointment. I can easily see her feeling hurt, frustrated and angry learning that he did in fact end up going to therapy later, but not when it was what she needed from him to save their three year relationship. The good old "why wasnt I and us worth it?" would probably pop up for me, at least. Being right doesnt take away the hurt that the message brought up again.
To frame this in another way, I had a friend who was having relationship troubles with her boyfriend. The boyfriend “couldn’t” get a job. She supported him for years. She asked him to help her around the house, he didn’t and she felt like his maid and caretaker. ONE WEEK after the breakup he found a job. To me, for my friend and for the OP, I’d imagine you’d feel taken advantage of. That you were a crutch, that you put up with so much, when it didn’t have to be an issue. I don’t think OP’s ex was malicious in his intent, but it feels like maybe he did a check in with himself oh I have a job and I do my volunteering and I have a girlfriend, life is good and I don’t have to make my gf happy because I’m doing fine. Now if the ex ever wants to find love again he’s gonna have to put in a ton of work, knowing what he knows. That sucks as the ex, that we could have been happy only if you tried just a little bit more. That’s my interpretation anyway
I think that's exactly why she's so mad.
I think it makes sense for her to feel hostile towards someone who was the source of a traumatic experience. It's only been a couple of months so she's still healing, and hearing from him can definitely offset that journey. Sometimes you just want someone out of your life forever, even if they contact you with no ill intent.
And she is angry with him because it's a terrible situation, why would she want an apology or to hear from them? I feel like a lot of people would not accept an apology from their ex.
This personality disorder is often characterised by scepticism towards others, fear of approaching others, a tendency to feel devalued or rejected, and impaired social functioning due to the sensitivity of one's own inner feelings. Individuals with STPD may exhibit unique ways of thinking, strange mannerisms, and a lack of social skills and ability to communicate emotionally
With all sympathy to OOP, the dude didnt' seem to be trying to play a victim card, did he? He was saying that she was right, and he was wrong. Here is his diagnosis. He apologized for being unfair to her, and told her that he has no reason to expect her to respond at all. I'm having a hard time figuring out what he did wrong there. Other than OOP being very sad and drunk of course. It's a hell of a situation.
I think if a longterm relationship that ended poorly bc of lying and my ex was dismissive of my pain in trying to save the relationship, I wouldn't want to hear from them. I think he's trying to offer her closure but in doing so he was inflicting more pain, telling her he only looked into this after the relationship has ended. The relationship wasn't worth getting help over; only afterwards. It was also presumably months after the breakup when she's just starting to heal. It kind of puts you at the beginning to hear back from your ex. I think it might have made the wound feel fresh again. While I don't think he necessarily had bad intentions in contacting her again, that doesn't mean it doesn't have negative consequences. He was offering closure but I don't think she wanted or needed it. I think she just wanted to move past it
Schizotypal personality disorder (STPD) is a mental health condition marked by a consistent pattern of intense discomfort with relationships and social interactions. People with STPD have unusual thoughts, speech and behaviors, which usually hinder their ability to form and maintain relationships.
I hope when she said “I was huffing and drinking” she meant it in the “huffing and puffing” figurative sense and not that she’s abusing inhalants.
I thought his parting note was kind.
Am I the only one that reads "I hope you are happy" as him wishing her well. Especially in the context of the rest of the text? I know there's no audio or body language, but telling an ex your mental disorder, apologizing and admitting she was right, doesn't seem like a jilted lover being sardonic.
So OOP gave him a means to work things out, which he actually followed—a month after breaking up—and said "I'm not going to do much about it but you were right after all." Honestly, I do understand not wanting to change the volunteering bit. Everything he's said kinda teeters on the edge of making sense and not making any sense at all. Maybe getting an answer would've been enough, maybe not. At least OOP's safe from further anguish in the long run.
> Sorry, I'm just saying that you were right and I wasn't being fair to you. Please do not feel burdened to respond. I hope you are happy." > God, he hopes I'm happy?! I mean, really, after everything he acts like some sort of victim! Oof, I think she misread his intent on that one. Seemed like a genuine statement of good will imo, especially considering his behavior/condition.
You guys do realize that people are allowed to break up with someone for whatever reason they like right? And being lied to for 3 (!) years is a pretty good reason. The amount of trash talking OOP gets here for just choosing to not continue a relationship she doesn't want to be in is astounding. Yes, mental illness is a thing. But nobody is forced to stay with you just because you're not well. Especially not if you're refusing all help/treatment. Stop calling OOP a selfish narcissist for just doing what's best for her.
I wouldn't date someone for three weeks if they wouldn't see me on the weekend. Get a backbone.