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SPD vs. Schizophrenia

Posted by Camille Dumont on January 30, 2005, at 11:46:37

In reply to Re: PSYCHOTIC *THEMES*, posted by pretty_paints on January 30, 2005, at 10:09:32

Well, some psychiatry books see SPD as a sort of precursor of Schizophrenia but generally the reality testing stays intact. For example, if I see I tiger walking down the street, I will think something like "woh! that can't be right" and then look again and it will usually disappear. I don't build delusions to explain the "strange" things I see.

In my opinion, I think that schizotypal personality disorder is closer to schizophrenia because people with SZPD usually have odd thinking. Like believing in magic, ufos or sometimes religious themes appear as part of the delusions.

Sometimes I think that schizotypal personality disorder is closer to schizophrenia whereas schizoid personality is closer to autism in a way ... or perhaps a functionning form of it.

There is also the fact that I don't "hear voices" ... I mean I have strange thoughts but in a way I do not feel that they are external to me (i.e. like thinking that you're picking up the thoughts of someone else) and I also do not feel compelled to obey them.

The way that the psychiatrist investigated the whole psychotic symptoms I was having (after the really nasty antipsychotic trials I had) was through the use of projective testing. I did both a MMPI-2 and the inkblot test. The MMPI-2 came back as pretty clearly SPD and the inkblot test came back negative for everything except depression and opposition / anger towards figures of autority but most importantly it came negative for thought disturbance / delusions.

I also think that your level of functionning also plays a part. I hold a full time job, I dress in business suits every day, I live on my own, pay my bills and so on. Someone in the thralls of full blown schizophrenia might not be able to do so, perhaps because the delusions / halluciantions / voices are to a level which is very hard to bear. When they are evaluating you, psychiatrists will look at your clothes, are you dressed properly, are you clean, and so on because it does give an idea of the level of functionning.

Its hard to ask one if they suffer from "delusions" because to me by definition delusions are some false belief that you believe are true therefore could not recognize as "delusional" but from reading my psychiatric evaluation there was always the line that says "no clear delirium".

I don't believe in magic, ufos, psychic powers or religions of any kind. In fact I'm an atheist, and very strongly so. I believe that humans are no more than evolved animals and that our lives are no more meaningfull than that of an ant or cat. We are born, we live, we reproduce and propagate our genes, we die, we become plant food and our atoms become part of some other element the universe (plant, rock, animal, insect, whatever) and thats it.

I usually depress people with beliefs like that. Some call me a nihilist for it but I can't help it. If I had to state what the meaning of life is it would have to be this simple phrase :

Nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, everything transforms.

I do not know why or how the universe came to be but I accept it as an unknown (at least for now) and would rather do so than find some sort of reassurance in made up beliefs in a "god" or "powerfull entity" of some sort. In fact the only people I have found that seem to understand and share my views of life in general tend to be SPDs or SPD-like people. So maybe its a symptom of my personality type.

So perhaps my tendency to intellectualize (a very common SPD defense mechanism) and rationalize (yet another classical one) could be seen as a delusion (i.e. believing that everything can and will eventually be broken down and explained by science and mathematics) but its also very coherent with north american culture so its usually not seen as pathological by most doctors.


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poster:Camille Dumont thread:445024
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050129/msgs/450125.html