Schizotypal Forum

As you know I have schizotypal personality disorder, and even though I usually complain about how it affects my daily life this post will be a complaint about another subject. I am a young man who has a great deal of difficulty interacting with women, all women of all ages. This has caused me much distress throughout my life and made me even consider suicide for that reason alone (although I have plenty of fair reasons, this is besides the point). Now, the reason for my problems with women come from what I say to them and how I act around them. Apparently there is one reason for me doing both of these things that my psychologist explained to me today. He claims that my problems with women come from my nearly overwhelming anger towards my mother. Because I am so angry toward my mother and have been ever since I was about 3 years old or so, I have almost strategically taken my anger out on all women. Logically this makes no sense, as I am not a misogynist, but rather a person with an unhealthy amount of anger pent-up inside of him toward a particular women who has played a focal point in my life. This has somehow caused me to speak to women almost abusively (verbal abuse, but not superficially) and degrade women with jokes (any jokes I make about women degrade them in some way and its a disturbing behavioral pattern). I dislike this behavior greatly and ironically would reprimand anyone who did this to a woman. I can interact with men quite well and excel at doing so, since I understand being a man, but any interactions with women cause me to regress to these behavioral patterns. I don't know what to do, or if there is anything I can do, but I was wondering if anyone has heard of something like this before.

Hi Agony
Sorry your mom had to screw things up for you in this way.

I have a (female) friend who had the same problem, but with men.

What helped her was discussing it in therapy and, most importantly, being in a loving relationship with a man.

Kudos to you for recognizing the problem in the first place. I bet a lot of people in your shoes wouldn't admit to such things. I just wanted to say that, like it did for my friend, things can change for you. I'm not sure how, but they can.

Have you ever been close with a girl? I don't necessarily mean romantically, but emotionally.

I've never really been with a girl either romantically or emotionally, at least not to my knowledge. I mean, I try to sympathize with people, men and women, who are experiencing troubling times, but that may be the closest thing to being emotionally with a person I can think of. I'm pretty sure i've never been emotional with a woman though because I haven't had any real female friends.

Hi Agony,

I was recently told that I also have 'some issues' with my mum. I also dont get along with women very well...and I am one!
I find them difficult to understand at times. Over emotional etc.
I recon, and a previous shrink also, that it also started round the age of three. My mother hit me in the face very hard and made my nose bleed. So I set up a defense cloak. Which I still ocasional use today.But what we have to remember is everybody is different. Not all women are the same. As you said yourself, you have a problem with that particular woman. You could work this in thereapy, and learn not to project your negative feelings towards that woman on others. I lived with three very overpowing women as a child...so I know how it can be difiicult to 'switch it off'
Try and get yourself a friend of the female gender...you can start with me if you like...

After all of the bad experiences I have had, and there were plenty of them, I think that maybe taking small steps would be the most effective. As of recently I have been a little bit better about that stuff and am trying to be more conscious of my behavior. I struggle socially because of my SPD and it really confuses me as to how this affects socializing the way it does. I don't consider certain things socially that most people do and consider things that most people do not. This issue I addressed is more like a side-problem that stems from my major one. I really just need to adjust my behavior and curb my impulses to be able to successfully interact with others socially.

Some of the trouble we face is that we don't recognize what these behavioral things are. Sometimes it can make us seem to be obnoxious, or appear to be pushy or even ignorant. We don't like to think of ourselves as being that way. I am a little older than some of you. I have been married for 19 years and it ended recently. The prognositicators didn't give me 6 months! To say I showed them would be wrong. They showed me because it's done, ove,r finito, put a fork in it and move on. I have "other" female friends and they don't understand my personlity quirks either.
If I had a way to sit here and explain the intricacies of it, most of them would want to run like hell because they would be afraid of us if anything.
We're not monsters. We care very deeply about the things that concern us and the people that concern us. Perhaps we should see it as a blessing that some of the mind games the norms play goes over our heads. Some of those mind games are not worth playing and we got better things to do.
Many of us have our defense mechanisms and norms don't waste anytime to call it weird. My defense mechanism is built up in science fiction. I don't give a rat's behind about professional league sports. The norms call me weird for that but put the shoe on the other foot. It's ok for the norms to call me weird? Maybe they are weird. To me they are weird. You mix some schizotypal with some ADHD then you tell me what you think of football? *yawn* Take it slow with women. Don't dare tell them about schizotypal PD until after they are wearing the ring. You will sink everytime if you do. They all tell you honesty is the best policy, but you can still be honest without divulging everything. One of the things to be concerned about is that if you ever divulge that information, your world will turn on you and treat you like a sex offender even though you had nothing to do with it.
I fight with it all the time. I want to come right out and say it but I don't. Emotions are a tricky thing. Take things slowly try to listen, with girls, offer a back rub once in a while. (it always helps) but most importantly you need to just be you. Don't go round trying to be something you are not. Girls don't like phonies.

Don't go around advertising that you have SPD. Don't say anything about it to anyone. You know you have it, so now what are you going to do about it? Go learn more about it, learn how to recognize it and talk with people that you know other than your mom. It's ok to have different beliefs than your mom does. But work on just being you. go and do the things you like and do well at them. Don't let the norms try to discourage you because they will if you let them. You are the way you are and if norms don't like it, they can lump it. You need to take your good points and build up your good points. Sure we get cold feet around the girls even norms do that, but we need to recognize who we are and though we are not norms, we need to learn how to adapt and get comfortbale with ourselves. We need structure, we need order and we are methodical. Being spontaneous usually is not us. We can be sweet caring and loving if we tried.

This post isn't about attracting women so much as being able to simply speak to them in a typical socially accepted fashion. I tend to have a serious problem doing that when they "pose an emotional threat" to me according to my shrink (I'm not sure if that is the best way to explain it, but if anyone has a better idea feel free to share.) I sometimes mentions the whole personality disorder thing to others, but it is pretty rare. I recently had another slip up with someone, so this really isn't improving at all for me which really sucks. I'd prefer to simply be myself, but after being told and shown through different situations that it isn't "okay" for me to be myself I am feeling very conflicted about that. I tend to be misunderstood as my intentions behind my statements rarely have the effect I intended upon.

under ideal circumstances I would be myself. If people don't like me being myself, they can go lump it. If they complain about me being myself I will give some lumps to lump it with. I have the same problem though. I tend to want to give a little bit more info about myself than I need to. I like to help people but often feel under appreciated when I do help people and think they view me as being over-enthusiastic. I don't like to play mind games. I tell people to be direct and to the point with me. Never assume anything, if we didn't talk about it I likely do not know about it as I rarely forget anything. Our intentions we feel are the noblist of noble intentions and people fee its miscontrued. Try to observe more and watch others. You don't have to deny yourself to do that. Don't always be quick to assert your opinions and try very hard not to mention the personality disorder thing to others, what they don't know won't hurt them, though what we know will turn and hurt us. The less people know about our drama, the less inclined they are to run from you.