You know when you're outside doing your own thing and you happen to make eye contact with someone?

I think the normal thing to do is just look away, to break that awkward moment of "I see that you're looking at me, you know I'm looking at you, and I know that you know I'm looking at you."

But sometimes I feel like if I look away too quickly, people might notice and sense that I'm overthinking this whole eye contact thing.

Because I guess they would notice that I'm feeling anxious about it, and people aren't usually that anxious about this kind of thing. For them, it's just an occasional thing that they don't give much thought to.

Sometimes I feel like maybe it's more normal not to look away super quickly, and that it's normal to hold eye contact for a little while, with a blank look on the face for a while.

So sometimes, when this happens, I'm like, "Okay, so what's the normal thing to do now? I don't know. I guess this is it. I hope I'm behaving and looking like a normal person. But I really don't know what a normal person would do in a situation like this."

It's like I know what my options are; I just don't know which one is the right one.

Sometimes I feel naturally drawn to keep looking at other people's faces. Do you remember when you were a kid and you could just look at other people's faces without there being anything wrong with it? Sometimes I feel like I still do that, even though I know it would be considered weird now.

The outside world feels like a zoo, but I know that looking at people so closely, as if I were meticulously observing them, would be considered odd. And I agree, It's not something one should do.

Shit happens

For example, one day I was reading a post by a man who was basically asking whether stalking someone was bad. He said he used to sit in a park after work, and one day he started noticing that a woman would always walk near where he was sitting. He got curious and eventually started following her.

He became increasingly interested in her, it seemed like he did'nt had many things to do, to the point where he eventually found out where she lived, who she lived with, and where she worked.

So the man asked: "If I'm not harming her, is it bad?"

Many people replied that yes, it was harassment, even if she didn't know about it.

Meanwhile, my reaction was: "No, it's not bad. And why are you even asking about this? Obviously, you can do it. Just don't look at her when she's naked or anything like that, don't try to harm her, and don't use the information you've gathered to manipulate her. But simply observing someone is fine."

Then, one day, I met someone online who told me he was in love with his biological sister ( same parents). He said he fantasized about having a relationship with her, marrying her, and even having sex with her. They were both adults, and he'd been having these thoughts since childhood and still had them to this day.

Most people would find that disgusting or be shocked by it. They might tell him he shouldn't feel or act that way, but I don't.

I can talk about this as if it were just a conversation about anything else.

I kept asking him questions about it, and we talked about that and many other things.

The other day, I was browsing a gore site. It's not that I particularly enjoy watching that kind of content, but I find it interesting. I think it's natural to be curious about what actually happens in extreme situations. I don't watch it for the shock or because I enjoy watching disturbing things. I just feel that it's part of reality, and that it's actually healthy to be aware of this side of reality rather than pretending these things don't happen.

It's not just that I'm desensitized. It's more that I'm generally very calm about pretty much everything, and I'm interested in understanding why things happen without feeling the need to be shocked or outraged first.

It's like I feel people could tell me things that others would consider disgusting or immoral, and I'd be like, "Oh, interesting, tell me more."

Of course, sometimes I think some things are strange or disgusting, but not necessarily immoral. But yes, if someone physically or psychologically harms another person, I'll think it's wrong and see them as a bad person. Still, even if that happens, I'll listen to them.

Anyone else?

Hi all :). I had a really stressful day today, almost didn't feel real it was that bad. I'm not diagnosed schizotypal but I have many of the same experiences as people here and I've suspected that I have it for a real long time. But I decided to scroll through this subreddit and I was kinda touched by all the looking for friends posts and how active they were. Idk what I'm trying to say but yinz put me in a good mood so thanks.

I don't like being with people, but i still feel so unbearably alone. It feels so miserable, i want friends but im so scared of people. My only friend is my shark plushie

I basically got confronted by a discord individual because I was attempting to report their account for engaging / talking about non-consensual acts/roleplay, and the audacity is that they "healed" so they were unbanned (according to their friend)

In which they saw me double check everything... And proceeded to basically call me worthless and say that nobody cares about schizotypal, and that I'll never heal from my trauma :sob: it's awful, I was told nobody would ever like me and such like that. It was pretty gross, they basically were holding their "healing" above my head like it was some kind of competition.

The worst part is that they clearly manipulated their friend because they have *definitely* not healed whatsoever if they're doing this. I have disgruntled them and dealt with their friends harassing me, over me venting a bit too much, and about them harassing me, so yeah. I'm aware I vent heavily but the reaction is really really uncalled for, I don't get why people can't work with me and instead demonize me and think they've never done a single thing wrong because "I'm the bad one."

Bringing up my disorder is even worse, she claimed she "dealt with it too" but never actually has, she doesn't have STPD as far as I've talked to her and claimed BPD. I don't understand the need for *every* person to use my disorder against me, it's awful man. Her and her friends would call me things like "basket case" and "schizo" behind my back because of my disorder as well, just ick.

Hello, fellas,

Maybe you all can help - or at least share similar things so I'll feel that I'm not alone in my struggling

I have this weird thing - in every group of friends of mine, I feel myself unfit and misunderstood. If there are problems or fussings between my friends in said group, I feel that it's all my fault. It's all my wrongdoing. I try not to be sociable since I almost always think that whatever I say or post makes me annoying and that people around me prefer me vanishing from their lives. Even if my friends say I'm a good person and they like my jokes

The same goes with my romantic relationships. I'm trying not to penguin pebble to my S/O (I love him very much and don't know how to show it) since I think he's exhausted because of me acting intrusive

Every change in tone of voice, everything makes me feel unsafe and unwanted and this feeling has been preying on me since early adulthood. Did anyone experience this ?

Being alone for so long screwed my social navigation. I came to terms of my loneliness years ago, yet only now I realize how truly alone I am. I cannot bear to socialize, as it makes me physically uncomfortable, yet as I lay down in complete darkness with 0 notifications I can't help but feel the ache in my heart. What a fate I've chosen to myself.

I've had moments of incredible clarity. When things go well, I can compliment strangers on the street, hang out with friends after school, I graduated cumlaude 2nd highest in my entire school. People have told me they admired me and my creative achievement and envy me, or wish they could do the things I can do. That the things I did changed their life for the better, or defined who they are as a person.

And right now I can't even make a phone call, or review 2 minutes worth of voicework because it's too difficult for me. I've tried everything now to control these stupid flare ups. I had to drop out of university and lost friends because of them. I'm supposed to make a doctors appointment but I can't do it.

I struggle very intensely with confusion, hallucinations, memory. I can no longer remember what I told who, or what task I already completed. I once animated the same scene twice, and cut two of the same metal pieces. I start to hear this horrible scratching of rats in the walls, or knocking on my door or someone calling my name. Like I'm dead and reality is trying to scratch its way back into me. Sometimes I feel somebody is sitting down next to me or coming too close, then there's nobody there. I used to have really intense, horrifying visual hallucinations too but it turns out those were caused by the "MLP infection AU horror" trend going around. To think I'm that sensitive.

The other day I was ruled to have 0% work capacity and advised to urgently get psychological care because they suspect there is more wrong with me than just STPD. I'm disabled. Even tho I was achieving things nobody else could just months back. This has been a cycle going in repeat my whole stupid life.

Right now I'm struggling with "magical thinking", I think. There was writing on the bench advising me not to trust reality, and I've been getting signs luring me to bodies of water or trying to tell me I am already dead and there's something I need to do. I know that can't be real, but my body reacts as if it is. The only grounding method that still works on me is hurting myself and I got scolded for that.

The government gave me my very own little middle aged man to help me but I don't want to bother him on the weekend. I also worry that if I told anyone about my magical thinking something bad will happen.

I’m wondering if anyone else experiences this.
At night, when I’m in bed trying to fall asleep, ordinary objects in my room start resembling people, faces, or monsters. For example, I have a chair with clothes piled on it, and in the dark, the clothes strongly resemble some kind of person or creature.
The thing is, I’m fully awake when this happens, and I’m completely aware that it’s just a chair with clothes on it. I’ve even rearranged the clothes multiple times over several days, but they still end up resembling something frightening.
Even though I KNOW there’s nothing there, I can’t stop seeing the resemblance, and it genuinely scares me. Sometimes I’m afraid to close my eyes because I get anxious about what I’ll see when I open them again. There’s also this irrational feeling that the figure might move or somehow turn out to be real, despite logically knowing it isn’t.
It’s almost like my brain knows exactly what I’m looking at, but I can’t convince my fear response of the same thing.

Bonjour, bonsoir

Je suis diagnostique schizophréne paranoïde depuis l'année 2012 et j'ai eu l'impression que j'avais des super pouvoirs comme la téléportation, faire apparaître des objet par la pensée...

Est ce que ça vous est déja arriver dans vos périodes de crises?Est ce que vous pensez que vous avez des super pouvoirs?

I think the most difficult part for me is that when I see people as against me I don’t believe that in their minds they are trying to target me, but they see harming me as helpful.

My therapist wants me to unlearn these thought patterns but I feel like he is assuming the rest of the world puts as much dedication into their good intentions as he does, actually seeing them through. I have a tendency to attack but only when I feel threatened. The problem is I don’t think anyone sees their behavior as threatening enough to warrant my reactions. They see it as me trying to victimize or sabotage myself.

I feel lonely, I barely have more than one friend (acquaintance I talk to frequently) but every situation feels to dangerous to engage with. I have autism as well and so I just don’t know how to socialize to begin with. I am not even pushing this one friendship farther because I don’t want him to think I am obsessed especially because I’m not.

I have just been consistently losing friends all my life. My mom keeps pushing me to hang out and do stuff all the time and I’m exhausted. From 13-15 I had a three separate and very creepy people get obsessed with me because she’d make me do this. The first made gore art of me thinking I’d appreciate that, the second accused her mom of murder so my family would take her in, and the third still stalks me asking me if I’m ready to connect “yet.” When I’d try to go to my support system for help they’d scold me by telling me that I’d miss the attention when they were gone.

Anyone normal just hasn’t stuck around. They always end up saying my personality is too difficult. I don’t like people obsessing over me but those are the only people who have come closer to accepting me. Not really I guess, as they told me to stop talking about things because they felt uncomfortable. So they just ignored and tolerated what they didn’t like.

I have had many therapists before drop me as a client due to my antisocial behaviors that I was upfront about and they assured me it would be fine. I had one specifically who I had this conversation with “I don’t want to take risks in relationships because every time I have it’s gone poorly” “but isn’t that lonely?” “Yeah but being lonely is better than getting hurt and then being lonely in the end anyway” and she transferred me for conflict of interest.

I feel like therapists are just doing to me what they want for themselves and most of their clients are just similar enough to them that nobody catches it. Every therapist swears they won’t give up. Everyone has. My current one swears he won’t give up but he is just saying the same things as all the others and I don’t know why he thinks he’s somehow more correct.

I’ve been through every class of medication and I don’t feel like anything helps me besides one, but it doesn’t affect my mood just makes me get better sleep.

I want to build a self sustaining house and just not bother with people anymore but I have a physical condition and my body would fail without my prescription. I have no motivation to live honestly. I can never be comfortable doing anything. I don’t know if I’ll ever live a fulfilling life like everyone promises. Those who don’t are treated as failures who didn’t take their meds and gave up too early, but will I ever get that chance? What am I living for besides a place inside my own head that I can never go to?

Part of me is very happy that I finally received the diagnosis. I feel like a chapter of my life has finally come to a close.

At first, I was happy, but sometimes I feel like it’s a secret that some people should never know about, especially authorities like the police or hospitals.

I have no problem explaining what schizotypal personality disorder is and why I most likely received this diagnosis, but I feel like some people could basically say “This person was diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder, so they’re basically delusional. We can’t trust what they say, and they basically think strange, twisted, crazy and delusional things.”

So I dreamed I was in some kind of courtroom, surrounded by doctors, and I had to convince them that I wasn’t borderline insane, that I was just as rational as everyone else.

I was sitting in a chair, they put on a video for me to watch and said, “This will prove whether you’re delusional or not. People with delusions can’t tolerate this video.”

They started playing the video, which consisted of nothing but text and words moving from top to bottom, and I was trying to read it.

As I watched it, I started hallucinating or something like that. It was as if my vision got lost in the words, as if I became too absorbed in them and felt like I was getting lost in the video.

I felt like I was getting lost in the video, losing touch with reality, so I had to push back against it to keep myself from getting lost in it.

While this was happening, I was thinking, “Oh no, it’s happening. I need to make it look like everything is okay,” because my face must have looked like that of someone who was tripping and getting more and more lost in the video.

So I tried to keep a straight face, as if the video weren’t affecting me.

When it ended, I said, “See? Nothing happened.”

But inside, I felt like, “Damn, it’s true. I’m not a normal person like them. I’m actually quite delusional.”

I feel like I'm narrating and annotating my life at all times, more so than actually experiencing it.

What is this sensation, i zone out immediately when i'm doing anything , the brain fog

IM so fucking disambiguated I'm so frenetic im so im so im so im so, I'm so losing it losing ITTTT. 

Wildly angry at my father, and at everything, wild thoughts all at me, i feel so disconnected and so disengaged. 
‘
I feel my eyes widen further and further, he needs to learn how to talk to me better, we need to , I need to relax around my family. I need to stop looking into truths, i need to disengage from the barrage i need to see a psychiatrist. 

I saw in the movie of my mind, me screaming in the psychiatrists room at my parents, they were there, finally expelling all my frustrations and piecing together the understandings. 

Otherwise I won't have many places to relax. 

I wanted to go wild with these thoughts of being insane. I wanted to paint something fantastic and ambiguous and amazing. I felt a want to loop everything in my mind and drive me further into impulse. A want to completely release and start screaming and doing everything i could do to make myself known to this world.

I’m in (i was) a psychotic episode i think there was a ‘vibe’ wrong with my father. And then he used accusatory language when I opened up. I then stared and he stared back, and then didn’t say anything. 

I shouldn’t bring up more thoughts, i feel like i’ll drown in the anxiety, the anger, the feelings, 

This is a core borderline. The feeling of not getting the right support, his lack of empathy, lac of attempt to try and understand, the psychosis (impulse) is kept up by borderline/ other anxieties. That’s why it triggers me so much, that’s why i feel so fucked up now. What the fuck am i going to do!!

 I don’t know how to feel better during, and get this psychosis / brain fog state fixed!

WTF am i going to do now. I mean, i made the situation better by taking a cold shower, and writing out my thoughts. 

And I've got family therapy as well at the hospital sometime. I need them to learn me better, and i need them to try and help me out and accommodate me better. Because they THINK THEY NEED TO BE QUIET AROUND ME. 

HOW PARADOXICAL CONSIDERING I HAVE QUIET BPD AS WELL. 

No but, i don’t want them to be quiet i want them to be expressive and supportive and i can achieve that with family therapy I think. I’ve never attacked them,

Hoy fuck though it really felt like i lost my mind, 

I did well this episode. I took a shower, which led to a cold shower, so i could reset myself. I then went to writing which ultimately calmed me down. I still feel quite, not quite right. I don't think i completely reset my feelings.

The art is just a mindful exercise i tried to do afterwards / post-writing this out. I like the smudge though, i had me drawn there, and i smudged it with that disengaged, uncontrollable feelings still dwelling within me.

i feel so in panic like someone is on its way to kill me my mind is racing this body can't stop tensing up and i think I'll die when i sleep. this happened again and again in the last few days and I'm too afraid to go outside. i swear something's wrong with me, I'm so fractured, so delusional, so paranoid, am i schizophrenic? nothing makes sense, why do i have to be in this reality with humans that want to kill me? I'm not human, that's why. are these thoughts mine? if not, where are they coming from? i can't relax, i feel like i have to run away but where can i go, i don't trust any human it feels like torture

i think i need to take my olanzapine

Dissociated state , where I feel faintly inhumane, feel zoned out

Where everything of this world feels out of reach. I feel a barrier between me, people and reality

And there's an anxiety there. Where I feel distant, alone, there is a wish I could be as connected and as social as those people are.

Eveything feels faintly unreal.

My mood is low, and there is various pains scattered around my body.

I feel simultaneously kinda stupid . And unable to find comfort and rest

And it's here , where I feel disconnected , I feel like I am the worst person , for the mistakes or possible transgressions I've done that keep me alone .

I feel also, cold and vaguely angry

I don't really like being alone in this state, weirdly enough. Even so this state, sometimes I've written myself out of it , I think.

I should organize and look at my art

Triggers / features

1. Worry / rumination cycle - depression over somebody

2. Nicotine - cigarettes the day prior

3. Going from no routine to routine

4. Not acting on a thing devouring the mind (borderline (?) things)

5. Sugar?

6. Socializing ? / Lots of people?

There isn't a lot of remission in cluster A...

Haven't had friends for the past 6 years by choice. Last friendship ended suddenly and I did not care to continue it at the time because I was overwhelmed and to me relationships feel like a burden. "Did I enjoy it? Do I like them? Who am I? Who are they? Am I being present? Am I real, am I genuine? Who am I?" are the type of questions that followed me with each social encounter. Head just buzzing with random noise and darting places and is unable to stop yet what do I do? I've lived years like that and having the social aspect just be gone from my life felt like a relief. I have a history of "cutting people off without warning or explanation" (or more like, just disappearing), the same friend group of 2 has, unfortunately, experienced this once before. Yes, it was immature and unkind to them. But I didn't know better. I was just living in entirely different world back then, so preoccupied and anxious, so distant, unable to fully relate and understand others the way they understand the world. Felt like I was orbiting the Earth and desperately needed to find a way to land on it.

I'm still struggling to understand what the hell is wrong with me. I feel like my mind is wired to be self-destructive, it has learned to not only question the ground I stand on but to criticise it and myself along with it. I'm exaggerating right now, of course, but maybe somebody can relate. I'm not sure when it started to be like that, but i've spent my early to mid teens at church and god that was a tormenting experience for my mind. Desperately wanting to believe, but so hateful toward myself, others, always questioning others motives, the faith, looking for answer, certainty, flying in my own head unable to escape. Are we even real? Is anything real? Are any of us happy? Are any of us conscious? So often I felt like I was in a very loud classroom needing for everything to quiet down but unable to speak up for myself, to do anything. I did not want to hate anybody in that class, but I did hate everybody including myself. I'm not sure why. It's like the mind stopped distinguishing between what is deserving of criticism and what is sacred, holy, untouchable. No idols left, no grand experiences. We are all just idiots projecting confidence because it's the only thing that keeps us sane and filters out the noise. Sometimes I wish I just said screw it and escaped. I kind of did. At 16 one day I just didn't go back to church and did not explain it to anybody, did not speak to anybody for 3 months. Yet it felt like very little changed in my life. One source of anxiety and intrusive thoughts was gone, yet my issues were not. Home felt so distant, church felt so distant, school felt like hell. Felt deeply alone yet social for so many years that this insane dissonance felt irritating.

Over the last years, ever since quitting my last job it has been feeling like I was learning to live again, to understand, learning to clean my mind from unnecessary intrusive noise for years. Objectively I'm in a much better place, so much has changed, yet, I feel so stuck. I don't know what is wrong. I feel like a bird that is trying to find a perfect place to land on and relax and I can't find any I can trust. I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect, to have everything figured out, to never do no wrong, to understand myself, others, the world, what is going on. I don't know.

My mind is at war with itself. Always doubting, questioning, doubting again, digging deeper when i don't want to, so hard to be present, so often get stuck in my own head unable to disengage. Just let me be, my stupid head. Let me live in my delusions of being a person, let me somebody. I feel like I'm nobody, everybody. How can I spend so much time trying to figure out myself yet feel like I don't know myself? That can't be normal, that can't be true. My mind is playing tricks on me. It doesn't allow me to land, to claim something. "But are you really?", "Do you really?", "Am I actually?", "But what about this situation?", "But what about this perspective?", "But what about those people?".

Hello, I'm at a loss. My experiences with people over the years made me so scared of others that I only manage to regularly talk to only two people, whom I know for some time and from before my brain broke even more.

I'm exhausting to care for, even to myself. My brain is stuck in high anxiety mode 90% of the time. I have attachment issues causes by past SA. At times I go into "psychosis?" phases, like, where nobody understand anything of what I mean or feel and most people begin to leave either scared or... I don't even know why they give up like that.

Did multiple suicide attempts since then. Seen many psychiatrists, tried many medications. I try to get better but it keeps going worse and worse since my childhood, but way faster the last two years, since I was sent to a psych ward for a month and put on medications.

But I feel so lonely, I want to make friends, but past people went so bad last years I struggle so much, and the world is getting so frightening, and I'm just unbearable to have around long term...

i hate this reality, it's not mine, i shouldn't be here. ever since i discovered that I wasn't supposed to be here in this human reality, this existence became even more painful. I've dealt with so much shit during this life but knowing that I'm an error in this reality gave me this constant feeling of dread and how much i wanna leave this plane of existence. i don't even know why I'm still going, I'm sure nothing will get better, I can't sustain myself, I'm dependent on social welfare, i can't stand humans, work is just not possible, i just can't stand anything human and their reality, nothing about this makes sense or even makes me so angry i would be ready to hurt others or even kill if someone tries to kill me bc of how wrong and different i am (they just know i'm not them, they can see what I'm thinking and how i look like inside), i feel no empathy or anything good towards humans, even looking at this human body we occupy makes me wanna skin it. if I die, i'll die on my own terms.

i want to enter into my reality, in my head where my peeps are who feel the same as me. one who has no interest to anything human and just doesn't want to deal with anything human related and has no connection to anything here, another who would love to end all humans and the human reality as a whole bc they deserve it and me who is just tired with everything and doesn't feel anything anymore and want the peace that is death. nothing is real to me, everything feels fake and meaningless. going outside is so awful, i talk inside that humans are not real just to get through things i need to do outside.

can't i just not deal with any of this human bs?