Avoidant Personality Disorder & Schizoid Personality Disorder 

I used the word “malaise” wrong in this video… disregard that lol

I'm a schizoid but I wouldn't say I'm 100% disinterested in anything romantic, it's just that I am essentially a human cactus and a few seconds of intense eye contact with a girl is something I can live off of for weeks and anything that gets too close in the sense of her always being in my life would be way too stressful for me and would essentially drown me real quick and it would feel like a second job instead of something I enjoy. I'm pretty sure it has confused people pretty often that I seem to be interested and then suddenly I'll withdraw even though they did nothing wrong. Sometimes I daydream about having more going on with them but as with most things really, it only takes place in my head and in real life it wouldn't work

Mine feels like progression. As a child I had sensory issues and I stimmed at lot and was just genteelly someone other kids were uncomfortable around. No matter how hard I tried I was never successful with making friends. I would sit in the mirror at night and practice how to be normal so I wouldn’t be so lonely anymore. But it never worked. By the time I was in highschool the confusion I felt about relating to people made me want to isolate myself completely and when I did isolate myself I found that I spent so much time as a little kid trying to be someone else I had no idea who I was. The feels lead to this deep resentment to other people for not just accepting me for who I was. I don’t want anything to do with others now. I see them now as a source of pain and not a cure for loneliness. I feel happy being alone and away from everyone now. I am a person who went from avoidant to schizoid personality.

As someone diagnosed with SPD, I've found your channel very interesting. I used to have crippling social anxiety when I was younger, which makes AvPD feel relatable to me (not that I claim to fully understand the experience!). I'm not sure if my SPD diagnosis is correct - at least for me it's not about pure disinterest towards socializing (though I've become more disinterested with age), but it's based on fears of losing my autonomy or being basically emotionally consumed by other people (I think "fear of engulfment" is a term for that), even in friendships. But like I said, I'm questioning my diagnosis, 'cause I think it's possible I have autism or something else (ADHD is something I'm already diagnosed with).

Thanks for the video. I'm SPD and wondered how my thoughts/fears differ from AvPD. Maybe oversimplifying but what i think is true form my understanding: SPD theme is motivation to protect myself from the world. Do not trust anyone, even myself. For AvPD it would be simpler: protect myself from shame. Freud would have loved this. For him, everything was sexual. For me sexuality has absolutely nothing to do with it. I fear intimacy. For with intimacy you must trust. For developing friendships you must trust. And when at sime point early in life you can't handle the emotions of betrayal by parent, sibling, or other central person in your life you turn your emotions off. I remember the moment for me when i stopped crying when i got teased by my older brothers. I was six or seven. And correctly guessed that the teasing would stop if i stopped rewarding them with my emotional outbursts.

Schizoids can be vulnerable and fear being absorbed by society, showing some similarities in avoidance.

Respect 💜 for this work you're putting into all this. I hope you find it to be rewarding and helpful in your journey.

Sam Vaknin has a similar idea that all personality disorders are the same disorder

this video and the comments below have been pretty helpful in helping me distinguish both personality disorders, and solidify my alignment with avpd, I really appreciate it! seems like the core revolves around rejection and judgement of an outsider, and while avoidants will respond with fearful attachment to it and obsessive attempts to avoid encounters with judgemental reactions, taking the blame on themselves, schizoids will instead respond with rejection of said outside judgement and blame, and completely disengage from any outsider’s perspective of reality, viewing it as flawed and not worth vulnerability, and therefore interest. it’s interesting to think about, considering they were once labelled as one singular diagnosis together a while back, and now are separated into different clusters altogether. (though, it makes sense to me that spd would be considered a cluster a schizotype now: both avoidants and schizoids have a core mistrust of the other’s judgement, but schizoids seem to actively reject the other‘s worldview and consider it as inherently suspicious and maybe even persecutory in nature? which aligns well with other schizotype-related disorders and its manifestations. schizoids just happen to not exhibit positive symptoms like hallucinations, delusions, mania and psychotic breaks, in contrast with the rest of them.)

I used to think i related more to avpd, but after having some good therapy sessions i think i relate much more to schizoid, especially when you learn more about the disorders and not just surface appearances they present.

I wonder how ("quiet") Borderline Personality Disorder/Traits is related to AvPD 🤔 Another thing that I recently think about is how AvPD will translate into the ICD-11 diagnosis of Personality Disorders... There's so much to deep dive into :D You pointed the multidimensionality of Personality Disorders at end (different opposites) and I think that's what the ICD-11 tries to take into account? And thanks for putting yourself out there! You're a real inspiration. AvPD can feel so dead end hopeless :(

Super interesting to learn about SPD vs AVPD. I sincerely want to wish everyone of you 💜 and respect for being you. Cheers friends.

Thank you again, Maxine! 💟

Nice job again breaking this down.

3-hours later... I just noticed the announcement, that this video is out!

This is super informative! I saw a comment before on I think another video about how “quiet borderline” is also very similar to avoidant personality disorder. I would love to hear your outlook on that. I like researching about mental health topics as a way to better understand myself and simply because I find it fascinating. I reached a conclusion though that the more I learn, the more unsure I am about everything related to mental health diagnoses 😅

Hi there! I've been following you channel for al long while and I came back to this video. I have struggled with mental health issues like anxiety, depression, low distress tolerance and a bunch of other stuff. Im diagnosed with recurrent depression and a personality disorder in observation (although it is clear to me and my therpaist that I do have it). But, now where to start. The DSM is quite problematic due to some disordders being less reasearched and understood than others, there can be significant comorbidities and overlaps in symptoms. I went through 4 psychological evalutations and we are still not sure what the problem is. If just look at the wikipedia article for SzPD you will find a lot of contraditcions between different diagnostic and treatment approaches. Personality and personality disorders are still poorly understood and its often very difficult to pinpoint what the problem is. Also as you said everybody is different so it is not uncommon for people with the same personality disorder to be completely different, everybody is unique. It usually takes a lot of work to decipher whats going on. There are lots of myths about people with SzPD. Many will report that they are not actually that indiferent to human interaction (some say it comes from fear, some say they truly are indiferrent, some find it unsafe and some boring and exhausting) or indifference to praise/criticism. Also lack of motivation and enjyoment in most activities and emotional expression (I've seen a lot of people with SzPD claiming that they just find human interaction and a lot of stuff boring and unintersting but at the same time posses deep passion and interest for some things. I watched your video on AvPD vs Covert narcissim. And yeah its a clusterfuck tbh. I can relate to all 3 to some extent. Or atleast I could at points in my life when I analyse my past. You mentioned how a person with AvPD when depressed might look a lot like a schizoid person. Ugh its so exhausting. Although I haven't received an offical specific PD diagnosis I like to describe myself as schizoid at the core. I was like that from childhood. Then I got bullied for being different which resulted in the development of AvPD and maybe some covert narc traits. What makes it event more complicated is that some psychoanalital theorists view some degree/expression of narcissim in schizoid patients. I apologize for this ramble. Currently trying to desperatly understand myself. Not sure if youre interested or have time for it. But id really like to see you hosting discussions about the topic with followers who are willing to participate. Share our experiences. I kinda find it fun and interesting despite the fact that these issues can be quite debilitating (I also believe these discussions could turn out quite funny and entertaining in a weird way due to personality dynamics but also therapeutic). I noticed you are quite into researching about all this stuff (not uncommon for people with SzPD xD). Sending you lots of suspected schizoid love and appreaction for what you do (I might be not that indefferent after all). I apologize again for my somewhat incoherent ramble but its all so confusing.

Interesting video. I thought kind of the same as you regarding these two personal disorders, after hearing about AVPD and reading up on the other personal disorders. I am more interested in something you have mentioned a few times, autism spectrum disorder and AVPD. There seems to be some overlap, at least in the questions for the online tests. But a few things seem quite different, almost excluding, while this is probably not the case. Thanks for good content!

AVPD sees themselves as a problem. SPD sees others as a problem (at least for me)

Hi. Always thank you for all videos. If you can tell us about how you hit the ADHD and AvPD duagnosis. I remember you thought you have ASD... When you decide to tell us about you diagnosis process it will be great. But anyway if you do not want to talk about dignosis process, for example, that's also ok. ❤

The discord link says it's expired.

Maybe i shed the care. Its been years so thats a strong possibility.

❤✌️

I want to be someone who is able to get out, meet people, maybe even go to a party or get together. Instead I have a deep SHAME related to being around others in a joyful atmosphere. Celebrations, happy events, all of it make me feel deeply shameful. My birthday is the worst. I plan to have a full physical and bloodwork done on my next birthday in March (43rd) I fully expect bad news as I have not taken care of myseld. My plan is to make my birthday be the worst day of my life to date. That is how much I hate being happy and being around people in a happy environment.

The struggle of people with SPD is their destructive way loving. They crave love (probably of their moms) and this craving evolves into "Subconsciously wanting to cure their craving." and that is pretty destructive. They fear that they'll lose the person if they try to cure their craving and this leads to "not wanting to socialize". This all happens subconsciously untill they try to make a friend or bf/gf.

Never try to identify which of those disroders you have. Take for granted, that to have a strong body one needs to feel the pain of heavy lifting. Same with soul. The one who wants his souls to be as strong as a full plate armour, needs to go outside naked, into the storm and take a bath in a rain of ridicule, humiliation and enmity. Only then, just like with body, soul will develope its own musles and become strong. Living isn't about safety and feeling comfy, but taking a hardship in a survival called LIFE. There is only one law in life. Law of the Jungle. It up to you if you will become hunter or prey.

I have schizoid personality disorder. Major depression and anxiety disorder. My depression is better my anxiety is still high. Schizoid there are no medications It all sucks😂

Oh, boy, America. I have APD, ADHD, ASPD, and in order to get THAT, I had to catch cPTSD! Wear them badges with Pride!

Or just cute enough? :P