Peptron
24-July-2007, 06:21 PM
I have noticed that on this forum (and forums with the same general topics in general) it seems that the count of people with Asperger's is abnormally high, probably due to the fact that it is very compatible with Asperger's expectations. Also, Asperger Syndrome have a lot of things in common with Schizoid Personality Disorder, and if I remember correctly SPD tends to be about 3 times as common as AS.
There are some core differences between AS and SPD, the biggest one being that AS is a form of autism while SPD isn't. We could say that AS is a person with a differently wired brain, but that a person with SPD has a "neurotypical" brain that just happened to develop a peculiar personnality of extreme introversion and emotionnal detachment.
People with SPD don't have many of the "autistic" characteristics of AS, like the strong preference for logical patterns in things and people, a natural interest for numbers and other logic related things, the inability to read facial expressions and the lack of innate knowledge that other people aren't rule based and have motivations that might be different than the person with AS.
SPD is more about never-ending introspection, rationnalisation and hyperreflection about pretty much everything. People with SPD have an extremely rich internal world that only rarely surface, and from the outside, people with SPD seem to be completely aloof and detached; but they are in no way autistic. It's just that they rationnalise and internalise everything, but their understanding of the world around them is completely unaffected. They can participate in discussions normally, can get along with people like anybody, but are very unlikely to participate in them by themselves if they don't have to and will almost always prefer to be alone. They do have a strong tendency to be perpetually daydreaming if left idle and are likely to think about fantasy and fictious worlds much more than "normal" people would.
I personally don't like the term "Schizoid" of "Schizoid Personality Disorder" (and a lot of psychiatrists don't either) because it kind of sounds like "schizophrenia" even though they are completely unrelated.
In the case of "schizoid", "schizo" (meaning "split") refers to the split between the inner-world and the outside-world, which is much more pronounced in schizoids than normal people. Their level of introversion rarely let the inner-world surface outside, but they in no way lose touch of the outside world.
In the case of "schizophrenia", "schizo" refers to the split within the self. A schizophrenic person lost the control of his own thoughts in some way, as he is prone to psychosis and is likely to lose touch of reality. What he perceives and what how his brain react to it is completely disjunct.
The way I was acting in my teenage years looked a lot like Asperger's Syndrome. Now that I am older this is completely resorbed. But due to the nature of AS, you cannot be "cured" of it, since it is a life-long condition and it is the brain behavior itself that is "different". I noticed that my acting was in fact more in line of Schizoid Personality Disorder, since because it is actually just an "odd" personality, it is likely to resorb with time if one comes to the realisation of how problematic being this introverted and detached can be. This cannot really happen with AS since it's not just a pattern of thoughts that can be changed with a lot of will power.
I was wondering if a few people that suspect they have AS might in fact have something more similar to SPD. SPD, despite the frightening name, is in some way less of a deal, since it can be changed with immense will power if the person wants to. However, pretty much every person with SPD I met prefered to change their environment to fit their extreme introversion instead of trying to become more extravert, since in their opinion it wasn't so big of a deal and that conforming to the ideals of society wasn't their own ideal.
There are some core differences between AS and SPD, the biggest one being that AS is a form of autism while SPD isn't. We could say that AS is a person with a differently wired brain, but that a person with SPD has a "neurotypical" brain that just happened to develop a peculiar personnality of extreme introversion and emotionnal detachment.
People with SPD don't have many of the "autistic" characteristics of AS, like the strong preference for logical patterns in things and people, a natural interest for numbers and other logic related things, the inability to read facial expressions and the lack of innate knowledge that other people aren't rule based and have motivations that might be different than the person with AS.
SPD is more about never-ending introspection, rationnalisation and hyperreflection about pretty much everything. People with SPD have an extremely rich internal world that only rarely surface, and from the outside, people with SPD seem to be completely aloof and detached; but they are in no way autistic. It's just that they rationnalise and internalise everything, but their understanding of the world around them is completely unaffected. They can participate in discussions normally, can get along with people like anybody, but are very unlikely to participate in them by themselves if they don't have to and will almost always prefer to be alone. They do have a strong tendency to be perpetually daydreaming if left idle and are likely to think about fantasy and fictious worlds much more than "normal" people would.
I personally don't like the term "Schizoid" of "Schizoid Personality Disorder" (and a lot of psychiatrists don't either) because it kind of sounds like "schizophrenia" even though they are completely unrelated.
In the case of "schizoid", "schizo" (meaning "split") refers to the split between the inner-world and the outside-world, which is much more pronounced in schizoids than normal people. Their level of introversion rarely let the inner-world surface outside, but they in no way lose touch of the outside world.
In the case of "schizophrenia", "schizo" refers to the split within the self. A schizophrenic person lost the control of his own thoughts in some way, as he is prone to psychosis and is likely to lose touch of reality. What he perceives and what how his brain react to it is completely disjunct.
The way I was acting in my teenage years looked a lot like Asperger's Syndrome. Now that I am older this is completely resorbed. But due to the nature of AS, you cannot be "cured" of it, since it is a life-long condition and it is the brain behavior itself that is "different". I noticed that my acting was in fact more in line of Schizoid Personality Disorder, since because it is actually just an "odd" personality, it is likely to resorb with time if one comes to the realisation of how problematic being this introverted and detached can be. This cannot really happen with AS since it's not just a pattern of thoughts that can be changed with a lot of will power.
I was wondering if a few people that suspect they have AS might in fact have something more similar to SPD. SPD, despite the frightening name, is in some way less of a deal, since it can be changed with immense will power if the person wants to. However, pretty much every person with SPD I met prefered to change their environment to fit their extreme introversion instead of trying to become more extravert, since in their opinion it wasn't so big of a deal and that conforming to the ideals of society wasn't their own ideal.