Scizotypal Personality Disorder

I had someone on Fb ask me, "You're a little bit crazy, huh?" I kinda laughed it off but the fact is, yes I kinda am. I was diagnosed with Schizotypal Personality Disorder more than 15 years ago from a Psychiatrist who sent me to see a Psychologist. I was in therapy for years and after all that therapy for depression as well, I came to the conclusion that this is just who I am and I am fine with that. So why am I trying to change? It was everyone else to had the problem, not my problem anymore. If you don't like me, don't like the way I am...walk away..I don't care, it won't bother me in the slightest.

So what is Scizotypal Personality Disorder? Good question.

People with schizotypal personality disorder are often described as odd or eccentric, and usually have few, if any, close relationships. They generally don't understand how relationships form, leading to severe anxiety and a tendency to turn inward in social situations.

In schizotypal personality disorder, people also exhibit odd behaviors, respond inappropriately to social cues and hold peculiar beliefs.

Schizotypal personality disorder typically begins in early adulthood and is likely to endure, though symptoms may improve with age. Schizotypal Personality Disorder is a condition characterized by acute discomfort with, and reduced capacity for, close relationships as well as by cognitive or perceptual distortions and eccentricities of behavior. This disorder is only diagnosed when these behaviors become persistent and very disabling or distressing.

In response to stress, individuals with this disorder may experience very brief psychotic episodes (lasting minutes to hours). If the psychotic episode lasts longer, this disorder may actually develop into Brief Psychotic Disorder, Schizophreniform Disorder, Delusional Disorder or Schizophrenia. Individuals with this disorder are at increased risk for Major Depressive Disorder. Other Personality Disorders (especially Schizoid, Paranoid, Avoidant, and Borderline) often co-occur with this disorder.

Symptoms of Schizotypal Personality Disorder
Schizotypal personality disorder is characterized by a pattern of social and interpersonal deficits marked by acute discomfort with, and reduced capacity for, close relationships as well as by cognitive or perceptual distortions and eccentricities of behavior, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

•Ideas of reference (excluding delusions of reference)

•Odd beliefs or magical thinking that influences behavior and is inconsistent with subcultural norms (e.g., superstitiousness, belief in clairvoyance, telepathy, or "sixth sense"; in children and adolescents, bizarre fantasies or preoccupations)

•Unusual perceptual experiences, including bodily illusions

•Odd thinking and speech (e.g., vague, circumstantial, metaphorical, overelaborate, or stereotyped)

•Suspiciousness or paranoid ideation

•Inappropriate or constricted affect

•Behavior or appearance that is odd, eccentric, or peculiar

•Lack of close friends or confidants other than first-degree relatives

•Excessive social anxiety that does not diminish with familiarity and tends to be associated with paranoid fears rather than negative judgments about self

So this may answer some questions about me, eh?