Dark Thoughts: Everyone Has A Story, Here's One Of Mine

Tuesday, February 03, 2026

Everyone Has A Story, Here's One Of Mine

I've been thinking of writing an autobiography or memoir but it just never comes together for me but I figured if I write one story at a time and post it on my blog maybe once a month, I can do that. Maybe one day I'll pull all the stories together and put them in a book but for now I'll just share some stories with you about my childhood and into adulthood. Some of the stories will be happy, some sad and some horrific because that was my childhood. But they will all be real, things that actually happened. If it seems like something that people enjoy reading maybe, I'll keep it going. These stories will not be in any kind of order, I'll just write them as they come to me.

Living With Schizotypal Personality Disorder

I didn't find out that I had Schizotypal Personality Disorder until I was 25 years old. Which is weird since I had been in and out of the Psychiatric hospital a few times from the time I was 17 years old. The Psychiatrists and Psychologists in the hospitals only said I suffered from depression and anxiety. But after I got out of the Psychiatric hospital the last time, I looked for a psychologist and after a few weeks of talking to her she told me I fit all the criteria for Schizotypal Personality Disorder as well as Schizoaffective Disorder. It explained a lot. The Psychologists explained that Schizoaffective Disorder in my case can be thought of as having all the symptoms of Schizophrenia without the Psychosis. Although I have had a couple of Psychotic episodes.

When I was a kid my mom used to get really mad at me because I didn't show a lot of emotions, this especially upset her when we were taking pictures and I didn't smile. I feel emotions, they are just very subdued. My mom used to tell me, "Stop giving me the evil eye."

Only, I wasn't trying to give her the evil eye, this is just my face. Neither one of us understood what was wrong with me. I learned really quickly not to look my mom directly in the eyes because she would always accuse me of giving her the evil eye or giving her a dirty look.

I was too young to fake it or to put a fake smile on my face. It never even occurred to me. Not until I was older and had a job and people would say things like, "You'd be prettier if you smiled. Are you in a bad mood? You should smile more. What's wrong today?" So I started fake smiling. I still do it today. I would say that 75% of the laughing or smiling I do today is fake. I just do it to make others feel comfortable. I had a therapist tell me that's what I should do. Learn to read the room and act the way everyone else is. So, as I got older, I learned to mimic others' emotions because my own emotions are very subdued and I have an abnormal affect. Meaning I might smile at the wrong time or look sad at happy occasions. It can be quite hard to constantly be on guard as to what emotion is playing out on my face in social situations. At home a lot of times I don't self-regulate my emotions or fake anything and my daughter will still ask me if I'm alright or mad, sad, depressed. No, this is just my face.

So because I have both disorders, I have hallucinations, hear voices, mostly whispering but sometimes actual voices talking. I sometimes feel someone touching my leg or at night I'll feel my bed shaking like an earthquake. But I've been relying on Falcor to let me know if it really is shaking. If he doesn't respond to what I'm seeing or feeling, I know it's not real. I sleep with a couple of lights on so hallucinations can't come out of the shadows at night and scare me.

So what is Schizotypal 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?

I see no reason to hide mental illness. It's an illness like any other and the stigma surrounding it needs to stop.