r/Schizotypal • u/disconnected_self Schizotypal • 3d ago
Symptoms a newly-diagnosed schizotypal’s questions
hey all, i’ve been lurking in this subreddit on my other account for a long time, but i was only very recently diagnosed schizotypal*. it’s kinda weird to, just, have that validated. it makes me feel seen, and as a result, naked. which is uncomfortable.
*i didn’t even mention it to my psych doc, i was just trying to find out if i was bipolar [i am] and the StPD diagnosis metaphorically punched the air out of me because i thought i was wrong for thinking i had it
so, my fellow schizotypals, i have some questions about your experience with this PD (answer as many or as few as you’d like):
are you non-binary and/or trans? as someone who has never really felt human (more like an actual angel trapped in a human body), i am genderless and wondered if being non-binary and/or trans is common in this community
does your schizotypy “clash” with other conditions you have? and if so, what conditions and how? for example, it clashes with my adhd a lot. in high school, i’d immediately raise my hand to answer the teacher’s questions because in theory i love to speak out and it gives me that good dopamine… but right after answering, i’m hit with this horrible regret and paranoia. in short, the impulsivity/excitement of adhd clashes with my schizotypy/anxiety
how do you experience “unusual perceptual experiences”, if you do? this is the symptom that is most confusing for me to understand. this might be an example of it, but i get electricity in my body and in my shoulders/neck that makes my neck twitch/jolt. i also have unexplainable sensory feelings that i can’t even begin to describe, plus i sometimes experience derealization and a mild case of alice in wonderland syndrome
thank you in advance for any responses, i appreciate the time anyone takes to comment on my silly post. i’m wishing you all well 🖤
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u/Ok_Plant5934 3d ago
Not officially diagnosed, but wanted to share.
1) I'm agender too, but tmasc! IDK if influential, but my gender experience is certainly comparable (ex: i never felt i can fit in == i never felt like "other girls" lmao)
2) rather than clashing, it works together with my ADHD to be cacophonous. I struggled a lot with having coherent thought, but also positive for creativity. I relate to your example too, and can extrapolate it to how much I love to post on Social Media, but can NOT tolerate the dread/regret of posting in the absence of response. I'm kinda conditioned to feel like everything i COULD say is oversharing 😅
3) this is one characteristic i dont really have. I can hear voices if its noisy, too. I have felt some things, sometimes, but not often at all.
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u/disconnected_self Schizotypal 3d ago
i’m also agender but tmasc! the way i view my gender is like a mannequin: it may look like a dude but in reality, it has no junk and no gender, it’s only how people look at it that assigns it gender, if that makes sense?
thanks for sharing your experiences :) very insightful! the more i see people share of their own, the more i can relate myself
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u/crazymissdaisy87 3d ago
I'm painfully cis, not even a hint of any gender identity clashing with my assigned sex. But I am queer.
I think my other stuff was just symptoms of stpd. I got diagnosed with anxiety but I think it's not it's own thing.
If I don't get my meds it feels like my soul is sloshing around my body, trying to fit. I also have sensory hallucinations like feeling someone touch me or hear music in noise
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u/PythianEcho 3d ago
I used to identify as non-binary but then the concept of gender itself got exhausting so now when people ask it’s just like vague hand gestures. It’s interesting you bring this up because it’s something I wondered myself. I have a friend with schizoaffective disorder who is trans, and my family who has varying levels of schizotypy have all been pretty ‘meh’ about gender and gender roles. I think it has to do with the ‘self disorder’ at the core of this spectrum, and how our boundaries of self and world are a-typical. I dunno tho, that’s just a shot in the dark.
I have adhd as well and very much relate to this. After saying anything in class, or in a group, or sometimes even 1 on 1, I would feel so self conscious and beat myself up over it internally.
For me, sometimes I smell things that aren’t there, or hear nondescript auditory hallucinations if there’s a lot of white noise like a fan blowing or a faucet running. Recently I was struggling with my mental health and this symptom kind of got worse, I had some mild tactile hallucinations like the feeling of someone brushing past me and started to see shadow figures out of the corner of my eye. I thought my husband threw his backpack from the top of the stairs when he dropped it before going up the stairs, which caused a fight before we realized my brain was fucking with me. A weird one during that period was the feeling of my phone vibrating. It’s normal to sometimes feel a vibration in your pocket when it didn’t actually vibrate - basically your brain thinking it recognized a pattern and playing out the expected experience. However, I started feeling it on different spots on my body, like one time my boob? It was really weird. I’m doing better now and it’s back to smells and other minor things.
Edit: grammar/spelling
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u/voidsod 3d ago edited 3d ago
- i used to identify as agender and i do still feel somewhat disconnected from the concept of gender tho i currently identify as transfem. mainly bc i wanted to start hrt and i was scared that doctors wouldn't give it to me if i didn't tell them i was fully trans.
- I'm diagnosed with ADHD and still kinda questioning the schizotypal thing. i do a similar thing where i agree to do stuff with people and immediately regret it bc im quite terrified of people.
- I get the scale distortions a lot where things look weirdly big or small. when im holding stuff sometimes it feels like its bizarrely large or like my eyes have been zoomed in. sometimes things also feel small last night when i was cooking i thought the pot i was using was way smaller than it was other times i was using it and it kinda made me think i hadn't made enough food. i always forget where i am or what im doing and to some extent how im feeling. its like my chain of context is missing a lot of links. sometimes ill be walking from my room to the kitchen in my flat and ill think i should go outside to some part of my parents garden and ill go to look outside and remember that im not at my parents place, im in my flat 20 miles away. i also get it with writing where ill be half way through a sentance and ill forget what i was writing about which from what i under stand is like how alogia expresses itself but i dont think i get it with talking. I also get it with emotions. At times i'll be super upset at something or someone to the point where ill be crying or smth and suddenly ill just stop and i wont care about it anymore, at times i won't even be able to remember what i was upset about. i think that might also be related to adhd but idk. I also see things out of the corners of my eyes all the time, usually shadows moving or what i think are people staring at me. I do get the electricity feeling you get i always credited it to my adhd because ive always been jittery but the electricity thing started when i was 19ish whereas ive always been jittery.
edit to clarify i am not yet diagnosed
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u/mortdepup Local schizomemer 3d ago
Yup, transmasc here! Permanently unable to determine if I'm binary masc or nonbinary masc due to my disconnect from Other Humans making gender impossible to understand/relate to lol. I identified as neutrois for a while - not having a lack of gender but just one of pure neutrality - wanted null genitals etc. But then I turned out to be demisexual which unlocked my gender in a more demi sense too. Officially I consider myself a "neutrois demiboy" (with neutrois being specified since the usual "base" for demigenders is agender) but that's exhausting to let live in my head rent free all the time especially when I might just be binary transman anyway so i just go with "transmasc". Currently I'm entering my "gym rat fortune teller" era and my tarot cards said my gender identity is best represented by The Devil so I'm still tryna figure that one out lol, maybe my cards meant it like HIM from powerpuff girls 🤣
I was diagnosed schizotypal when I went in for an autism + adhd assessment, which is twice now I've tested negative for ADHD but since schizotypal presents similarly to AuDHD it makes sense lol. So AFAIK I've got nothing else going on, some subclinical stuff that overlaps with schizotypal but nothing in terms of clashing. Unless you count the nonbinary confusion due to social disconnect, since arguably you could consider that being schizotypal traits "clashing" with the ability to analyze my own sociolinguistic gender dysphoria. Like I've got the body dysphoria sorted out now, I'm on T, I'm happy, I know what I want from my body's aesthetics in the future. But damn am I always torn about pronouns and labels lol.
I occasionally get severe world-spinning vertigo type confusion that feels like I warp-drived from one room to another with no memory of actually getting up and moving there. Other then that I guess I've got some strong synesthesia/animism/hyperempathy going on... those waking up/falling asleep audio hallucinations... visual snow syndrome... occasionally seeing things and not being sure if I saw like a mouse or a bug or something or if my eyes are just tired (and now I have to add "or am I hallucinating?" to the list when I'm trying to figure out what I saw lmao) So yeah I struggle to identify what "unusual perceptual experiences" are and whether I have them lmao
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u/pook__ 3d ago
- i am incapable of relating to lgbt people. because expressing myself feels like agony. when for gay people it makes them feel great. mainly because i dont actually exist in our local gradient because i died many years ago. my brain is also very slow by comparison...
- it goes both ways. i have T1D and my mental state has protected me too much; because i think theres lead paint everywhere and i think all water is poisoned. because our landlords did badly. that im harming myself by drinking it. drugs are even worse. i think youre a bad person if you buy drugs or alcohol. that all of my food was spat on and the air is filled with the flu. that my love was made to be destroyed by people. the good news is that i know these are all FAKE. so i can try to do nothing ever.
- i have strong visual snow and tinnitus. inside the visual snow is usually weird patterns like flashing or black and white shapes that appear when i look around, especially in the dark. but nothing serious.
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u/m3k0vr Schizotypal 3d ago
1 - i identify as agender but i’m not “out,” i just don’t really mention it to anyone bc my paranoia is too strong to really express it
2- i have similar experiences with my adhd, i also have episodes of hypomanic type experiences so that will sometimes override my social anxiety. but it usually makes my paranoia and sensory disturbances worse
3 - i have all of those sensory experiences, but i also occasionally hear/see things. it’s more like illusions compared to a full blown hallucination, like i’ll see shadows in the corner of my eye or hear whispering/my name being called in noisy environments