#at some point i want to write about how I think a person with SZPD would feature in each section

[happyk44]

[ID: 1: Graphic labelled "Split object relations unit of schizoid personality disorder". The graphic shows two sections: Master Slave Part-Unit and Sadistic Object-Self in Exile Part Unit. The line between the two sections is labelled "Splitting Defence". Both sections show two gray semi-circles. The first semi-circle is at the top of the section and curved upwards. It is labelled "Part-Object Representation". The second semi-circle is at the bottom of the section and curved downwards. It is labelled "Part-Self Representation".

Under the Master Slave Part-Unit section, the Part-Object Representation is written as "a maternal part-object which is manipulative, coercive, is the master and wants only to use, not relate to." Between the semi-circles is "Affect: in jail, but connected, existence acknowledged, relief in not being alienated." The Part-Self Represenation is written as "a part-self representation of a depedent, a slave who provided a function for the object and is a victim."

Under the Sadistic Object-Self in Exile Part Unit section, the Part-Object Representation is written as "a maternal part-object which is sadistic, dangerous, devaluing, depriving, abandoning." Between the semi-circles is "Affect - Abandonment Depression: depression, rage, loneliness, fear of cosmic aloneness, despair." The Part-Self Represenation is written as "a part-self representation of being alienated, in exile, isolated but self-containted to self-reliant."

At the bottom of the graphic is a table. The first column is light gray. It reads:

Ego Defects: Poor reality perception, frustration tolerance, impulse control, ego boundaries

Primitive Ego Defense Mechanisms: Splitting, avoidance, denail, acting-out, clinging, projection, projective identification, use of fantasy to substitute for real relationships and self reliance

Split Ego: Reality ego plus pathologic (or pleasure) ego

2: Graphic featuring four different sections: the Master, the Slave, the Betrayer, the Exile.

Under the Master section, it shows a drawing of a person with long hair in a suit. They stand behind a table or counter, their hands pressed against the top. The section reads:

Wants to use not relate

Manipulative

Coercive

Seductive

Devouring

Controlling

Intrusive

Under the Slave section, it shows a drawing of a person on their knees, gazing upwards. The section reads:

Dependent

A victim

No boundaries

Fearful

Helpless

Hooked

"You take everything"

"I keep coming back, trying to be seen and heard... but at least I'm not alone"

Under the Betrayer section, it shows a drawing of a person with shoulder-length hair. They have their arms crossed, their back to the viewer. The text next to the person reads, "You didn't comply!" The section itself reads:

Sadistic

Dangerous

Abandoning

Devaluing

Depriving

Dhumanising

Viciously attacking

Under the Exile section, it shows a person walking away with a backpack on. There are mountains in the distance with a tree at the bottom. The sun peeks over the mountaintop. Another drawing shows the person sitting on top of a small hill. The section reads:

Relief at freedom

In exil but self-contained

Self reliant

Anonymous

Fear of cosmic aloneness

Depression, rage, alienation

/end ID]

Split Object Relations Unit of Schizoid Personality Disorder

Elinor Greenberg describes the schizoid split as being “Controlled and Tolerated vs. Alien and Exiled”. Melanie Klein has stated, “The schizoid dilemma is that the schizoid can be neither too close nor too far in emotional distance from another person without experiencing conflict and anxiety.”

If we are too close, we feel engulfed, smothered, buried alive, drowned, trapped, suffocated, terrified, and that we have lost our freedom.

If we are too far, we feel loneliness, despair, alienation, and existential dread.

We can never win.

[actuallyschizoid]

Hi, thanks for your blog! I wanted to ask if you play anything. You said you have a good hearing or so, and I was thinking if it's possible for SZPD to be musicians? I used to play bass myself, and I'm SZ{D, but I'm not too good at it.

Someone asked me about music before, like in this post, and there could be more on my music tag. But I guess we can talk a bit about music again.

No, I don’t really play anything. I used to visit a children music school… something like three times, actually — around 7, then couple years later and… another couple years later (I’m not quite sure if there was actually third time applying there, though, or maybe I just took a long break from it). But each time I could only last for a few weeks before dropping it. So I literally remember nothing, and there wasn’t much to remember in first place coz it was just the basic stuff all over again. 

Still, I do know a bit about music theory — I learned it much later (most of it not too long ago, actually). Not much, just some general stuff about scales, keys, chords, etc. Why? Well, because I find it curious sometimes. I like that system thing about sounds and human perception of it, etc. 

Basically, I treat music just like any other language, poking on patterns and interconnections, finding correlations and dependencies, all that tension/resolution interplay and other not-too-obvious details about music. 

On occasion I even toy a bit with composing. Of course, most of it is just messing around with whatever weird ass scale and rhythm I pick at random. It’s never meant to be heard by anyone but me, anyway. Most of the time it probably sounds like a poor parody on old anime tunes or whatever old dusty classic bits I heard before and forgot where it’s from. I don’t generally share this kind of stuff, but just to illustrate, here’s a tiny example:

https://instaud.io/Xiv

I tried to grab at least somewhat less-then-horrible bit of my resent massive piece of random noise, but yeah… (btw, if you happen to recognize any familiar pattern in it, I’d actually appreciate if you let me know coz my memory sucks at recalling sources)

Anyway, for whatever reason I had this tendency to come up with weird “music” ever since, like, grade school?.. Though people never believed I didn’t just heard it somewhere (which pissed me off sometimes) . >.> And mostly likely that’s exactly what I did — just not from a single source. I remember “composing” silly songs out of bits of whatever pop garbage was on repeat on tv/radio back then, which… actually, compared to the quality of what’s currently considered pop music in Russia, it probably wasn’t all that terrible. -_-’ Sometimes I have a subtile feeling it is, in fact, being composed by random toddlers nowadays. >.>

Now, the tricky part is… I don’t really play any instrument. Not even piano. If you give me a keyboard and say “play it”, that just won’t work. I might know how it could be played, but my fingers dexterity and skill is barely enough to play Mary has a little lamb or something. I don’t even own any kind of piano. There are couple dad’s old guitars collecting dust somewhere, but I literally have zero clue how to use those.

You might ask, how can I write anything if that’s the case? Well that’s pretty easy because there’s a free GarageBand app shipped with some of my apple devices. ^^’ It has this nice little mode that allows to just draw synthesia-like notes with either general laptop keyboard and even just by tapping on touchpad/iPad. 

So yeah, tbh I don’t care enough to learn to play anything as long as I can still write down all those shitty tunes that boggles my mind whenever I feel like it. That being said, I don’t really know all that much about music in general and honestly I barely listen anything. I don’t even know which genre I prefer (tho know the ones I really dislike). 

The only exception being some awesome musicians, mostly perfect-pitch ones, who just do really impressive stuff that doesn’t hurt my ears and which at least isn’t annoying to get stuck on when there’s nothing else to do. Lately I got a habit of listening to life improv streams on twitch, like those two. 

Also I can’t listen to music while doing other stuff. Not sure how people manage to have music as a background while still being able to focus on something else. If there’s music, 99% of my focus will be stuck to it. Hence there’s almost never music unless that is exactly the effect I intend to achieve like in public places where I get annoyed a lot by the noises, voices and just general too many people around.

Now, the separate issue is that music is generally being tied to emotions. That’s probably part of the problem why I don’t feel all that strongly attached to music in first place. Though I think I got a bit better in this regard over last couple years. Not that I can actually feel things from music, but at least it’s no longer 9 out of 10 chance to just fall completely flat unless it’s over the top amazing and then it might be just enough to barely grab my attention. 

Still, like in my tiny example above, I’m not even quite sure which emotional tone it has. If at all?.. Maybe, I dunno, some light curiosity/fascination mood? But I heard it before that music can help some schizoids (as well as autistic people and others who has alexythymia and similar oblivious-to-your-own-emotions issues) to get at least some feedback out of otherwise unreachable parts of sub/consciousness. Not quite sure if it actually works, but it might have some potential.

Oh, and now I scrolled up to (re-)read the rest of the question. >.> Hm… well, I don’t really think there’s anything stopping szpd people from being musicians. Other then, probably, disliking the very idea to play for other people, to be the center of attention, or having too strong emotional void trait to the point where music has no value. But that’s not the case for every schizoid, though no idea about you, anon. 

Perhaps if you really feel like music is your thing, you could try what I’m talking about in this post — to just compose music instead of playing it. Most schizoids are good with patterns, and music is all about patterns. I’m pretty sure there are lots of schizoids among all those famous (and not so much) composers of the past and present. Maybe some performers with szpd also exist, especially among some alternative kinds of music that isn’t quite mainstream. Though I can’t think of many examples, but I don’t know personalities of all that many musicians.

Ok, I hope no one’s too surprised by now that I ended up writing a wall of text even on nearing a complete offtopic ask. >.> Srsly, you should get used to it by now if you follow me and read this. To make it at least a bit closer to the blog theme, feel free to add up if you have any specific thoughts about music in context of schizoidness or coping with szpd or whatever else.