Being Schizotypal

Under The Skin (2013). This my favorite movie by far

(7/3/24; a prolouge)

It stands to tell you something about myself first, about the time in my life where i made most of this website actually. I spent a short time homeless and sleeping in a basement. hallyways of concrete, communal laundry rooms, bike storage, janitor closets, electrical rooms and boilers, just these underground passages that were almost always empty except for the occasional student in the day who came to drop their laundry in a machine. It was a neighboring building to dorms where i used to live at the time when i started my website. it's hard to describe the experience without invoking some kind of existencial horror that would seem cliche. maybe the "backrooms" are a joke now but, I literally slipped out of reality into a waking nightmare. i was stuck starving and cold in these tunnels, i lost everyone i knew because i didnt belong to their world anymore.

All while this was the worst thing that had ever happened it me, it also represented a strange lure for loneliness i felt already for the previous year that i spent in near total isolation, or even, isolation was something i had felt my entire life but was never free do do. so, i had been missing from the outside world so long i got evicted. everything except what i could fit in a backpack was put into storage. i never mentioned any of this to my family.

just at this time, Someone I knew indirectly bought a house about an hour walk from there but wasnt going to rent it out until after they visited for rennovation in the summer. i knew the door combination and moved in without telling anyone. i lived there with internet-ordered medication delivered to my door, having paranoid breakdowns at night (these suburbs were very rural and had almsot no streetlights, and the number of windows in the house terrified me. the house was also facing the back of some stores rather than other houses, it was quite unreal) and not talking to anyone or saying where I was, until the next semester when two students I knew moved in and I officially became their roomate -as if nothing had happened. I broke down again and ended up locking myself in the garage bathroom, sleeping on the floor for days at a time and only leaving at night for food. when my family found out, i started getting an explosion of texts that i ignored. My roomates didnt seem to know anyhting was wrong yet so I took my time that night packing food, gathering everything i needed, i waited for another day before driving away in my car in the middle of the long winter night, sleeping twice along the way, i had an already distorted sense of reality, like it was its own entire month.

I parked my car aimlessly all these miles away feeling dead and wondering what to do when a girl who i barely knew from the internet and had only met once the previous summer to go to a concert together texted. She saw me mention online i ran away and was back near where she was, and so she told me her address let me stay in her bed for two weeks. I spent halloween at her house and met her housemates. for the first time i actually lived alongside people without being afraid, i experienced college partying on halloween night, got high with people, had my first kiss. My life basically began that week. trying to remember things from that far ago before then is a struggle for me. I struggle a lot with memory loss.

When I left i never said goobye to that girl, i havent seen her since and we never really talk anymore. i barely see her online. she told me that i needed to say goodbye to her before going but i never did.

that feeling of being on the road in pitch black feilds and mountains with only the occasional gas station, the feeing of the dark empty suburbs and the rare street light, the thrill and terror, the feeling of the basement and empty hallways, total and absolute isolation dorm room, my window looking into the trees. even with the holes in my memory all of this is driven so deeply into my psyche. But still... so is the very short taste i got of normal life. ive been chasing it so much and improving so much but i still struggle with it.

6/4/24 for a long time, i disliked clinical language and remained unaware of it
It seems to describe the heart of the internet, or at least whatever the internet today is meant to be a pale immitation of, sort of what everyone poses to be. People are obsessed with their aesthetics of loneliness, and solitude, the old web feeling of being a shut in, multiplayer games as a second escapist world to feel outside of reality, the deep running grip anime has had since the foundation of the internet as a universal mask of anonymity in the same vein of escapism. The comforting antisocial abyss of 4chan. loneliness as something nostalgic and familiar instead of a way to miss out on life. the subtle horror and paranoid delusions of dissonance with reality make a more fascinating and meaningful world. The direct nostalgia of obsession with childhood as ones own personal world, not a real place connected to the present through relationships. preceeding the word "liminal" was a gennerations worth of an unlabeled obsession the internet had with images of loneliness. a pointed fixation on the world without people and finding odd beauty in the emotions evoked by wanting to experience it somehow. The need to obtain "Self" independent of all human interaction, distilled pure outsider art that is devoid of it.

I kept putting off the idea i had a personality disorder, or diagnosable illness of any kind because for the internet, loneliness and solitude is so seminal in it's own formation that even as the ways mental illness has of expressing itself becomes obsolete it's always still the fundemental essense of what it means to be "online". The internet started as a place made of people who existed outside of real life, completely lonely self made personalities for better or worse, that could only find company online. And today social media encourages a descent into any kind of disfunction which will make a user be more active online than in real life. online, people have had to internally rebrand mental illness as something cool to themselves and then to reinforce eachother, even if they are not predisposed to it or developed it from their formative experience with real life. I didnt want to admit i might have a personality disorder, because like so many personality tests and "relatable" fictional characters on the internet, it has become something you only talk about or consider as a token of desperate need to be too special for other people. But to be fair, thats what borderline personality disorder is about, feeling pride in the attention you get for your disordered personality, so its hard to say these people dont have *any* disorder. identity is a new way of consuming, i didnt want to become a consumer by identifying myself as anything. What I had not heard about until recently was schizotypal personality disorder, similar to schizoid personality disorder. I have not been professionally diagnosed, and even if the word stems from the same clinical worldview of fuzzy power-exerting psychology that people misuse as hard scientific reality (i DO understand focault, ok.), i am still glad to know there is a word for me.

"Schizotypal personality disorder (STPD) is a mental health condition marked by a consistent pattern of intense discomfort with close relationships and social interactions. If you have STPD, you may have distorted views of reality, superstitions and unusual behaviors." -cleveland clinic

the median pinterest user

5/15/24
(exerpt from chat asking friend if i match the symptoms)
I don’t know I wrote so many posts I guess you get the idea of what I’ve been thinking about anyway. I put a lot of effort into learning to socialize and had a luck getting a handful of moments of practice with more socialized people, probably because of my looks… and I just tried to emulate whatever made them likable instead of what came naturally to me. But like.

All of being 18 I spent hiding in my dorm room. For like days not leaving to get food. And just failing classes because I wouldn’t go outside. But I did want to have friends. I mean I just grew up alone it’s so natural and familiar even though I get depressed doing it. I wanted to know if you thought I was trying to rationalize superstitions to you.

6/4/24
makes me really anxious [now ive been trying to recover this past year] to have like so many unrealized social connections like a year or two of DMs where me and some person introduce ourselves and never talking again and i cant even remember meeting them and thinking like i have briefly met a tonn of people online or in person from what muist have been forced exchange and after the point of getting followed back or getting contact or hanging out once like not really being sure if there is ever going to be a follow up. there has to be like a hundred people ive just like been some degree of almost friends and then not talked to because i withdraw from doing anything. its partially hard having never had hobbies growing up and so theres not much for me to have in common with anyone but that brings into question the cause and effect of mental illness since its a very influence-based view on things to say that being forced to grow up boring made me withdraw

i already have like so many people ive not kept up with who i know even better than that like its so much stress thinking to message everyone already and still i dont have like... i dont have much from it. i have social skills but spending time around people just doesnt feel right and i never feel strong desire to talk to people i just feel bad that i havent. but i think about it more and more and i feel like there is nothing to human connection. like theres no isolated "personality" to any one person which makes them right for me its like everyone in the world is basically interchangeable and its just a question of who specifically is convenient to spend time with.

i feel like ive lost all my humanity like theres nothing to human connection or emotion at all
the feeling will come back eventually. ill just focus on things to look forward to

6/19/24 yeah the feeling of emptyness does fade out sometimes... ill note i do feel better looking forwards to a weird event this weekend. but in my mind its just novelty and i still feel like an animal with nothing to do but survive; i want to eat healthy, i get sleepy, i cant even say i crave sex, i feel distant from my own sexuality, a desire exists but it's still somewhere out there and the time or place doesnt allow me to feel it, its never right for me yet. what a sidetrack, i meant to say that most entertainment is somehow about human connection which is boring because i can never really immerse myself into anythign anymore, i do get surges where i want a faceless abstract idea of inimacy but feel dissapointed with everyone, platonic friends or potentially interested boys, before even giving them a chance to talk. I think ive become less and less interesting to talk to recently, sometimes giving into delusion seems to at least intrigue people. so my mood is kept up from looking forwards to something to be clear- but the thing itself -consciously- i dont expect to enjoy. i really cant force myself to want something from it, and partying takes a suprising amount of intention and motivation in advance. i just get high off of weed someone offers me right away and withdraw to a corner. ive done this once again as of typing this. but to be fair venues, shows, or parties can tend to be quite lame overall, its not just me but most people who dont feel like dancing or talking, i think the image i constructed in my head is more in line with what happens between large groups of school friends who already know eachother over break, and not at off season all-ages venues with a bunch of band kids and a few of the 18-20 year olds who cant go to clubs with drinking yet and arent in a college friend group. NEVERTHELESS. fuck me it feels bad to be out.
can you tell im developing more confidence out of sheer frustration lol well im not actually i get scared as fuck still ive only developed more confidence to turn people down because i get scared by the staring boys and disinterested girls, i overestimate myself just slightly each time i plan to go to something and realize i dont have the confidence to approach anyone

6/4/24 its so fucked you can meet hundreds of people but most of the time one of you isnt interested in talking or you talk but you dont really have much in common or you can have friends but theyre already closer to other people or theyre not closer to other people but you cant admit like half of what you think or you really do feel comfortable around them but you cant ever see them or everything goes right and they just eventually stop feeling interested. you can meet like hundreds of people and be lonely and it think its because i dont really care about people.i need someone to talk to but the people themselves feel so interchangable and after socializing i begin to descend into feeling like an alien again in this way that i dont feel theres really such thing as human connection. and i feel other times too like i am treated as an alien. Or (5/23/24)"People finding me attractive and sociable doesn’t make me feel less like an alien surrounded by humans in the way I felt for my whole life before, it just makes me feel like a very charismatic and sexy alien"

i have socialized with a lot of people relatively well in the past year, and i owe it to my appearance improving gradually my realization i probably never really was autistic and incapable of having social skills but i was just treated so badly growing up i never was able to develop social skills before transitioning. i have been on some dates this past year, i have spent time with two friends from high school over break, and through them met a handful of other people who have their own social circles. over halloween weekend i stopped at three house parties, ive regularly visited a meet up spot for other trans girls. through networking my way on tumblr Ive been accepted by a whole house of trans girls who are far more genuine and likeable people and was able to visit them briefly. but the whole picture of my social life doesnt sit right, i'm not close to anyone, im just there and some people enjoy that- maybe i was very well liked like when visiting, but nothing ever comes of it in the long term i feel, i have nothing to hold on to the moment each interaction ends and most of my time i spend withdrawing from the fleeting feeling of socialization, and i feel terrified and incapable of taking my socializing further. to my friends from college who were introverted enough not to notice my absence but still enjoy my company on special occasions, dropping out and moving home is like me falling out of reality entirely. i can stillmessage them,but i'm just someone who they *remember* who doesnt really exist anymore, and they grow ever further away from that memory of me as i was when i was 18. with my transition i think im becoming an alien in a new way too, i stopped for pizza for about an hour one afternoon recently because i was traveling along that highway to the next state, they all knew i was transitioning but seeing me there in makeup and dressed different and such it was like i was unrecognizable- i was a new person, and they no longer felt in the mood for meeting a new person. With my high school friends i got this feeling too but not as bad, uncomfortable with this new person, this familiar face they thought they knew well enough has twisted sex, and even when im in a casual baggy shirt to hide my chest and make it less awkward for them it takes them a while to feel comfortable- to enjoy hanging out, even if not necessarly outright happy to see me like this. The thing is that im not the only one whos a different person now, leaving high school everyone becomes unrecognizable but the pressure is more on me.

FUCKED UP BADLY

7/8/24
last friday of june i met like twenty girls from the trans march, a few who lived together and knew eachother already were really really cool girls, i shouldnt say publicly all of what they do though just trust me. after tagging along to the apartment like a lost puppy along with the other dozen people it ended up being maybe the most insane night of my life. But about thirty hours afterwards i didnt get messaged by anyone and i broke down and made this post about it on my blog which is supposed to be private:

"girls barely older than me love to direct their jaded and distrustful worldview at me before i say or do anything instead of at whichever people made them like that when they were my age or perhaps better than that reciprocating any effort i make to be normal platonic friends so i dont have to be forced out to find my own friend group and become subjected to the exact same harsh experiences as them in the process,
wow when you were my age everyone only wanted to be friends with you because they were shallow and so now when i need friends youre going to become cold and distrustful of me and make me go through it all myself
im not prying anyone away from what clearly seems to be their first ever possibly healthy/stable relationship following years of hookup toruture im just trying to avoid those years myself. my god"

i then received a message from the one girl i liked most who actually talked to me a lot saying that she had been sent screenshots of my posts online about the party and that she should have been more careful to make it clear to me not to do that. she was referring to me joking about some for lack of better word, clandestine work she does, helping underground supply chains, because i thought it was so cool. i was completely paralyzed with fear over fucking up the most amazing connection i might have ever made over being the worst opsec possible as an attention-whore 19 year old online, which was exactly what all of her cold and distrustful roomates probably preemptively hated me for in the first place only to be proven right. BUT even WORSE than that, i had just been functionally told that some unknown person was watching my internet activity who also knows people i know in person and is turning everyone against me. which is like, only due to my own fault but still fucking sent me into a paranoid spiral still not over that some unknown person who knows people i meet irl has been watching my private internet presense to turn them against me. yeah just casually mention before politely ghosting me that "someone" screenshots everything i say and sent it to you. thats not gonna make me have schizo episodes forever at all.