Interview on living with Schizoid Personality Disorder

Hi everyone. Um, I'm very excited for a new video, which is an interview, um, about schizoid personality disorder. So I'll just start out by asking our guest, um, how would you describe schizoid personality disorder and what would you like people to know about the way that your mind works?

So at the core of the disorder is basically a split in the self. There is an internal true self and an external false self, and it results from a lack of boundaries during childhood. So the child doesn't understand exactly like where their personal boundaries begin and end; like they don't understand how it where that line is from the external world. So they create this false self that exists to protect the person. Um, so the false self is just concerned with keeping their true self as invulnerable as possible, and the way that can manifest is, uh, coldness, uh, blunted affect, avoiding people, lack of response to praise and criticism, stuff like that. It can look like the person, if you're interacting with them, can look like they're being arrogant, or they don't care about you, or they have like some sort of like superiority thing. That's not the case at all. Um, it's just like a default subconscious self-protection mode kind of going on. Um, so I that that's probably the biggest thing that I would want people to know.

One other question I had for you is what you find to be the most difficult or challenging part of having schizoid personality disorder and what you wish other people understood more about SPD?

Uh, there two the two biggest ones for me: uh, one of them is enjoying or not enjoying things. The apathy and anhedonia can make things very difficult. It's challenging to enjoy many things because it's like they're not inherently good or bad; they're just like there. It's like being in this state of like pure objectivity that everything is just like, "eh." Um, so that is is very rare that like I'll enjoy things to the to the degree that other people will. Um, usually it's something that I can do in my own apartment or something like that, but uh, it can it can get frustrating.

Um, another one is there's been a couple of times where I have been in relationships of sorts, and they were exhausting, um, both on myself and the other person involved. Um, there were two people when I was was younger that I ended up having a sort of romantic relationship with, um, and and navigating those kind of relationships are are very distressing, very difficult. Um, what happened was I in in both cases, because of my inability to know like where exactly my boundaries were, it's like, "Oh, I'm in a relationship now. I wasn't aware of that; I didn't really ask for that; it just sort of happened." Um, now I'm now it's too late; now I'm stuck. Um, and you know, I cared about the the people, but I didn't really I felt very suffocated. Um, so my default priority was, "How can I put as much distance between myself and them as possible so I can," um, so I could feel like I can breathe, um, and be autonomous. Um, and it was very difficult in both like like emotional interactions, um, sexual interactions. Um, there's basically just like it's like dealing with a a wall. That's everything that they would try to give to me was just not reciprocated because I just didn't know how; I didn't know like I didn't really understand it; it just made me extremely uncomfortable. Um, and I know that that had the same effect on them as well: like, "Why is he not expressing the same emotions towards me? Why is he not like wanting to get intimate with me?" So I I definitely see like how it's equally stressing on them, but what happens it's like a this weird effect where the more I'll pull away, the more they'll try to attach to me, and it just gets worse and worse. Um, so it's it it's struggling like knowing like how to establish my boundary at the beginning and navigating it while I'm in it.

Truth is what I should have done and um what I wish I had done at the time and will definitely do moving forward as thing is just establishing boundaries, like no matter how uncomfortable it is, saying like, "Hey, like I'm not interested in this kind of relationship, or like these are things that I struggle with; like you would need to know that beforehand." Um, just better at communicating because I it it was it was I was so bad at it. Um, so it it just led to extreme discomfort.

So yeah, thank you so much for that answer. Um, is there anything that that I guess other people can can do if they want to be your friend or if they want to develop a relationship with you that that is helpful like for respecting your boundaries in advance or makes it easier for you to communicate your boundaries with them?

Yeah, I I think the most important thing is just me telling them beforehand like, "Hey, I'm sort of like this; don't get you you know, distressed because of that; it's just me." Um, that's how I operate. What they can do is just keep that in mind. If I sort of disappear or something like that's just me needing to breathe. Yeah, to me the ideal version of a friend is somebody who I can disappear for as long as I need to—a week, a month, a year, decade—and just sort of show back up, and then instead of like, "Hey, like where have you been? Like like you just disappeared on me," no, just like continuing like the the people where that's not a big deal; there's no obligation or anything like that. Or the people that it's much easier to engage with. I I know I know not everybody's like that, but um, but you know, not everybody's going to be compatible or anything, so that's understandable. But the people where that can happen to me are people that are easier to form some sort of like connection with. Um, there's only one like I said there's only one person that that sort of works with in my experience. And thank you, um, so much for that answer.

One question I have is whether there's any positives that you want people to know about SPD or anything that you enjoy about having SPD?

The biggest positive in my experience is, and it's sort of a tradeoff; it has negative aspects to it, but it's nice not it's nice having low neuroticism. Like I'm usually pretty unbothered by external events. So if like something bad goes on in my life, it's like, "Oh, whatever," it's like that's external, so I'm apathetic towards that. But sometimes apathy, you know, can be very unhealthy, but um, yeah, it's it overall it's pretty nice. However, there's also that same equivalent when it comes to positive experience as well; like it's really difficult to experience any form of excitement or joy whatsoever. Like I I I don't think I'm capable of that, um, which you know, it's like I said, tradeoff, um, but you know, it works for for me. One form of one form of joy I can experience is like humor, so I I enjoy comedy and I'm capable of laughter. So, um, another thing that I really like is being able to like detach into a fantasy world; helps with creativity. So music for me is one is like the one thing that is a pleasurable activity for me, um, and it it it helps; it's hard to explain really, but um, I could sort of like base my own compositions based off of things that are going on like in my fantasy world, which makes it sort of unique, I guess. That's that's really neat. And last positive I wanted to to add is, and I think this is experienced differently by different people with the disorder, but the lack of response to criticism; it can be very useful for me, especially like in my job. So something goes wrong, my boss is yelling at me or something; I really don't care. Um, like I said, I think it's different for a lot of people. I think some people will be bothered with that internally, but they don't express that externally, and some people are completely unbothered. For me, it's somewhere in the middle; sometimes I'm completely unbothered; sometimes I'll be uncomfortable with the confrontation, but I don't really care exactly what they're saying, and I'll keep it in mind, but I won't be like moved by it.

Well, thank you so much for that answer. I I often feel like people's most unique personality traits can often be both the greatest source of challenge and also s it's the greatest source of strength, and I feel like that's kind of a yeah, your response reminded me of that. Um, everything is just a some sort of tradeoff.

Yeah, exactly. Nothing is inherently good or bad.

Yes, it's just how how can you use that trait like to your advantage or prevent it from being a disadvantage, I guess.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, this is a little bit of a jump in topic, but I'm I'm looking at kind of our next questions, and they're about your experience with doctors or therapists, and I'm really excited exed to discuss this with you because I'm guessing that very few clinicians have received a lot of training on schizoid personality disorder. Um, so yeah, would you would you be willing to share just what your experiences have been like, um, and also maybe what your experience initially realizing that you have schizoid personality disorder was like?

Sure. So I'll sort of start from the beginning and just kind of move to where like go through everything until where I am today. But when I was younger, I knew that I was sort of on my own wavelength; didn't really relate to people; didn't really care; it was there was no distress or anything. I was always been pretty content, and for the most part, I still am. However, I started using a lot of psychedelics when I was in college, and and a lot of people and I was this person at the time; they're like, uh, "they're not dangerous; they can't hurt you; no LD50." Well, yeah, they can they can mess you up psychologically, especially if you abuse them like I did. The last time I tripped on LSD, I experienced a lot of persistent derealization for quite a while after, and um, was freaky; I didn't know what it was, and I thought I was developing like schizophrenia or something like that; like I could wake up one day, and all concept of reality would be gone. Never happened, but and that's not likely to happen with the realization, but I didn't know that, so I was like, "All right, I need to see somebody about this." So I started seeing this counselor at my school, and uh, eventually that sort of went away, but I was also like, "Hey, feel kind of different from everybody else; is there any way like you could explain that?" And not really sure why, but and in some ways I can see it because there was a little bit of overlap, but she told me that I was autistic. Um, she basically said that I shouldn't even worry about getting formally tested or anything; she's very confident like like you're on the Spectrum. And for a while, I was like, "Okay, cool; like I have the answer that I've been looking for." Um, and at the time, I didn't really know how that stuff kind of works, so I was like, "She's a professional, so maybe I should just trust that," or something. About a year later, I really started like doing my own research into psychology; I sort of got interested in it, and I looked deeply through the criteria and other people's experiences and stuff, and I was like, "Wait, wait a minute; this this doesn't really make sense because I don't really relate to these traits much at all." Um, started looking like personality disorder and stuff like that, and at first I thought I was like a psychopath or something, but uh, eventually I I walked into the schizoid personality sort, and I was like, "Oh, okay; this this really makes sense."

So around then, I worked with the I I contacted another department at my school; was like, "Hey, somebody this other department said that I was Autistic or something; I'd like to get assessed for that; also sort of think I'm like schizoid or something." Um, so they tested me; I I think they only tested me for the autism; I don't remember why. Um, there wasn't any other testing, but it was a long time ago, so I maybe I'm not remembering it correctly, but basically what happened was I got tested; it was like, "Yeah, you don't meet the criteria at all." Um, and that was one thing I want to stress about that is if you're going to like casually give somebody a diagnosis or something and you're wrong, that can seriously mess with somebody's sense of self because like like I thought I had an understanding of myself for a year, and it sort of just like collapsed. Um, it's like like what is what is really going on. But fortunately, I I ended up sort of forgetting about it; other people might not though, so it really depends on the person.

Um, year two later, I had this was this was after I graduated college; was living with my dad. Um, I was experiencing a lot of stress from external factors from living with him as well, um, just bunch of things. So I had this habit of like pulling my hair, and uh, there was like noticeable hair loss the top of my head; my dad was like, "I want you to see a counselor for that." Um, ended up seeing a counselor; uh, she was pretty helpful; it ended up going away, but I sort of propose my theory again, and she was like, "Yeah, I I don't really know much about this; I don't think I can like test you for this, but looking at the criteria, I've been doing some of my own research; that makes a lot of sense; I think you have that." Um, I was like, "Okay, cool." Eventually moved halfway across the country; sort of forgot about it again, but I started seeing a therapist last year because I was like, "I I still want to like make sure and have some other stuff that kind of want to work on." Um, she didn't really know what it was at all, which I I understand that because a lot of therapists just see depression, anxiety, OCD, things like that, um, and very rarely schizoids. But I I have a theory as to why that I'm going to bring up in a second, but uh, she was like, "I think you might have ADHD or something," so she had me do this assessment through uh, when it was her daughter who was a psychologist who did that assessment; she was like, "You can also do like a personality test as well," and so I had that; met the criteria for ADHD; she the like psychologist was like, "I don't want to diagnose you with this because like they don't show up to therapy, so I think even though you didn't meet the criteria before, you should get reassessed for autism." I was like, "That was very invalidating, and like how can you like how do have you met everybody that has schizoid personality disorder? Like like you don't you don't know if they would never show up like," um, and so she just did one personality test; I think it was the MMPI. So I was like, "Still don't trust the results from that assessment," but I found this other place that I I called them; asked them about it, and they were like, "Yeah, we've seen these types of cases where somebody will come in looking to get assessed for for autism or something like that; leave with the diagnosis of schizoid; it's much more common than most people think it is; they actually show up to therapy more often than people think they do." Um, so it's was like, "Okay, these people actually know what they're talking about," so I had an assessment with them; it's much more in depth; they had the PAI and MCMI, I think, and I ended up getting that diagnosis, and the person that diagnosed me was like, "Yeah, I've I've seen people with this disorder before," so it made me much more comfortable knowing or trusting her assessment because said she's seen it before and stuff. But I think a lot of a lot of therapists that don't know what it is or psychologists or whatever they're they're going to say they never show up to therapy, and that is sort of true; it's much less common than other disorders like depression or something because there is for a lot of people a lack of distress, and it's the only personality disorder that doesn't require distress for a diagnosis. But I think what really happens is a lot of them do, but they end up getting misdiagnosed something else like a mood disorder or um, ASD or something like that, and because of their misdiagnosis, that feeds into the idea that lot of them already have that they don't show up for therapy, making them even more um, even even more um, so what I'm looking for.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, however, there's these two psychologists that are very familiar with schizoid personality disorder or what they say schizoid adaptations, and I like that as well, but they actually say that the only disorder where they have patients come in with a proposed diagnosis and their correct are schizoids, and a lot of the time it's not that they're showing up because they want help with something, but they actually just want an answer. Um, so they'll show up looking for answers, and that's sort of it. Um, and that's sort of the case with me; it's not like I wanted any major changes in my life; I was like that question has been bugging me for some time; I just want to answer it. Um, now that I have my answer, I'm not entirely sure exactly what I want to do; still facing the schizoid dilemma.

Thank you so much for that answer, and I'm sorry that your trajectory to get a diagnosis was uh, such an invalidating one at times. Um, the the last part you mentioned kind of ties into a different question I wanted to ask you, which is um, you kind of touch on this schizoid dilemma; if you'd be like to maybe explain that a little bit more and also just share your thoughts on what parts of therapy you think people with schizoid personality disorder might generally find the most helpful or effective, um, or why; yeah, if there's kind of common common themes in why someone with schizoid personality disorder might seek out therapy.

So the schizoid dilemma is a a dilemma that pretty much every schizoid or or zoid, as I like to call it, experiences on some level. Basically what it is: on one hand, they don't like the presence of people; they want to they they don't like getting personal with people; the attachment is just terrifying and suffocating, and um, it removes any potential for autonomy. Um, there's that feeling that like you'll lose your sense of self due to the presence of somebody else, so they'll avoid people to remain autonomous and independent and free. So on one end of the the dilemma, they could just like cut off the whole world, um, become hermits, being completely independent. And on one hand, that would work, but the true self still wants some degree of connection with somebody; they might actually want maybe one connection; like they they they still at a very deep level want to be cared about. So on the other end, they could sort of attempt to integrate into society and hope that eventually they could have a genuine connection with somebody, but the idea of doing that can be very overwhelming because how likely is that to happen? I mean, it's pretty unlikely because most people are not; it's extremely rare, especially like like in my experience; there's only been one person in my entire life where I was like, "I am actually comfortable with this person; I can connect with this person and still feel like I have complete autonomy; I don't feel like I'm going to lose my sense of self and get suffocated." So it's really difficult to navigate that because like why why bother if it's if there's such a low percent chance chance of of of that ever happening. And it can sort of be, in my experience, it's been an oscillation; I'll be on one end or the other of of that dilemma.

In terms of therapy, from what I understand, the best is psychodynamic therapy, though I'm not entirely sure exactly what that entails. Um, I reached out to this place that does that and said that they can work with schizoids, but uh, haven't heard back yet, so I haven't actually experienced it myself yet, but uh, from what I understand, that is the uh, that's that's the way to go. Um, in terms of the the what was the last part of the question, um, um, it was kind of asking common common reasons or or themes and mental health challenges or areas where people with schizoid personality disorder tend to not support. Um, so for example, if if many people also experience anxiety or depression or other specific um, co-occurring conditions. I I think it's most commonly the the reason somebody would show up to to therapy is if they did have a comorbid mood disorder or an anxiety disorder; anxiety and depression.

Are very common, uh, but not all of them experience it. But I think that is the main reason they will show up like, "I'm feeling depressed," uh, and they might not even have any idea that any anything else is that's going on in their in their lives that could be contributing to that or sort of happening like parallel to that or something. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for explaining this. Good way to limit it was it was really interesting to me to hear your thoughts on how it can also oscillate over time. Um, it makes a lot of sense, but that's not something I would have thought of, uh, on my own.

I did have kind of one last therapy-related question, which is whether you have any advice for therapists who want to work with patients with, um, schizoid adaptation. Um, I think, you know, one thing you mentioned already that I think hopefully therapists can take away from this is that someone seeking out therapy is not mutually exclusive with them having SPD, um, and also how therapists can find a balance between maybe gently encouraging patients to talk about things without becoming invasive or crossing boundaries. It's very difficult, especially at the beginning, to approach somebody who has this disorder because, on one hand, like if you don't push them to become vulnerable to some extent or open with you or try to form some connection, that's they're never going to improve at all. However, on on the other end, if you push them just too much, like slightly too much, they're they're going to, um, engage in splitting and say, "This person, uh, does not want to help me; they're I don't know, they're bad," or something like that, um, and basically just disappear. And what can suck about that is it's they might not just disappear from that therapist, but they might say therapy is and is a practice is just completely useless to me. Um, so I would recommend staying being cautious and staying on the side of not too invasive. It's a very thin line that you have to manage, um, but most importantly, and I think this could apply to everybody, but the beginning just like just ask like, "What are your boundaries? What are you comfortable disclosing? Um, like what makes you what makes you comfortable? What makes you uncomfortable?" And asking that question might, um, that question alone might be helpful because it shows the person that like you're willing to accommodate their comforts and and discomforts, which makes them more likely to put some level of of of trust in the in the therapist. Yeah, I I really like that idea about proactive questions, um, and especially as you mentioned, some people might have SPD but not know it when they initially seek out therapy. So if a therapist asks all their patients that, they make sure that they're reaching everyone who could potentially benefit from that question. Um, for sure.

Uh, I guess one kind of just curiosity I was wondering about is if you could develop any research project on schizoid personality disorder, if it was just automatically going to be funded or if you could learn anything you wanted to about schizoid personality disorder, what would you most want to learn? I would want to learn more in detail about the science of the splitting of the true self and the false self; like how exactly does that work, um, and how could it be possible to basically integrate those states into into one, um, and also like how does the emotional processing work? Because like for me, I think what happens a lot of the time, um, in regards to emotional detachment is I think I think it's possible that my subconscious is like processing some sort of emotion or something like that, just not being sent to my conscious; there's some sort of like like barrier there or something which is created by the dissociation and and detachment, um, and can even be like I'm detached from from my body; it's like, uh, I don't feel like my body is real, or it'll feel like more like a machine than a human. Um, so just learning more about the science behind how that works, that's that's really interesting.

I I was wondering what are some things that you enjoy in life or what some of your happiest moments are, and yeah, what enjoyment or happiness is like for you. Um, it's very difficult to think about things that I've enjoyed in the past, especially like during my childhood. Um, I I don't really I don't remember the term for this, but I don't really experience like like emotional memory. So like if I remember some sort of event from my past, I'm like I don't like have any like like emotional association with it, so it's it's hard to say. Um, but two things there there are two things that have had some level of enjoyment. Um, music is a is a big one, and that that actually is something that I I know that I I've enjoyed from from a young age; that's always been like my one thing. Um, and what's interesting, I think the reason I enjoy it is because one I can do it just by myself; it doesn't require like I can just play on my keyboard. Um, I don't have to be in a, you know, band or something like that. But what happens, I think the reason I enjoy it is there's this like, um, while I'm doing it, there's this like it's like my true self and my false self or like lined up; I can communicate my true self externally, um, in a way that like works, so it's like therapeutic, I guess. Um, and unlike like writing or something like that, it's not in words, so like I'm the only one who knows what it means, I guess. Um, but the ex the experience of enjoyment is a state of mental flow; like when I'm doing it, it's time stops existing; nothing exists outside of the room; like that's the only thing that exists for that for that moment. So, uh, yeah, that's that's pretty nice. And one other thing that I've been doing recently, about a month month and a half, is Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Um, what's interesting about that is it is an activity that involves the presence of other people, but what's nice is like I don't really have to get to know them, so I just show up, um, do some practicing and do some some like grappling and stuff, but uh, it's not like there's no interpersonal interactions. Um, and when I'm grappling somebody, it's that same sort of experience plus the adrenaline rush, which is which is really nice. But uh, it's it's it's been one thing that's that's been helpful for me because it's sort of like pushing me in a in a direction or in like one direction of the schizoid dilemma, I guess, slowly. Um, yeah, those are like the two only things that I experienced genuine enjoyment from.

I really appreciate that answer, I especially the description of of music and, um, I guess how how there can be sort of a flow state associated with that. It's interesting because as you were describing it, I was thinking about how many autistic individuals I know also appreciate those activities because of the sensory component, um, at times, so it's it's kind of neat how they can be therapeutic in different ways for different. Oh, really? Um, but yeah, I guess one other question I had is, um, what your I think you touched on this a little bit, uh, with with the previous question, but what splitting is like with, um, schizoid personality disorder, or at least what your experience with that has been like. So most people when they hear the word splitting are going to think of like BPD, uh, maybe NPD, but I think this is something I know that it I know that it's something that schizoids experience, but I actually think it's something that is involved in all personality disorders, um, all three clusters. For me, the way it manifests is my subconscious mind will sort of like label people as like, "Oh, this is a safe person, or this is like an unsafe person," or trustworthy person, untrustworthy person, whatever. Um, but if somebody were to like push my boundaries just slightly too hard or something like that, um, I can it'll it'll make my brain just like relabel them; I'll be like, "Okay, I have to stay far away from this person now," um, which if it's like like online or over the phone, I'll just I don't know, block them or ghost them or something like that. Um, if it's somebody that I have to interact with like a coworker or something like that, um, I will just be very more colder on them, more quiet. Uh, yeah, I'm not sure how noticeable it would be from their perspective, but uh, yeah, there's the the interaction is completely minimized. But um, there's some people where it's like almost the opposite happens; like if I meet somebody and they do something that's like really, um, like with that that one person that I can call a friend, like I the moment that I met him, I I don't know what he said or what he did, but it I immediately was like, "Oh, this person is like very safe or very trustworthy." I I don't remember what it was, but I think he just he did something that made my brain just kind of like like flip in that direction. Um, yeah, I I can't even explain that. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much for for that answer.

Um, the the next question on here is it's a little bit different, but I'm curious to hear your answer to it: What would your ideal life be like? Um, just just in general, anything you want to share about your ideal life or goals. And kind of a separate question related to that would be, what would your ideal social life be like? How much social interaction and what what kind of social interaction would you want in a in an ideal group? Uh, that's that's always going to be a difficult question because it really depends on the day or the year or whenever. Ideally, I don't really have many external life goals; I probably should, but yeah, I don't I don't really care about getting a job, or I mean, I have a job, but like if this is the same job that I have for the rest of my life, I I don't care. Um, I don't really care about money either; I mean, I want to be able to survive, but um, I don't care about having like a nice car or whatever. Um, mostly because I'm not concerned with my external world; I it's it's like I keep my external body alive so I can enjoy my internal world. Um, however, there has been a desire to like go off the grid and like build a cabin in the middle of nowhere in the woods somewhere, like live off the land or something like that, um, like get food by hunting and fishing and stuff like that; that would that would be pretty cool. Um, I'm not sure what would happen if I was completely away from society for like years; I don't think that would be healthy; I it would be like enabling like addictive behavior; like it would feel good, but it's also like like not healthy; like there's got to be some sort of balance or something. Um, if I could have like one person with me that I could like truly be comfortable with, which is, you know, extremely rare except for that that one person, I guess, but uh, I guess that would be cool. Um, one thing though, it's not like like in my apartment; like I sort of like that there's cars driving by and stuff, so I it's hard to explain; like like I don't want to, you know, go outside and talk to the people they're in the cars, but I I like knowing that they're there; like I I I do like knowing that that life is like going on somewhere. Um, yeah, I might give you another answer answer depending, you know, on the day or how I'm feeling, but uh, I I think that's it's probably the best I could give you right now, at least.

I think it's a fantastic answer. I've I think all your answers have been really, uh, really really helpful so far. Um, okay, I I had just a couple more questions. Um, one of them is about experiences with school and or work, and in particular, what changes you would like to see in schools or workplaces or even like the the hiring process, the job application process, to better accommodate people with SPD. In terms of terms of schools, this is this is a problem that I think is is for basically everybody, not just schizoids, but like literally everybody, because what I hate is how like linear and uniform the education type is; they assume that everybody's going to learn the exact same way when everybody has their own version of of of learning. Um, I'm sure that would be difficult to like actually make that happen because like you I don't know how that would be possible, but in in terms of like like schizoids or whatever, um, I don't know; I I don't think they should have to like. That's a hard one to answer honestly. Um, and yeah, I'm I'm struggling with this question. Oh yeah, no no problem at all; we can we can skip it. Um, one thing that I kind of have as a tentative idea in my mind, although I don't personally have SPD, so I can't speak from firsthand experience, but I find that a lot of workplaces have kind of unwritten social rules. So, for example, there might be company parties or social gatherings where people are not formally required to attend, but where it's kind of expected that you attend a certain number of, and I I've wondered if if maybe like reducing those kinds of expectations, um, and maybe allowing for more flexible types of work could be beneficial for for a broad variety.

That's honestly a better answer than I ever could have thought of, so that is that is a great point because my my company does have things like that. Fortunately, though, I've I've never gone to any, but nobody said anything to me, so it's it's worked out pretty nice. I guess that's good. Yeah. Um, and then the last question I had here, unless unless there's any any kind of other topics that you wanted to go into that I have that I've looked over, is, um, if you could go back in time and give yourself when you were younger or really at any age that that you choose, advice or encouragement, what would you say? One thing that I wish I would have realized when I was younger is all neurotypicals are playing this game; like it's it's a game of shallowness. So, like, for example, if and this could just be through my distorted lens, but this really is how I see it: If somebody is expressing some sort of discomfort or like venting in some way, and somebody else comes up to them as like like, "Hey, do you want to talk about it?" Um, and the other person's like, "No, not really," like, "Come on, talk about it," like that person doesn't really care; they just want to be validated for like by the other person for caring, and like they end up playing this like weird game where they just end up like like trying to like validate each other but not like not like the original problem, if that makes sense. Like I don't think that person, unless it's something that's just like horrible that happened, I I don't think that person is really going to care; like they're just going to pretend to care so they can get the validation of of that other person. Um, and it seems like I know that's a weird example; it's just one I could think of from the top of my head, but like so so many weird like like emotional games between between people; like they're not um they're not direct and objective, and like you have to like like they'll say one thing, not mean another. Um, and that was very confusing; I remember that being very confusing when I was young. So if I could go back in time, I'd be like, "Everybody's playing this weird game; you're not playing the game; you don't have to play the game, but this is like not your this is not a problem that is reflected upon you." Like you figured out that you don't need to play the game. That make sense? Yeah, no, that does make sense. I think there's a certain amount of authenticity to not playing those kinds of games, and it's also just efficient. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, thank you, thank you so much for for taking the time to to answer these questions. I I know I've learned a lot from these discussions, and also thank you for your patience with I know, as you can probably tell, my own understanding of SPD is not very strong, so I appreciate your patience and clarifying some misconceptions I had along the way as well. Yeah, that's totally fine; I always like I said, I always appreciate curiosity, um, and I I definitely can't expect everybody to know what it is because like most people wouldn't know what it is; most people don't even know what personality disorders are at all, um, so like, you know, I I I I want people to to learn and be curious about that kind of stuff, and a part of the part of learning is to have misconceptions that hopefully are resolved, you know, eventually, but um, it's not like you can go from not understanding something at all to understanding everything there is to know; it's a it's a slow process, but all I care about is is that people are curious.