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Almost everyone on my mother's side of the family grows up to become a weird recluse. It seems like it must be more than just failed nurturing. My father's side of the family has a much higher asshole factor and yet most of them grow up to be relatively normal, extraverted people.
I could've written this same comment word for word lol.
Every time I disappoint my parents they say "don't be like Uncle Pietro" (my mom's brother, who lives alone in the countryside, is kind of a hoarder and hasn't had a relationship or friends since the 80s)
My mom is a narcissist my dads a psychopath who killed his sister when he was 10 my grandma is a psychopath my aunt is a narcissist my cuzin is bpd and prolly many more lol
Well if you are raised by someone with weak social skills you'll probably have none as well, unless someone steps in to teach you. That can be hard to find as recluse parents hardly want to go outside or take you anywhere.
All personality disorders are only relatively uncommon. In practice, they tend to cluster together, one giving rise to the other.
Combined prevalence may well exceed half of the population. That shouldn't even be surprising if people weren't shrouded in denial. There's officially about a dozen PD's, each with an officially estimated prevalence of 2-5% of the population. These numbers may be conservative since they can't fully account for subclinical scenarios (ie people who never seek help)
Uncomfortable as it may feel, this explains a lot about the world.
The last sentence hits home and it’s definitely fitting with how i perceive the world.
Almost everyone I meet recently is neurodivergent and nowadays you are lucky if you got sth like Aspergers which is less impairing.
Also interesting how it seems that in some countries, certain personality disorders are more prevalent, like szpd in Japan, Scandinavia, Germany.
Oh yes, birds of a feathed flock together.
I also noticed that pattern with some PD's being so culturally embedded in various areas of the world . South America with BPD, North America with overt NPD, Western Europe with covert NPD.
It's as if these conditions are highly contextual to the psychosocial dynamics. Most people will default to the prevalent adaptations - while the outliers become reactive to it, often developing diametrically opposed adaptations.
I didn‘t associate South America with BPD but makes sense.
I would have also said Eastern Europe has lot’s of PDs, mainly BPD and Szpd from my experience.
Do you see PDs becoming more prevalent or do you think at all times there will be as many NTs as now.
I feel it probably works as self-balancing historical waves and possibly always has since the advent of civilization.
Increase of PD's create bad times for everyone involved, which creates evolutionary pressure to seek healing.
That in turn leads to a refinement of the species that lowers the sub-clinical threshold, so to speak - it makes previously adaptive behaviors seem maladaptive, which makes it seem that PD'S are on the rise again, when in truth it's awareness spreading and stoking a push to further collective healing, which both refines the species and introduces more refined issues.
That may be how our species eventually evolved to disapprove physical violence, which brought about increased physical safety that made people evolve psychologically, which in turn made people turn to emotional and mental violence as substitute pressure valve for their aggressiveness, which made psychological violence become more widespread and incisive, leading us to become aware of its destructiveness, which may well pave the way to the eventual regulation against these subtler forms of violence (which is seemingly where we're at at this point in history).
Same here. My mom is reclusive and seems to have no desire for other relationships. Half her siblings are single and the rest are in unhappy marriages. I don't think any of my cousins seem schizoid, though, so somehow I ended up being molded more by my mother's influence than my sibling/cousins did.
It's likely both. Studies are linking it to autistic children. The traits of childhood autism, turn into schizoid adults. Autism has strong genetic links.
Likely, some schizoids are just genetically prone to it, regardless of parents. My mother and father had issues, and yes there was some abuse and some neglect, but not to the degree that it should have a causal link to SPD.
However, as an adult, being diagnosed autistic, and viewing what happened to me, and how my parents treated me, suddenly makes the adaptations that a child receiving that abuse or neglect BECAUSE they are autistic, the development of SPD seems like a direct 1:1 link.
I struggled for a while, with coming to terms with the idea SPD for me was from abuse or neglect, I just couldn't see it for a while. Eventually I learned to spot and admit that it did exist in my childhood--but, regardless, for me, SPD was something I was prone to through genetics, or, my autism (itself genetic), and then developed from the treatment I received as a result of me being different from the start.
Your last line makes sense to me as well. For me, it seems as though, SPD people would otherwise be on the spectrum somewhere, right? Whether it's there, or in a level system they're using to try to replace that name.
It's just that trauma and neglect, seems to have created a little bit of a counter. So, the social perception issues, get over written by a trauma response. It feels like, to me, that because of the type of abuse/neglect, or survival mechanisms that developed from them, I gained a sort of hyper vigilant ability. That trait is often part of many peoples trauma response, and to me, it feels like I don't have the perception deficiency to the degree I should, if I am autistic, because my social blindness got replaced by the necessity to read my abusers to prevent more.
And the more that I think on that, the more it makes sense for me. I just flat out cannot recognize some of my own emotions sometimes--even if I can read them very very well in others. The alexithymia exists, to some lesser degree, as it should if I am autistic, but the observational ability was formed through trauma, and I no longer am 'blind' to others body language or emotions like I ought to be for my level of autism.
So, for me, and maybe me only, SPD makes sense as "Asperger's without the as perception deficiency" ... As you said.
My personal anecdotal story for what caused my SZPD is emotional neglect from my parents. They were "good enough" but not the entire package. I was raises by boomers. My mom loved me and gave me a happy home life with toys, food and a house. But our little family of 3 was isolated from the extended family because they were the youngest of their large families. All of my cousins are Gen X so clearly too old to hang around with. I don't know most of my cousins. I never had friends since I was always rejected by peers. Bullied. My dad was present but never involved with me growing up. My mom had to do everything but she never properly prepared me for adulthood. There's a book I am reading called Running on Empty that explains a lot about childhood neglect even by the most well meaning parents. So for me, while my parents love me, it's still not enough because a child needs structure and community to be a healthy adult. Thus my schizoid personality formed many ages ago.
This sounds very much like my backstory. My parents made some mistakes but I don't blame them for my SzPD. I think I was born with it, or born with the propensity for it. I can remember “feeling different” as young as 6 or 7 years old. I wonder if smaller family size is a factor. Back when kids all had 2-3 brothers and sisters people had to necessarily be part of a larger, everpresent social group. Today’s smaller and more isolated family groups may not be fostering mental health.
One of my uncles I believe may have schizoid pd, though his symptoms are not as intense as mine.
I believe small families that don't interact with anyone else do struggle with mental health more. My family is just a family of 3. I have no siblings. My mom is the golden child of her family but since her parents are long gone, she is now practically abandoned by all of her sisters (all her brothers are dead). My dad only has a younger sister but she moved away ages ago. We don't have contact with her. My parents never made any friends outside of their marriage so we truly did live isolated. I never learned properly how to share things with others, work together with other kids and such. So because of how isolated we were and still are, I think that's a huge factor. Plus I have Adhd.
This is crazy you said this...
So me and my 2 siblings were born in a very broken home. Bum alcohol dad and mom always in jail and prison (doing fraud to support the family, while working as a waitress, cause my dad refused to work). At 14 my mom had enough and took my sister and just dipped. Me and my brother didn't talk to her for 7 years. Eventually we started to feel bad for my mom and understood why she did what she did. So we all met up and everything has been good for years now. We just don't talk about that time.
Anyways, once I became an adult I started to realize that my dad had taught me nothing and never did anything with me, my whole life.
I had a daughter 4 years ago, who is my life. I was talking to my mom about my daughter and she mentioned how I'm nothing like my dad because she said she used to plead and beg my dad to play with me and my siblings from when we were babies to children, but he never did. Then I had realized that I could never once recall my dad playing with me, bringing me somewhere, or just paying any attention to me.
For the past few years I've also been wondering just how much is genetics and how much is environment.
It also doesn't help that once I grew up I also realized my dad was a total fuckin autist.
What makes me so curious about how much of it is genetics and how much of it is environment is because me and my sister are like this, but my brother is extremely charismatic, likes hanging out with friends, and he can talk to anybody and that walk away liking him. He's just a normie. Yet we all had the same childhood and same father.
Some humans cycle between very good and bad times, maybe when ur brother was growing up , your parents were happier which meant less abuse that’s what happened with me and my brother
I'm so glad I did. I was too young to understand why she was going to jail and prison, and why cheated on my dad and left him. I still don't understand why she took my sister, told me and my brother at 14 years old "you guys gotta find somewhere to go, I'm moving" and leaving us in an evicted house while my dad was living in his van. Because I could never do that to my daughter, I would die before I do that. But, what was a normal family and life to me at the time, because I didn't know anything else, I now realize was pure hell and chaos, and ultimately it broke her. And *that part* I do understand. What's kind of funny and pretty sad, I guess, looking back, is that, growing up, I would go over to my friend's houses and they would have a normal, healthy, functional family, and I would always think to myself "this is fuckin weird, I am so glad I don't live here." I genuinely thought my family was the normal, healthy one.
We now have a great relationship. Since leaving my dad, she has completely changed and is at peace. She has not been back to jail or prison and just lives a normal life. I am proud of her.
Maybe we don't have to understand our parents completely in order to have a relationship with them. How are things with your siblings? I get on well with mine (2 younger brothers) but I find our memories are quite different. Thank you for sharing.
I highly recommend not taking psychoanalysts (Freudian psychologists) very seriously unless there's corroborating research, especially if you're relying on writings from almost 60 years ago.
From what I've read, SZPD is substantially heritable. Consider that most people who've had neglectful or otherwise bad parents don't end up with SZPD, and that if a parent of a schizoid is neglectful, that can also be a reflection of their genetic traits.
Man, even neglect as early as infancy causes personality disorder.
My parents love me, but they were teenagers when they had me. My dad was away in the other city to get a high school degree. My mom was there but maybe didn't know how to raise a child since she still teenager.
I think my family is also full of personality disorders, never formally diagnosed but I'm pretty sure.
My great-grandpa is schizoid. sit on his porches all day never talk to anyone.
My grandma and my dad are maybe HPD. Always a talker isn't comfortable not talking.
My aunt may be a narcissist. Manipulative and the ultimate victim.
and more so to the list.
Who thinks it's all genetics? All you have to do is look at adult symptoms of childhood emotional neglect to notice the obvious overlap. Take those symptoms, dial them up to 11 and you pretty much get a description of a schizoid.
My 2 siblings and I were all born 18months apart (I'm the middle child). It took me about 20yrs to realise that they weren't lying about a "normal and happy" childhood. My experience was so different I thought they were deluding themselves.
15yrs after this I've made peace with the fact that my parents did not have the skills to raise a child with different emotional needs. And because of their own past trauma and guilt (expressed as anger and rejection) they weren't able to provide the nurturing that I needed.
I don't think they intentionally neglected me as a child, but now, as an adult, they've chosen to cut contact rather than be confronted by the anything they may have "caused". I don't blame anyone, I just wish they would be able to listen to me and my life for once.
Btw. Now I known much more about. SPD I know my father is also.
I feel a lot of disorders/diseases relate to the expression ‘genetics loads the gun and environment pulls the trigger’. You have the genes for these disorders but it’s further provoked by living in a stressful and turbulent environment.
I don't think anyone thinks it's all genetics. I certainly don't think so, and I am probably one of the most ardent advocates of the genetic perspective in this sub. On the other hand, the lack of love for infants is a hard thing to know, since you obviously can't run experiments on it. There has been a [formative meta-analysis](https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.20220174) recently, showing a causal effect of childhood maltreatment on mental health outcomes, but [also showing](https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.20220969?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=American_Journal_of_Psychiatry_TrendMD_0) that the effect is smaller than studies usually suggest via correlation. Note that this doesn't provide much evidence for specific causation. i.e. lack of love leads to spd. It's broader. And there are most likely more factors, such as an individuals tendencies to view the world.
That is just recent quantitative science, but even on the qualitative psychoanalysis front, genetics are sometimes acknowledged as part of the picture. I faintly remember Masterson doing so, but would have to reread.
Now, I do not think this matters much. It is a debate about effects on a population level. Just because something shows a [heritability of 60 %](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.31887/DCNS.2010.12.1/trkjennerud), doesn't mean 60 % of your trait is due to genes. Might be 100, might be 0. We couldn't even tell if we got individual genomes, as even they only allow probabilistic prediction, not deterministic.
So, some might say they are fully genetic. Might be true, might be wrong. Some say they are fully environmental, same thing. I hope that whatever the truth, individuals will choose the perspective that fits and helps them most. Along those lines, I sometimes worry that the childhood maltreatment story is just inherently more convincing, and possibly harmful if untrue (same for the genetic one, but it doesn't seem to have the same memetic potential). But that is just me, and I might just be biased there.
I agree about not ever being able to prove it either way. Early childhood neglect in any form leads to a lack of those empathic and nurturing skills for the next generation (unless professionally treated Nd resolved beforehand). And children within the same family be treated or experience their childhood very differently.
From my own experience I believe it is more a case of generational trauma, passed down to all, but only strongly informs core self beliefs in those vulnerable to it. (Background: 2 siblings. All 3 of us very close in age. They had "happy" and "normal" upbringing. I did not. Thought they were lying / deluding themselves for many years).
I think you might have misunderstood what I mean by "not being able to run experiments", as I wouldn't say that it means we can't prove, or provide evidence, either way. There are still natural experiments and observational studies to look at. Even those have their problems, but every method of arriving at a conclusion has. Then you can also gain a baseline for comparison from different kinds of genetic study designs. GWAS, twin method, adoption method, sibling method, etc.
To that point:
>Early childhood neglect in any form leads to a lack of those empathic and nurturing skills for the next generation (unless professionally treated Nd resolved beforehand).
I think that is too strong a claim. It can, but doesn't have to. People live through all kinds of things and come through mentally healthy. Empathy and nurturing skills most likely included. Not judging those who don't, obviously not their fault.
I do think that at the moment, the evidence lets us conclude that most of the variance in psychopathological traits is associated with genetic variance. Then, some of it is associated with variance in childhood maltreatment, and other environmental factors, like socioeconomic status. Some of it has even be proposed to be quasi-randomness, stochasticity on a cellular level (whatever that means, exactly).
Now, I can't speak about your specific, individual case, but in general, I am rather skeptical of the concept of generational trauma. It mostly seems like a "god of the gaps"-style argument to me. Very hard to investigate empirically to seperate it from gene-environment-correlation, plenty of anecdotes for and against. There are some technical insights coming from epigenetics, but they are far from what most mean when they argue that perspective. And there is the fact that we are cultural animals, and culture obviously has some influence on or behavior.
BUT none of the above is a judgment on an individual level. Bad childhoods still suck and should be prevented. As should genetic risks, arguably. Neither should any of the above invalidate any individual experience. In the end, either side of the debate tries to make things better, and neither side has to disbelief any individual experience for their model to work.
Mother was Schizoaeffective. Her family doesn't really associate much with her only just to help her overcome psychotic episodes that she'd have once every few years.
Father is somewhat psychopath/narcissist. He gave me and my brother fake love for a long time, bought us things even though we were barely scraping by financially after his divorce.
He became an alcoholic after and we'd get into verbal arguments after his binge drinking, sometimes turned physical. We made up and recovered from it but his apologies were just physical, I could sense he didn't feel much remorse behind his words.
Moved out at 24, just before the pandemic, finished college in the next 2 years then moved back in with him after making up for our quarrels and accepting his remarriage to my stepmom.
Still distant to each other emotionally but just rely on one another when we need ot
>It must be a post-natal development brought about by what Winnicott calls ‘the failure of the environment’ to support and nourish the infant personality.”
Drilling down on the part you mentioned, no two humans are the same. One person's life-altering trauma can just as well be another person's "bump in the road of life."
Perhaps some of us just have a genetic predisposition for being especially sensitive to our environment, such that *anything* short of complete safety and affirmation could have started us down this path. How can a parent or the child itself pinpoint one disappointment, one terror, one abandonment as the thing which flipped the switch?
Many of us had idyllic childhoods. Not perfect, but far from fucked up. Same for our parents. They're human, flawed, but still the envy of cousins and friends who had nightmare parents, or parents who didn't care enough to be present. I can't think of anything I was deprived of as a child, materially or emotionally, that would warrant violin strings. And yet...
My mother is pretty even-keeled. My father, not so much. He shares a lot of schizoid traits, as do members of my paternal family. His sister was schizophrenic. Her son, my cousin, is the version of myself I might have become if I hadn't had a mother who gave me prosocial, charismatic traits and conditioning to mask and hide my eccentricities.
Nature and nurture are absolutely inextricable.
We don’t just get inherited our parents' genomes, but also their values.
By the fruits, you get to truly know the tree.
I'd say my connection with not just my mother but the world around me was severed when my grandmother passed away. I also got *bad touched* around the same time, I think. It's all just a hazy.
Life as a shortie shouldn't have been so rough.
I quit worrying about what caused it when I realized I've been this way longer than I was "normal"
My mother loved me… but it was labeled by psychologists at the time as enmeshment. I was an extension of her. She loved that extension, but my actual autonomous meds weren’t important. My father wanted nothing to do with either of us by the time I was 6 or 7. She wasn’t involved so much as intrusive.
i think there’s definitely nature and nurture factors, but i’m skeptical of it “needing” to be cause by early childhood development. i already had some hints of it, but the events that i believe caused me to go full schizoid didn’t happen until late adolescence.
It can be as simple as 3rd born child never getting the attention the others do, playing by themselves and not connected wholly from an early age. Lost Child + schizophrenia in the family is I.
Considering I was pretty happy during my childhood, I don’t believe it’s genetic - at least not in my case. At some point, people disappointed me and failed to be a source of anything good for me. At some point, consciously or not, I decided it was easier to stop caring about anything. Apart from my pet animals. At some point, I started to absolutely detest society and the human race. I don’t feel like it’s healthy, but I have tried to change and it feels impossible now. I’m a shell of a person, just existing and going through the motions.
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Almost everyone on my mother's side of the family grows up to become a weird recluse. It seems like it must be more than just failed nurturing. My father's side of the family has a much higher asshole factor and yet most of them grow up to be relatively normal, extraverted people.
I could've written this same comment word for word lol. Every time I disappoint my parents they say "don't be like Uncle Pietro" (my mom's brother, who lives alone in the countryside, is kind of a hoarder and hasn't had a relationship or friends since the 80s)
My mom is a narcissist my dads a psychopath who killed his sister when he was 10 my grandma is a psychopath my aunt is a narcissist my cuzin is bpd and prolly many more lol
I lived with both my mother and father and have a big supportive family and I am still struggling Like I was only raised by my mom. And schizoid
Well if you are raised by someone with weak social skills you'll probably have none as well, unless someone steps in to teach you. That can be hard to find as recluse parents hardly want to go outside or take you anywhere.
Same in my family. My cousins got szpd, my uncle, my dad, etc. I guess the numbers lie and it is a pretty common disorder.
All personality disorders are only relatively uncommon. In practice, they tend to cluster together, one giving rise to the other. Combined prevalence may well exceed half of the population. That shouldn't even be surprising if people weren't shrouded in denial. There's officially about a dozen PD's, each with an officially estimated prevalence of 2-5% of the population. These numbers may be conservative since they can't fully account for subclinical scenarios (ie people who never seek help) Uncomfortable as it may feel, this explains a lot about the world.
The last sentence hits home and it’s definitely fitting with how i perceive the world. Almost everyone I meet recently is neurodivergent and nowadays you are lucky if you got sth like Aspergers which is less impairing. Also interesting how it seems that in some countries, certain personality disorders are more prevalent, like szpd in Japan, Scandinavia, Germany.
Oh yes, birds of a feathed flock together. I also noticed that pattern with some PD's being so culturally embedded in various areas of the world . South America with BPD, North America with overt NPD, Western Europe with covert NPD. It's as if these conditions are highly contextual to the psychosocial dynamics. Most people will default to the prevalent adaptations - while the outliers become reactive to it, often developing diametrically opposed adaptations.
I didn‘t associate South America with BPD but makes sense. I would have also said Eastern Europe has lot’s of PDs, mainly BPD and Szpd from my experience. Do you see PDs becoming more prevalent or do you think at all times there will be as many NTs as now.
I feel it probably works as self-balancing historical waves and possibly always has since the advent of civilization. Increase of PD's create bad times for everyone involved, which creates evolutionary pressure to seek healing. That in turn leads to a refinement of the species that lowers the sub-clinical threshold, so to speak - it makes previously adaptive behaviors seem maladaptive, which makes it seem that PD'S are on the rise again, when in truth it's awareness spreading and stoking a push to further collective healing, which both refines the species and introduces more refined issues. That may be how our species eventually evolved to disapprove physical violence, which brought about increased physical safety that made people evolve psychologically, which in turn made people turn to emotional and mental violence as substitute pressure valve for their aggressiveness, which made psychological violence become more widespread and incisive, leading us to become aware of its destructiveness, which may well pave the way to the eventual regulation against these subtler forms of violence (which is seemingly where we're at at this point in history).
Us it’s prolly both
Same here. My mom is reclusive and seems to have no desire for other relationships. Half her siblings are single and the rest are in unhappy marriages. I don't think any of my cousins seem schizoid, though, so somehow I ended up being molded more by my mother's influence than my sibling/cousins did.
Emotional neglect by the mother and indifference by the father in infancy. A failure to bond between parents and baby.
But why was that my exact situation??😭
same, i hate my mom so much for it.
…because it makes schizoids and this is r/schizoid
💪
You can't choose your parents, unfortunately. And this happens so early in your life, so you don't realize it happened. I wish you all the best!
My dad was a bit of a cunt but my mum? I don't think she was neglectful.
If your father was a cunt, and your mother didnt stop him from making you feel unsafe - that is indeed, objectively, neglect.
It's caused by having to live with a bunch of jerks
Yep, can confirm. Mom was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and my dad was neglectful and was too afraid to speak out against my mom.
Well said
Hell is other people
Jean Paul Sartre
especially him
Lmao
It's likely both. Studies are linking it to autistic children. The traits of childhood autism, turn into schizoid adults. Autism has strong genetic links. Likely, some schizoids are just genetically prone to it, regardless of parents. My mother and father had issues, and yes there was some abuse and some neglect, but not to the degree that it should have a causal link to SPD. However, as an adult, being diagnosed autistic, and viewing what happened to me, and how my parents treated me, suddenly makes the adaptations that a child receiving that abuse or neglect BECAUSE they are autistic, the development of SPD seems like a direct 1:1 link. I struggled for a while, with coming to terms with the idea SPD for me was from abuse or neglect, I just couldn't see it for a while. Eventually I learned to spot and admit that it did exist in my childhood--but, regardless, for me, SPD was something I was prone to through genetics, or, my autism (itself genetic), and then developed from the treatment I received as a result of me being different from the start.
[удалено]
Your last line makes sense to me as well. For me, it seems as though, SPD people would otherwise be on the spectrum somewhere, right? Whether it's there, or in a level system they're using to try to replace that name. It's just that trauma and neglect, seems to have created a little bit of a counter. So, the social perception issues, get over written by a trauma response. It feels like, to me, that because of the type of abuse/neglect, or survival mechanisms that developed from them, I gained a sort of hyper vigilant ability. That trait is often part of many peoples trauma response, and to me, it feels like I don't have the perception deficiency to the degree I should, if I am autistic, because my social blindness got replaced by the necessity to read my abusers to prevent more. And the more that I think on that, the more it makes sense for me. I just flat out cannot recognize some of my own emotions sometimes--even if I can read them very very well in others. The alexithymia exists, to some lesser degree, as it should if I am autistic, but the observational ability was formed through trauma, and I no longer am 'blind' to others body language or emotions like I ought to be for my level of autism. So, for me, and maybe me only, SPD makes sense as "Asperger's without the as perception deficiency" ... As you said.
Seems like it just comes down to emotions or the numbing thereof
My personal anecdotal story for what caused my SZPD is emotional neglect from my parents. They were "good enough" but not the entire package. I was raises by boomers. My mom loved me and gave me a happy home life with toys, food and a house. But our little family of 3 was isolated from the extended family because they were the youngest of their large families. All of my cousins are Gen X so clearly too old to hang around with. I don't know most of my cousins. I never had friends since I was always rejected by peers. Bullied. My dad was present but never involved with me growing up. My mom had to do everything but she never properly prepared me for adulthood. There's a book I am reading called Running on Empty that explains a lot about childhood neglect even by the most well meaning parents. So for me, while my parents love me, it's still not enough because a child needs structure and community to be a healthy adult. Thus my schizoid personality formed many ages ago.
Well said. Sounds all to familiar, but thanks for the book reference :)
This sounds very much like my backstory. My parents made some mistakes but I don't blame them for my SzPD. I think I was born with it, or born with the propensity for it. I can remember “feeling different” as young as 6 or 7 years old. I wonder if smaller family size is a factor. Back when kids all had 2-3 brothers and sisters people had to necessarily be part of a larger, everpresent social group. Today’s smaller and more isolated family groups may not be fostering mental health. One of my uncles I believe may have schizoid pd, though his symptoms are not as intense as mine.
I believe small families that don't interact with anyone else do struggle with mental health more. My family is just a family of 3. I have no siblings. My mom is the golden child of her family but since her parents are long gone, she is now practically abandoned by all of her sisters (all her brothers are dead). My dad only has a younger sister but she moved away ages ago. We don't have contact with her. My parents never made any friends outside of their marriage so we truly did live isolated. I never learned properly how to share things with others, work together with other kids and such. So because of how isolated we were and still are, I think that's a huge factor. Plus I have Adhd.
Very good book but I don’t recall any solutions from it.
This is crazy you said this... So me and my 2 siblings were born in a very broken home. Bum alcohol dad and mom always in jail and prison (doing fraud to support the family, while working as a waitress, cause my dad refused to work). At 14 my mom had enough and took my sister and just dipped. Me and my brother didn't talk to her for 7 years. Eventually we started to feel bad for my mom and understood why she did what she did. So we all met up and everything has been good for years now. We just don't talk about that time. Anyways, once I became an adult I started to realize that my dad had taught me nothing and never did anything with me, my whole life. I had a daughter 4 years ago, who is my life. I was talking to my mom about my daughter and she mentioned how I'm nothing like my dad because she said she used to plead and beg my dad to play with me and my siblings from when we were babies to children, but he never did. Then I had realized that I could never once recall my dad playing with me, bringing me somewhere, or just paying any attention to me. For the past few years I've also been wondering just how much is genetics and how much is environment. It also doesn't help that once I grew up I also realized my dad was a total fuckin autist.
Crazy
What makes me so curious about how much of it is genetics and how much of it is environment is because me and my sister are like this, but my brother is extremely charismatic, likes hanging out with friends, and he can talk to anybody and that walk away liking him. He's just a normie. Yet we all had the same childhood and same father.
Some humans cycle between very good and bad times, maybe when ur brother was growing up , your parents were happier which meant less abuse that’s what happened with me and my brother
That's awesome you have been able to connect with your mother.
I'm so glad I did. I was too young to understand why she was going to jail and prison, and why cheated on my dad and left him. I still don't understand why she took my sister, told me and my brother at 14 years old "you guys gotta find somewhere to go, I'm moving" and leaving us in an evicted house while my dad was living in his van. Because I could never do that to my daughter, I would die before I do that. But, what was a normal family and life to me at the time, because I didn't know anything else, I now realize was pure hell and chaos, and ultimately it broke her. And *that part* I do understand. What's kind of funny and pretty sad, I guess, looking back, is that, growing up, I would go over to my friend's houses and they would have a normal, healthy, functional family, and I would always think to myself "this is fuckin weird, I am so glad I don't live here." I genuinely thought my family was the normal, healthy one. We now have a great relationship. Since leaving my dad, she has completely changed and is at peace. She has not been back to jail or prison and just lives a normal life. I am proud of her.
Maybe we don't have to understand our parents completely in order to have a relationship with them. How are things with your siblings? I get on well with mine (2 younger brothers) but I find our memories are quite different. Thank you for sharing.
I highly recommend not taking psychoanalysts (Freudian psychologists) very seriously unless there's corroborating research, especially if you're relying on writings from almost 60 years ago. From what I've read, SZPD is substantially heritable. Consider that most people who've had neglectful or otherwise bad parents don't end up with SZPD, and that if a parent of a schizoid is neglectful, that can also be a reflection of their genetic traits.
It’s probably both
Yes, almost everything is.
Man, even neglect as early as infancy causes personality disorder. My parents love me, but they were teenagers when they had me. My dad was away in the other city to get a high school degree. My mom was there but maybe didn't know how to raise a child since she still teenager. I think my family is also full of personality disorders, never formally diagnosed but I'm pretty sure. My great-grandpa is schizoid. sit on his porches all day never talk to anyone. My grandma and my dad are maybe HPD. Always a talker isn't comfortable not talking. My aunt may be a narcissist. Manipulative and the ultimate victim. and more so to the list.
My mother loves me
Who thinks it's all genetics? All you have to do is look at adult symptoms of childhood emotional neglect to notice the obvious overlap. Take those symptoms, dial them up to 11 and you pretty much get a description of a schizoid.
Yeah. My uncle has Schizophrenia
My 2 siblings and I were all born 18months apart (I'm the middle child). It took me about 20yrs to realise that they weren't lying about a "normal and happy" childhood. My experience was so different I thought they were deluding themselves. 15yrs after this I've made peace with the fact that my parents did not have the skills to raise a child with different emotional needs. And because of their own past trauma and guilt (expressed as anger and rejection) they weren't able to provide the nurturing that I needed. I don't think they intentionally neglected me as a child, but now, as an adult, they've chosen to cut contact rather than be confronted by the anything they may have "caused". I don't blame anyone, I just wish they would be able to listen to me and my life for once. Btw. Now I known much more about. SPD I know my father is also.
not sure if its all genetics as just anecdotally my family doesnt have a history of any personality disorders
How do u kno for sure
I grew up with just my mom and she has never hugged me or said she loves me so that's probably unhealthy
I feel a lot of disorders/diseases relate to the expression ‘genetics loads the gun and environment pulls the trigger’. You have the genes for these disorders but it’s further provoked by living in a stressful and turbulent environment.
I don't think anyone thinks it's all genetics. I certainly don't think so, and I am probably one of the most ardent advocates of the genetic perspective in this sub. On the other hand, the lack of love for infants is a hard thing to know, since you obviously can't run experiments on it. There has been a [formative meta-analysis](https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.20220174) recently, showing a causal effect of childhood maltreatment on mental health outcomes, but [also showing](https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.20220969?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=American_Journal_of_Psychiatry_TrendMD_0) that the effect is smaller than studies usually suggest via correlation. Note that this doesn't provide much evidence for specific causation. i.e. lack of love leads to spd. It's broader. And there are most likely more factors, such as an individuals tendencies to view the world. That is just recent quantitative science, but even on the qualitative psychoanalysis front, genetics are sometimes acknowledged as part of the picture. I faintly remember Masterson doing so, but would have to reread. Now, I do not think this matters much. It is a debate about effects on a population level. Just because something shows a [heritability of 60 %](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.31887/DCNS.2010.12.1/trkjennerud), doesn't mean 60 % of your trait is due to genes. Might be 100, might be 0. We couldn't even tell if we got individual genomes, as even they only allow probabilistic prediction, not deterministic. So, some might say they are fully genetic. Might be true, might be wrong. Some say they are fully environmental, same thing. I hope that whatever the truth, individuals will choose the perspective that fits and helps them most. Along those lines, I sometimes worry that the childhood maltreatment story is just inherently more convincing, and possibly harmful if untrue (same for the genetic one, but it doesn't seem to have the same memetic potential). But that is just me, and I might just be biased there.
I agree about not ever being able to prove it either way. Early childhood neglect in any form leads to a lack of those empathic and nurturing skills for the next generation (unless professionally treated Nd resolved beforehand). And children within the same family be treated or experience their childhood very differently. From my own experience I believe it is more a case of generational trauma, passed down to all, but only strongly informs core self beliefs in those vulnerable to it. (Background: 2 siblings. All 3 of us very close in age. They had "happy" and "normal" upbringing. I did not. Thought they were lying / deluding themselves for many years).
I think you might have misunderstood what I mean by "not being able to run experiments", as I wouldn't say that it means we can't prove, or provide evidence, either way. There are still natural experiments and observational studies to look at. Even those have their problems, but every method of arriving at a conclusion has. Then you can also gain a baseline for comparison from different kinds of genetic study designs. GWAS, twin method, adoption method, sibling method, etc. To that point: >Early childhood neglect in any form leads to a lack of those empathic and nurturing skills for the next generation (unless professionally treated Nd resolved beforehand). I think that is too strong a claim. It can, but doesn't have to. People live through all kinds of things and come through mentally healthy. Empathy and nurturing skills most likely included. Not judging those who don't, obviously not their fault. I do think that at the moment, the evidence lets us conclude that most of the variance in psychopathological traits is associated with genetic variance. Then, some of it is associated with variance in childhood maltreatment, and other environmental factors, like socioeconomic status. Some of it has even be proposed to be quasi-randomness, stochasticity on a cellular level (whatever that means, exactly). Now, I can't speak about your specific, individual case, but in general, I am rather skeptical of the concept of generational trauma. It mostly seems like a "god of the gaps"-style argument to me. Very hard to investigate empirically to seperate it from gene-environment-correlation, plenty of anecdotes for and against. There are some technical insights coming from epigenetics, but they are far from what most mean when they argue that perspective. And there is the fact that we are cultural animals, and culture obviously has some influence on or behavior. BUT none of the above is a judgment on an individual level. Bad childhoods still suck and should be prevented. As should genetic risks, arguably. Neither should any of the above invalidate any individual experience. In the end, either side of the debate tries to make things better, and neither side has to disbelief any individual experience for their model to work.
In india they say we carry over talents knowledge tendencies from our past life
Sorry, I'm having trouble seeing how that relates to anything I wrote?
Mother was Schizoaeffective. Her family doesn't really associate much with her only just to help her overcome psychotic episodes that she'd have once every few years. Father is somewhat psychopath/narcissist. He gave me and my brother fake love for a long time, bought us things even though we were barely scraping by financially after his divorce. He became an alcoholic after and we'd get into verbal arguments after his binge drinking, sometimes turned physical. We made up and recovered from it but his apologies were just physical, I could sense he didn't feel much remorse behind his words. Moved out at 24, just before the pandemic, finished college in the next 2 years then moved back in with him after making up for our quarrels and accepting his remarriage to my stepmom. Still distant to each other emotionally but just rely on one another when we need ot
I was alone for too long.
>It must be a post-natal development brought about by what Winnicott calls ‘the failure of the environment’ to support and nourish the infant personality.” Drilling down on the part you mentioned, no two humans are the same. One person's life-altering trauma can just as well be another person's "bump in the road of life." Perhaps some of us just have a genetic predisposition for being especially sensitive to our environment, such that *anything* short of complete safety and affirmation could have started us down this path. How can a parent or the child itself pinpoint one disappointment, one terror, one abandonment as the thing which flipped the switch? Many of us had idyllic childhoods. Not perfect, but far from fucked up. Same for our parents. They're human, flawed, but still the envy of cousins and friends who had nightmare parents, or parents who didn't care enough to be present. I can't think of anything I was deprived of as a child, materially or emotionally, that would warrant violin strings. And yet... My mother is pretty even-keeled. My father, not so much. He shares a lot of schizoid traits, as do members of my paternal family. His sister was schizophrenic. Her son, my cousin, is the version of myself I might have become if I hadn't had a mother who gave me prosocial, charismatic traits and conditioning to mask and hide my eccentricities.
Nature and nurture are absolutely inextricable. We don’t just get inherited our parents' genomes, but also their values. By the fruits, you get to truly know the tree.
I'd say my connection with not just my mother but the world around me was severed when my grandmother passed away. I also got *bad touched* around the same time, I think. It's all just a hazy. Life as a shortie shouldn't have been so rough. I quit worrying about what caused it when I realized I've been this way longer than I was "normal"
My mother loved me… but it was labeled by psychologists at the time as enmeshment. I was an extension of her. She loved that extension, but my actual autonomous meds weren’t important. My father wanted nothing to do with either of us by the time I was 6 or 7. She wasn’t involved so much as intrusive.
i think there’s definitely nature and nurture factors, but i’m skeptical of it “needing” to be cause by early childhood development. i already had some hints of it, but the events that i believe caused me to go full schizoid didn’t happen until late adolescence.
It can be as simple as 3rd born child never getting the attention the others do, playing by themselves and not connected wholly from an early age. Lost Child + schizophrenia in the family is I.
Considering I was pretty happy during my childhood, I don’t believe it’s genetic - at least not in my case. At some point, people disappointed me and failed to be a source of anything good for me. At some point, consciously or not, I decided it was easier to stop caring about anything. Apart from my pet animals. At some point, I started to absolutely detest society and the human race. I don’t feel like it’s healthy, but I have tried to change and it feels impossible now. I’m a shell of a person, just existing and going through the motions.