Loneliness in Schizoid Personality Disorder
There is a myth that I want to dispel about how schizoids never get lonely. That’s untrue.
Schizoid Personality Disorder is a name for a collection of defense mechanisms such as ghosting, oscillating in and out of relationships, withdrawal, isolation, dissociation, emotional shut down, and fantasy. And these defense mechanisms are performed to prevent feeling engulfed by others, create a feeling of safety, and to protect from loneliness (such as the fantasy defense).
Some schizoids can rarely get lonely. Those are ones who have such vivid fantasy lives that it completely replaces real life social interaction and leads to fulfillment. But there are some schizoids where this defense mechanism does not work.
I have a MEGA folder of resources on schizoid personality disorder. Books and lots of research from scientific journals all published by psychologists.
All of the texts I will be copy and pasting below are from licensed clinical psychologists who have studied this disorder for years, even decades in some cases.
Yontef says:
"To people with schizoid personality organization, real human connections are terrifying. In their fantasy life and their behavior, these individuals try to live as if in a castle on an island where they are totally safe. The main feature of this isolation is a denial of attachment and the need for other people. Of course, living that way brings on another terror – the terror of not being humanly connected."
Some schizoids go as far as to deny the need for attachment and closeness so they don’t even recognize loneliness when they feel it.
Wheeler says:
"With its one-sided focus on the schizoid’s anhedonia and blunted affect, the descriptive psychology tradition paints the portrait of a person completely unfamiliar with anger, affection, joy, or sadness. Yet, it is not that schizoid personalities are without feelings, but rather that feelings are usually channeled inward and played out within an emotionally charged fantasy life rather than being expressed outwardly. The schizoid is all too familiar with the feeling of overwhelming terror that he will fall apart, become unglued, exposed, or annihilated if his feelings were to surface. He knows what it is to experience intense hopelessness, powerless, and vulnerability interacting with others in the world. Living a life without companions, he often feels needy, deprived, unloved, and lonely. In social situations, unable to make meaningful contact, he feels rejected, unwanted, and even hated."
Most schizoids, internally, experience the same range of emotions that neurotypicals do. If one claims not to, they are either experiencing alexithymia, don’t want to admit to it for fear of being seen too vulnerable, they aren’t aware of their loneliness, are protecting themselves from loneliness through fantasy, or they are dissociated and detached from their emotions.
Laing says:
"The ‘self-conscious’ person is caught in a dilemma. He may need to be seen and recognized, in order to maintain his sense of realness and identity. Yet, at the same time, the other represents a threat to his identity and reality. One finds extremely subtle efforts expended in order to resolve this dilemma in terms of the secret inner self and the behavioral false-self systems already described. James, for instance, feels that 'other people provide me with my existence.’ On his own, he feels that he is empty and nobody. 'I can’t feel real unless there is someone there…’ Nevertheless, he cannot feel at ease with another person, because he feels as 'in danger’ with others as by himself."
Some schizoids, when alone for too long, will experience derealization and depersonalization.
Laing says:
"Other people were necessary for his existence, said James. Another patient, in the same basic dilemma, behaved in the following way: he maintained himself in isolated detachment from the world for months, living alone in a single room, existing frugally on a few savings, daydreaming. But in doing this, he began to feel he was dying inside; he was becoming more and more empty, and observed ‘a progressive impoverishment of my life mode.’ A great deal of his pride and self-esteem was implicated in thus existing on his own, but as his state of depersonalization progressed he would emerge into social life for a brief foray in order to get a 'dose’ of other people, but 'not an overdose.’ He was like an alcoholic who goes on sudden drinking orgies between dry spells, except that in his case his addiction, of which he was as frightened and ashamed as any repentent alcoholic or drug-addict, was to other people. Within a short while, he would come to feel that he was in danger of being caught up or trapped in the circle he had entered and he would withdraw again into his own isolation in a confusion of frightened hopelessness, suspicion, and shame."
This schizoid spent all day in his fantasy world. That common schizoid defense didn’t end up working so he began feeling like he was dying inside and progressively became more empty.
Doidge says:
"The schizoid person tends to alternate between two painful, complex states. On the one hand ‘there is a consuming need for object dependence but attachment threatens the schizoid with the loss of self.’ Schizoids can function well as long as they can successfully repress intense dependence. To avoid losing himself in relations he protects himself by withdrawal and affective isolation. Without meaningful relationships, with affect shut down, he feels enervated, futile, lifeless. The chronic sense of futility, meaninglessness, and deadness are easily misdiagnosed as dysthymia, depression, or minimized as mere existential anxiety."
Schizoids when lonely can go through emotional shut down and feel lifeless.
Laing says:
"The author believes that schizoid condition can be considered as an intrapsychic constellation of oversensitivity, paralysis and paradoxical conflicts (for example fear of as well as hunger for affection and intimacy) as a result of social/emotional rejection; neglect; bad influences; traumatic experience; conflicts; envy; shame; self-hate; low self-esteem (because of their failure to successful development, interactions, socialization and loneliness) rather than indifference to social interactions. An endurable combination of deep suffering and social isolation makes the schizoid development more and more persistent and deep-anchored."
The majority of schizoids do not have true indifference, those are just the lowest functioning ones who have given up on relationships altogether who feel genuinely indifferent.
Guntrip says:
On the one hand, the schizoid chooses to be alone, reveling in self-sufficiency and omnipotence, but remaining deeply lonely and empty. On the other hand, the schizoid may choose to enter relationships but then feels pulled toward symbiosis, engulfment, and servitude to the other.
Solitude in most schizoids causes loneliness and emptiness.
McWilliams says:
In some schizoid patients, loneliness and longing for friendship or love are conscious motivators for seeking therapy. These patients may be seeking relief from an isolated existence and want specifically to work on their inhibitions to social contact or dating.
Some schizoids get so lonely that therapy is sought specifically for that issue.
Reichmann and Storr say:
While schizoid personalities do not often present with issues related to depression, it should be remembered that schizoid patients are not protected from loneliness, however adept they may be at defending against these feelings. Loneliness is one of the most difficult emotions to talk about with others, and is often accompanied by hopelessness, futility, anxiety, manic states, and existential terror the longer it persists (Fromme Reichmann, 1959). Inescapable seclusion for extended periods of time is likely to lead to restlessness, panic, suggestibility, mental distress, nightmares, and even hallucinations, regardless of the individual’s comfort or preference with reclusive behavior or the quality of their mental health (Storr, 1988).
I’ve been seeing my therapist for two years and I still haven’t admitted to my therapist that I sometimes feel lonely. It was even hard for me to admit to myself because I convinced myself for so long that I didn’t need anyone.
Here is a case material from Guntrip where his schizoid patient describes how her body feels during withdrawal:
[One patient] said, ‘I feel there’s a gap in the middle of my body. There seems to be nothing between my legs and my arms and head.’ She felt that the vital heart of her was missing and she was unreal, and she commented, ‘It’s not like that dream of the women ignoring the baby. If feels as if there isn’t even anyone there at all to ignore me.’ The earlier dream expressed loneliness, the later sensation of an empty gap in her personality expressed isolation and unreality, the loss of her ego, of her sense of selfhood, in experiencing object-loss through feeling out of touch with me.
Wheeler says:
Withdrawal has a huge effect on a person’s life because of its tendency to create alienation and loneliness, and paralyze interpersonal relations. Withdrawal can be passive aggressive and conceal secret omnipotent efforts at self-control, but more frequently, is an attempt to protect the self or the other from the intensity of feelings. Usually the patient experiences withdrawal passively. It is like the feelings have been suddenly drained from the body, leaving only an empty shell to interact with others.
That’s a description of schizoid withdrawal and the alienation and loneliness it causes.
Laing says:
At the same time, the schizoid unconsciously hates and envies those who have potency, warmth, and abundance in their lives (Laing, 1960), unaware that their disdain, indifference, and disgust for others is a symptom of their own loneliness and lack of meaning.
Schizoids can easily confuse loneliness with indifference. I’ve done this in the past.
Guntrip says:
A second form of resistance in the treatment of schizoid personality is the reluctance to engage with the therapist on an emotional level. The patient is unlikely to acknowledge or express anger, longing, or loneliness, despite overwhelming evidence for these things in his dreams, behavior, and fantasy life.
Here, Guntrip describes how some schizoids are unlikely to even acknowledge the feelings of anger, longing, or loneliness.
Wheeler says:
A considerable reduction in the splitting of the needy parts of the self usually leads to greater awareness of suppressed loneliness and longing for the company of others.
Feelings of loneliness can be suppressed and can come into awareness through therapy or introspection.
Martens says:
Several psychoanalytic theorists have suggested that emotional deprivation plays a critical role in the development of schizoid personality disorder, which is characterized by an inability to form emotional attachments. As a consequence of emotional deprivation and an inability to gain security, a lack of satisfaction in interpersonal relationships, and maladaptive schema’s and associated cognitive behavior can be observed as components in attachment distortion and painful loneliness that are crucial in schizoid development.
Schizoids have been described as feeling painful loneliness due to emotional deprivation, inability to feel safe, and lack of satisfaction in relationships.
These are all quotes from peer-reviewed research studies and psychology treatment manuals. There is overwhelming evidence that schizoids do in fact experience loneliness.