I have experienced trauma my entire life. I just got out of a very emotionally abusive relationship. I developed severe PTSD symptoms in the last few years.
I’ve always felt that maybe I don’t think like most other people I encounter. I’ve always had a hard time connecting to people and seemed to attract some really bad people into my life.
I am very self aware, probably too much so. I am usually well liked and have never really had issues with social norms or anything. I do have some other habits that make me wonder. I’ve wondered if I’m schizophrenic before but I only meet a few of the criteria. My abusive ex tried to convince me I had borderline personality disorder, which I do have some symptoms of. However, these symptoms have lessoned since I left the relationship.
I think I might have high functioning autism, but I have never been evaluated. I am fairly intelligent and self aware so I know to hide a lot of my symptoms.
Anyways, I’m just wondering what are some traits you have?
When someone is crying and venting their trauma on my shoulder and all I can think about is how nice her hair smells or I just have no reaction, even though I truly do have sympathy/empathy. For example, when my ex’s dog died, I didn’t feel anything. Part of it was because I only began dating her, but even then, I’ve cried my eyes out watching videos of people rescuing animals, sad movies and shows, but I just didn’t feel anything this time. I wanted her to feel better, but I didn’t know how. Or when I attend graduations and weddings, I just don’t feel anything.
Falling asleep when you’re bored even if you’re tired. I find myself falling asleep in church and during lectures because I have to sit still for an hour and half with no stimuli aside from listening and writing occasionally. Even on caffeine and adderall ill pass out. Though I don’t know how universal this is despite some of the docs’ claims.
I recently found out that schizoid disorder and schizophrenia are two completely different things lol. Maybe see if one or the other are more accurate to your conditions.
You might find this deep-dive on the different expressions of empathy to be interesting:
https://embrace-autism.com/the-different-types-of-empathy/