Cats and rabbits
Would reside in fancy little houses
And be dressed in shoes and hats and trousers
In a world of my own
All the flowers
Would have very extra special powers
They would sit and talk to me for hours
When I'm lonely in a world of my own
There'd be new birds
Lots of nice and friendly howdy-do birds
Everyone would have a dozen bluebirds
Within that world of my own
I could listen to a babbling brook
And hear a song that I could understand
I keep wishing it could be that way
Because my world would be a Wonderland
Recently, I've found myself reading or catching things on TV with the common topic of fantasy vs reality. Something I find intensely fascinating and a familiar theme in many of my favorite books. (Crime & Punishment by Dostoevsky, Native Son by Richard Wright, for example). Yesterday, I watched this show. I think maybe it was Hoarders or Intervention or some other program exploiting mental illness. The female on the show was a young shut-in and her room was her entire universe.
“now it’s computers and more computers
and soon everybody will have one,
3-year-olds will have computers
and everybody will know everything
about everybody else
long before they meet them.
nobody will want to meet anybody
else ever again
and everybody will be
a recluse." -Charles Bukowski
She played a lot of PC games I think and interacted online, but the border dividing reality and fantasy started to blur over time. She believed that stories she'd written or people she talked to were real and that relationships she had online, and likely exaggerated in her mind, were legitimate.
"Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced." - John Keats
Some months ago, I caught Nymphomaniac. The woman, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, wrapped her entire existence around sexual interactions and the wildly vacillating emotions caused by such. Her 'reality' was of intangible fantasies that made her feel connected to others.
I watched The Machinist last night too. Perhaps lack of socializing starts to become like a lack of sleep, if you let it. A malnourishment of the mind. Dreams become truth, certainty melts away, critical thinking and understanding become confusion; like trying to navigate on a stormy sea.
Joan Cusack plays Sheila, a pretty hardcore agoraphobic with a penchant for strap-ons, on the American version of Britain's "Shameless." Though, it comes off as an endearing quirk more than a serious sign of chemical imbalance.
It's kind of ironic that the thing one needs to stay centered is that which terrifies them most or causes the most anxiety. But what life is that of a twitchy and pacing caged animal?
"The only source of knowledge is experience." - Albert Einstein
I get that way too, though. Mostly out of laziness, but even the most banal daily activities - going to work, running errands, etc - causes one to be social enough to maintain some kind of balance, I think. I remember a time where I went two weeks without leaving my dorm room and that was enough of a glimpse of the dark cell block of my mind that I needed before attempting to reach out for help.
"People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built." - Eleanor Roosevelt
Many notable people had this very problem. Seems an even mix of creative and crazy; imaginative and insane. Ted Kaczynski vs Emily Dickinson. Henry Darger is a fine example as well.
There's a Japanese word "hikikomori" meaning to 'pull inward', but perhaps drowning is more accurate. A soul becomes hypersensitive and raw, unused to everyday interactions and those communications become puzzles, riddles; cryptic.
According to wiki:
"Schizoid personality disorder (SPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a lack of interest in social relationships, a tendency towards a solitary lifestyle, secretiveness, emotional coldness, and apathy. Affected individuals may simultaneously demonstrate a rich, elaborate and exclusively internal fantasy world.[1]"
Introversion
Guntrip described the schizoid's inner world thus: "By the very meaning of the term, the schizoid is described as cut off from the world of outer reality in an emotional sense. All this libidinal desire and striving is directed inward toward internal objects and he lives an intense inner life often revealed in an astonishing wealth and richness of fantasy and imaginative life whenever that becomes accessible to observation. Though mostly his varied fantasy life is carried on in secret, hidden away."[29] The schizoid person is so cut off from outer reality as to experience it as dangerous. It is a natural human response to turn away from sources of danger and toward sources of safety. The schizoid individual, therefore, is primarily concerned with avoiding danger and ensuring safety.[28]
Withdrawnness
Withdrawnness means detachment from the outer world, the other side of introversion. Only a small portion of schizoid individuals present with a clear and obvious timidity, reluctance, or avoidance of the external world and interpersonal relationships. Many fundamentally schizoid people present with an engaging, interactive personality style.
Such a person can appear to be available, interested, engaged and involved in interacting with others, but he or she may in reality be emotionally withdrawn and sequestered in a safe place in an internal world. Withdrawnness is a characteristic feature of schizoid pathology, but it is sometimes overt and sometimes covert. Overt withdrawnness matches the usual description of the schizoid personality, but withdrawnness is just as often a covert, hidden, internal state of the patient.
The patient's observable behavior may not accurately reflect the internal state of their mind. One should not mistake introversion for indifference, and one should not miss identifying the schizoid patient due to misinterpretation of the patient's defensive, compensatory, engaging interaction with external reality.[28]
Narcissism
Guntrip defines narcissism as "a characteristic that arises out of the predominantly interior life the schizoid lives. His love objects are all inside him and moreover he is greatly identified with them so that his libidinal attachments appear to be in himself. The question, however, is whether the intense inner life of the schizoid is due to a desire for hungry incorporation of external objects or due to withdrawal from the outer to a presumed safer inner world."[29] The need for attachment as a primary motivational force is as strong in the schizoid person as in any other human being. Because the schizoid's love objects are internal, he or she finds safety without connecting and attaching to objects in the real world.[28]
Regression
Guntrip defined regression as "Representing the fact that the schizoid person at bottom feels overwhelmed by their external world and is in flight from it both inwards and as it were backwards to the safety of the metaphorical womb."[29] Such a process of regression encompasses two different mechanisms: inward and backwards. Regression inward speaks to the magnitude of the reliance on primitive forms of fantasy and self-containment, often of an autoerotic or even objectless nature.
Would reside in fancy little houses
And be dressed in shoes and hats and trousers
In a world of my own
All the flowers
Would have very extra special powers
They would sit and talk to me for hours
When I'm lonely in a world of my own
There'd be new birds
Lots of nice and friendly howdy-do birds
Everyone would have a dozen bluebirds
Within that world of my own
I could listen to a babbling brook
And hear a song that I could understand
I keep wishing it could be that way
Because my world would be a Wonderland
Recently, I've found myself reading or catching things on TV with the common topic of fantasy vs reality. Something I find intensely fascinating and a familiar theme in many of my favorite books. (Crime & Punishment by Dostoevsky, Native Son by Richard Wright, for example). Yesterday, I watched this show. I think maybe it was Hoarders or Intervention or some other program exploiting mental illness. The female on the show was a young shut-in and her room was her entire universe.
“now it’s computers and more computers
and soon everybody will have one,
3-year-olds will have computers
and everybody will know everything
about everybody else
long before they meet them.
nobody will want to meet anybody
else ever again
and everybody will be
a recluse." -Charles Bukowski
She played a lot of PC games I think and interacted online, but the border dividing reality and fantasy started to blur over time. She believed that stories she'd written or people she talked to were real and that relationships she had online, and likely exaggerated in her mind, were legitimate.
"Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced." - John Keats
Some months ago, I caught Nymphomaniac. The woman, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, wrapped her entire existence around sexual interactions and the wildly vacillating emotions caused by such. Her 'reality' was of intangible fantasies that made her feel connected to others.
I watched The Machinist last night too. Perhaps lack of socializing starts to become like a lack of sleep, if you let it. A malnourishment of the mind. Dreams become truth, certainty melts away, critical thinking and understanding become confusion; like trying to navigate on a stormy sea.
Joan Cusack plays Sheila, a pretty hardcore agoraphobic with a penchant for strap-ons, on the American version of Britain's "Shameless." Though, it comes off as an endearing quirk more than a serious sign of chemical imbalance.
It's kind of ironic that the thing one needs to stay centered is that which terrifies them most or causes the most anxiety. But what life is that of a twitchy and pacing caged animal?
"The only source of knowledge is experience." - Albert Einstein
I get that way too, though. Mostly out of laziness, but even the most banal daily activities - going to work, running errands, etc - causes one to be social enough to maintain some kind of balance, I think. I remember a time where I went two weeks without leaving my dorm room and that was enough of a glimpse of the dark cell block of my mind that I needed before attempting to reach out for help.
"People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built." - Eleanor Roosevelt
Many notable people had this very problem. Seems an even mix of creative and crazy; imaginative and insane. Ted Kaczynski vs Emily Dickinson. Henry Darger is a fine example as well.
There's a Japanese word "hikikomori" meaning to 'pull inward', but perhaps drowning is more accurate. A soul becomes hypersensitive and raw, unused to everyday interactions and those communications become puzzles, riddles; cryptic.
According to wiki:
"Schizoid personality disorder (SPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a lack of interest in social relationships, a tendency towards a solitary lifestyle, secretiveness, emotional coldness, and apathy. Affected individuals may simultaneously demonstrate a rich, elaborate and exclusively internal fantasy world.[1]"
Introversion
Guntrip described the schizoid's inner world thus: "By the very meaning of the term, the schizoid is described as cut off from the world of outer reality in an emotional sense. All this libidinal desire and striving is directed inward toward internal objects and he lives an intense inner life often revealed in an astonishing wealth and richness of fantasy and imaginative life whenever that becomes accessible to observation. Though mostly his varied fantasy life is carried on in secret, hidden away."[29] The schizoid person is so cut off from outer reality as to experience it as dangerous. It is a natural human response to turn away from sources of danger and toward sources of safety. The schizoid individual, therefore, is primarily concerned with avoiding danger and ensuring safety.[28]
Withdrawnness
Withdrawnness means detachment from the outer world, the other side of introversion. Only a small portion of schizoid individuals present with a clear and obvious timidity, reluctance, or avoidance of the external world and interpersonal relationships. Many fundamentally schizoid people present with an engaging, interactive personality style.
Such a person can appear to be available, interested, engaged and involved in interacting with others, but he or she may in reality be emotionally withdrawn and sequestered in a safe place in an internal world. Withdrawnness is a characteristic feature of schizoid pathology, but it is sometimes overt and sometimes covert. Overt withdrawnness matches the usual description of the schizoid personality, but withdrawnness is just as often a covert, hidden, internal state of the patient.
The patient's observable behavior may not accurately reflect the internal state of their mind. One should not mistake introversion for indifference, and one should not miss identifying the schizoid patient due to misinterpretation of the patient's defensive, compensatory, engaging interaction with external reality.[28]
Narcissism
Guntrip defines narcissism as "a characteristic that arises out of the predominantly interior life the schizoid lives. His love objects are all inside him and moreover he is greatly identified with them so that his libidinal attachments appear to be in himself. The question, however, is whether the intense inner life of the schizoid is due to a desire for hungry incorporation of external objects or due to withdrawal from the outer to a presumed safer inner world."[29] The need for attachment as a primary motivational force is as strong in the schizoid person as in any other human being. Because the schizoid's love objects are internal, he or she finds safety without connecting and attaching to objects in the real world.[28]
Regression
Guntrip defined regression as "Representing the fact that the schizoid person at bottom feels overwhelmed by their external world and is in flight from it both inwards and as it were backwards to the safety of the metaphorical womb."[29] Such a process of regression encompasses two different mechanisms: inward and backwards. Regression inward speaks to the magnitude of the reliance on primitive forms of fantasy and self-containment, often of an autoerotic or even objectless nature.
