Schizoid Personality Disorder

If you have schizoid personality disorder, it’s likely that you:

• Want to be alone and do activities alone.
• Do not want or enjoy close relationships.
• Feel little if any desire for sexual relationships.
• Take pleasure in few activities, if any.
• Find it hard to express your emotions and react.
• May lack humor or not be interested in others. Or you may be cold toward others.
• May lack the drive that makes you want to reach goals.
• Do not react to praise or criticism from others.

People may view you as odd or unusual.

Schizoid personality disorder most often begins when a person is a young adult. But some symptoms might be noticed during childhood. These symptoms may make it hard to do well in school, at work, in social situations or in other areas of life. But the person may do well if the job can be done by mostly working alone.

Schizoid personality disorder and schizophrenia

Although the names may sound alike, schizoid personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder and schizophrenia spectrum disorders are all different types of mental health conditions. But they can have similar symptoms, such as not being able to make social connections or show a full range of emotions.

In contrast to schizotypal personality disorder and schizophrenia, people with schizoid personality disorder:

• Are in touch with reality.
• Are not likely to feel paranoid, hold bizarre beliefs or hallucinate.
• Make sense when speaking. Although the tone may not be lively, the content of the person’s speech is not strange or hard to follow.