Understanding Schizoid: Breaking Stigmas and Changing Lives

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Welcome to the Human Experience, a podcast about the stories we

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live out every day and the importance of championing the vulnerability and

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courage of the storyteller. I'm your host, Jennifer Peterkin,

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and it was through my own lived story of experiencing domestic violence that

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this podcast was created. By traveling the globe and interviewing

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each guest in person, I am convinced now more than ever that

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stories have the power to change the world. Thank you for being

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here. In a world full of noise, to listen with intention is an act of

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resistance.

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People that are shy about their stories

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probably wouldn't do very well on this show.

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I would think so. I mean, sometimes people think they're being egotistical

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when they talk about themselves. But I really am talking about the issue,

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not the wonder of me. There's no wonder of me in this book.

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Well, I think too, it's a hard thing

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because we have to walk this line of not

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wanting to come off as egotistical. But our stories

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are always going to be the thing that capture our

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humanity, so they're always worth telling. Well,

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this particular condition, levels of homelessness.

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And my clinician had told me that when I was in treatment,

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and I've read it in Wikipedia, under schizoid

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personality disorder, 65% of a drop in center were

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schizoid. Wow. And I would venture

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to say they were only there because of the weather conditions. People who

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avoid contact would have to be desperate to go to a

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place like that. So it's underreported.

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I believe that. And my purpose really is public service in

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doing this, which confounds the perception of schizoids.

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We're not supposed to care about other people. Interesting. Okay.

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This is a very new subject for me, so I'm very excited to

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learn from you about it. So, Blair, thank you for

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meeting with me in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

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So good to be here with you. And I'm very excited to hear about

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you and your story, your book that you published.

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When did this actually get published? Two years ago. Two years ago.

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Okay. A schizoid at Smith. I am. And I've,

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you know, read your blurbs and everything. I am so excited that you are

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willing to sit down and talk about this, that you want to

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educate and have people learn.

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Like I just said, this is not a subject I'm super familiar

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with. So I'm very excited to hear from you and about your story.

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Well, thank you very much for having me. It's really a pleasure and

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an opportunity to educate or more importantly,

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make it a more approachable,

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understandable condition with the

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hope of preventing it, because this condition accounts for high

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levels of homelessness. 65% of a new

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York City drop in shelter were schizoid.

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And as I've said, they would likely have avoided

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that center if at all possible. So it must have been bitterly cold or

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raining torrentially or something. But the reality is

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that it can cause a disability. It did for me.

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It did for a man I know in Westchester who is an MBA who's

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now living in a homeless shelter because he could not manage his

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parents home, his expenses. He never learned basic

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life skills, and he had too much anxiety about approaching

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people for help. If you're blocked from intimacy contact,

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it has serious ramifications. Anybody listening?

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What if you went through life never going to a doctor, a preventative

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screening, you never sought guidance in legal, financial,

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any key areas you would self sabotage and it could be

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fatal. So aside from that,

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parents can become benefactors. They may be

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spawning kids who never move out, who never date, marry, who can barely

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work. These are the

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kinds of things. And of course, for the afflicted, it's a harsh life.

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It's not pleasant having people make snide

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remarks about your inability to listen as if it's

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intentional. But it could be other forms of harassment.

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You're always late, you don't think, you're weird,

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you don't fit in.

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These are observations about the symptomology of

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how people function with a phobia. If you're afraid of being among people

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and depending upon how anxious you are. I want to be careful in noting,

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however, that not every schizoid is impaired. They can

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function, they can concentrate among other people. But the kind of

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schizoid I am can't. And it became problematic to

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me first in school and of course in employment, because no employer

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is going to pay you to daydream. So what I'm trying to

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do is break the cycle. And my hope at least is

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that people will recognize the symptomology and seek intervention.

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Because I really don't want people to have the kind of life I've had.

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Yeah, yeah, incredible.

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Thank you. And I think, you know,

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hopefully breaking stigma as well, which in 2025,

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it's. It's hard that there's still so much

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stigma and so much unknown around mental health, but specifically

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some of those bigger terms like schizoid that

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we really don't understand, the layperson doesn't understand. They don't understand

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it because schizoid is going to be muddled with schizophrenia,

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which it is not they share the same prefix,

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but also because the condition itself. A person who's

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avoiding contact and blocked from intimacy is not going

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to seek intervention unless his or her circumstances become dire.

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And they could come because they're severely depressed or anxious

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or other. They would call it a comorbidity.

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So it's underreported. Clinicians will say they very seldom see this

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population. Wow. Yeah. So if

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I ask you, where does your story begin? Where would

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you start that. Well, my story began by the time I was

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five years old, when this was imprinted. And that's going back a long time.

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The observations and ostracism

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were there in childhood when I was often alone or was

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perceived by my kindergarten playmates,

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that I was different then.

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I was so impaired that they would strike at thinking

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that I didn't think, that I had a brain that I didn't use,

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that I didn't fit in generally. I even

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remember having dance lessons as a tween and just dreading

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having somebody touch me or be that close to me or that's how blocked

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I was. So it had been

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with me for a very long time, as my parents would talk about

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autism when I was a kid. And this condition

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is often mistaken for autism. But we're going

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back a very long time when there wasn't as much transparency,

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when there was even more social stigma. And my parents,

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being veterans of the greatest Generation,

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were in denial about my having a problem. There were other issues,

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my mother's health. She was exposed to radiation in Hiroshima,

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so she was physically ill throughout my childhood.

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She had cancer. So that displaced the attention

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of my family. But that notwithstanding, I don't think the focus,

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because of the generation and the times, what I'm

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happy about, it's little consequence to me, but that people

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are talking more about and that there isn't anything really wrong

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with having something. It had something that I learned as

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a defense in childhood, because what other defense does a kid have?

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If you're overwhelmed with criticism,

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disparagement, you'll stop listening.

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You'll tune out. You'll do what psychiatrists call disassociate,

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which is an escape into fantasy. But again, not every schizoid

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does that. But that's what I did. So it became

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very difficult for me to manage in school and then at

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work, and I was always in jeopardy.

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It's painful to go into corporate America and be

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asked repeatedly, why can't you focus? Because, in fact,

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I didn't really know why I couldn't focus. I didn't know that I was living

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with a phobia until it was diagnosed. And when the clinician

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saw the symptomology right away when she heard about the jobs

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and the way I spoke and did the testing.

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Schizoids often have a very stilted speech pattern because

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more of their speech comes from what they're seeing in a movie or reading in

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a book than actual vernacular.

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You can understand. Emily Dickinson

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was thought to be schizoid. Franz Kafka. Okay. That can

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fly more in their era. But now if you have to be an independent

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woman managing in a place like New York, which I think

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was a disastrous decision for me, you can

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imagine the repercussions. There are going to be 200 people waiting for your job,

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even if it's a menial job. Yeah. Yeah.

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When did you. So did you think that this

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was autism for most of your child, for your childhood and into

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your early adulthood, or did you not really put a name to what you

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were experiencing? I knew I had a lot of anxiety and depression.

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Of course it's depressing when you're chronically out of work. Sure.

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And when you're being, you know, ostracized and

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people strike at something they don't understand. Unfortunately,

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I knew I was different or I was always perceived that way.

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But like many people, we think that you'll find the right job,

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you'll find the right living situation, everything will fall into place.

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We all have those fantasies for a life. If I could just achieve all the

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tasks I need to do, my life will be. If I could lose the weight

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I need, whatever it is. Sure. We delude ourselves to

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think that there isn't something having to do with us

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and over which we need to take responsibility.

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Yeah. Had my

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father, and he did try to goad me into therapy, I wouldn't have gone.

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But when I saw that, things just never seemed to cohere

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and I was in a lot of pain, I didn't know why I

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was in a lot of pain. Then I realized

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it was something beyond and that it wasn't going to magically improve.

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Yeah. So just so

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that we have a. A full understanding or. Or as much of a full

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understanding as we can in the short time that we're together.

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What is the definition or what are the.

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What would have you diagnosed as schizoid?

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Schizoid sees themselves as loners, like loner's loner.

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They are socially indifferent.

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They prefer solitary activity.

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They might appear to be punch drunk because of

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the impairment and some of the symptomology that I'VE

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talked about, like the tardiness,

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which was chronic. Which of course, if I did try to make

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friends, became a problem. You know, you would be seen as unreliable,

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inconsiderate, self absorbed,

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little to no interest in sex or romance,

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vague about goals. I couldn't. I was able to get into Smith

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College. I could not form any kind of professional goal. I had

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difficulty making decisions, zero confidence,

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you know, even for me to write. If that book has won some,

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you know,

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semifinalist of this and that, it still doesn't,

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you know, resonate with me. I still have that residual self doubt.

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So I would say that they probably

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have extreme feelings of inferiority being around

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other people, and that the expectation is that people will

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hurt you and are best to be avoided because they were abused as

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children. That's some of the symptomology.

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I'm sure we all know somebody in our

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neighborhood community who doesn't seem to have any friends,

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never dates, never talks about relatives, may have the

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most overgrown yard on the block. Yeah,

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that's the kind of person that it is,

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and that's why they're different. And a clinician would say man is

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meant to be social and that there is greater potential

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for happiness. And my clinician in particular would say,

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well, if I got accustomed to setting boundaries with people and giving

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back when they were assaultive, I would enjoy being around people more.

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The way I learned to deal with people's rejection was to go into

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fantasy or to avoid going there, or to sit in

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the corner the whole time, just stationed

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near the buffet, as close as possible,

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getting totally bibulous. Shyness and

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social phobia aren't exactly the same thing. And she would say that shyness

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was a form of anger. But shy people will acclimate

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in time. A socially phobic person won't.

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Okay, so it's very interesting.

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I really didn't know anything about schizoid.

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And I think that, again,

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it's one of those things where ignorance keeps us

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in feelings of fear and

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maybe dislike. But when you understand something,

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or at least part of something, or you're trying to understand something,

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it's easier to connect with somebody once you

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have that understanding, of course. So I do think it's important to have

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this conversation, and I think it's wonderful that you wrote your

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book about it. Thank you. So how did you actually get diagnosed

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then? Because you. It was later in life.

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Yeah, I was in my early 30s and I

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went to William Allanson White for an outtake and I was bounced around and

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then I was Referred to a, this clinician who knew

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right away that I was schizoid. It's also called avoidant

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personality disorder.

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You know, the man that I described to you before the mba, I knew

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he was a Zoid as soon as I saw the, you know,

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MBA, 40, making 20,

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living at home, I couldn't make eye contact,

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severely anxious, no friends except me.

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You know, I saw the whole picture. And he never

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sought intervention. I think he felt

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00:16:45,880 --> 00:16:49,340
because he had the wherewithal to go on weekend trips

243
00:16:49,840 --> 00:16:53,620
and cruises that he was. And he had a secure federal

244
00:16:53,780 --> 00:16:57,340
job but that said he was

245
00:16:57,840 --> 00:17:01,180
not able to take care of himself and the blueprint was

246
00:17:01,680 --> 00:17:05,000
in place. That when his parents were gone his life went

247
00:17:05,500 --> 00:17:08,400
into shambles because he had nobody to direct him.

248
00:17:09,280 --> 00:17:12,640
A more normative or neurotypical

249
00:17:12,720 --> 00:17:16,080
person would have gone to a financial planner,

250
00:17:16,720 --> 00:17:20,839
would have put the house up for sale, would have said I

251
00:17:21,339 --> 00:17:25,360
don't really know how to manage this. Rather than kind

252
00:17:25,860 --> 00:17:29,600
of getting more and more admired and that's what can happen.

253
00:17:30,890 --> 00:17:34,970
And you know, it's very sad, but I spoke to adult protective

254
00:17:35,470 --> 00:17:39,330
services because I was worried about him. He may have the same disorder,

255
00:17:39,830 --> 00:17:42,490
but I'd like to think I'm more functional than that. Yeah.

256
00:17:43,370 --> 00:17:46,890
They said that they were going to become their. It's he and his

257
00:17:47,390 --> 00:17:51,650
sister their guardian. That this was a very well known scenario in

258
00:17:52,150 --> 00:17:55,370
Westchester. A number of people had contacted them with concern for

259
00:17:55,870 --> 00:17:59,040
their survival. Forget thriving and living the

260
00:17:59,540 --> 00:18:02,360
high life just for them to be able to manage. They didn't think they could

261
00:18:03,400 --> 00:18:07,560
and they were going to become their guardian and put them in an adult shelter.

262
00:18:08,520 --> 00:18:11,400
You can see that all of this is really preventable.

263
00:18:12,360 --> 00:18:15,920
If there are parents out there, if it repulses

264
00:18:16,420 --> 00:18:19,840
you thinking that you're going to be paying for your kids rent 50 years

265
00:18:20,340 --> 00:18:23,960
from now, listen up and take

266
00:18:24,460 --> 00:18:27,520
stock. If you are being overly critical and if they seem to

267
00:18:28,020 --> 00:18:31,780
be daydreaming, dreaming or more in fantasy than most other

268
00:18:32,280 --> 00:18:36,420
people. Yeah, because that's the road

269
00:18:37,220 --> 00:18:40,580
you're both traveling. It's going to become a synergistic thing.

270
00:18:42,420 --> 00:18:45,860
I probably would have become homeless if my father weren't a doctor

271
00:18:47,300 --> 00:18:50,820
because how could I manage that? I'd go to these places and they saw I

272
00:18:50,980 --> 00:18:54,750
could barely work and they

273
00:18:55,250 --> 00:18:57,990
liked me and they felt for me and they'd give me, you know, slack,

274
00:18:58,490 --> 00:19:02,230
cut slack. But they didn't understand why

275
00:19:02,730 --> 00:19:06,150
I couldn't work. And of course being a Smith College graduate and the moment I

276
00:19:06,650 --> 00:19:10,390
opened my trap they had high expectations of me, but I

277
00:19:10,890 --> 00:19:13,990
couldn't fulfill It. And through no fault of my own, it gave me

278
00:19:14,490 --> 00:19:18,070
a disability. And I fully believe this is preventable,

279
00:19:18,570 --> 00:19:20,510
because no baby is born with a defense.

280
00:19:22,340 --> 00:19:26,060
And had I been in an environment which was more nurturing, where there

281
00:19:26,560 --> 00:19:29,540
were equal parts acceptance and rejection and love.

282
00:19:30,500 --> 00:19:34,660
If a kid never feels loved, it will taint absolutely

283
00:19:34,740 --> 00:19:38,900
everything, and they will be all the more susceptible

284
00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:42,420
to manipulators, scammers.

285
00:19:43,540 --> 00:19:47,400
You know, there are all sorts of repercussions to this, aside from

286
00:19:47,900 --> 00:19:51,080
not going to see a doctor, which, as you get older, is crucial. Yeah,

287
00:19:51,720 --> 00:19:55,520
yeah. So think hard and fast about your parenting.

288
00:19:56,020 --> 00:20:00,000
Take stock of how your child appears. If you feel incapable,

289
00:20:00,500 --> 00:20:04,160
seek outside intervention. The irony is that we lived, like, a mile

290
00:20:04,660 --> 00:20:08,680
away from McLean Hospital, where I could have gotten the very best

291
00:20:09,400 --> 00:20:12,960
psychiatric intervention. What happened instead was that

292
00:20:13,460 --> 00:20:16,680
I didn't want to do my homework, my father said, and so my mother started

293
00:20:16,760 --> 00:20:20,340
doing it, and that completely crippled me. Oh,

294
00:20:21,780 --> 00:20:24,900
when you were at Smith? When I was a child. When you were a child.

295
00:20:25,400 --> 00:20:29,140
Gotcha. When I was at Smith, I had to start taking expository

296
00:20:29,640 --> 00:20:33,100
writing courses because I didn't know how to write. I mean, I didn't know

297
00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:38,580
how to. I didn't know how to organize my thoughts and present

298
00:20:38,740 --> 00:20:42,100
them in an expository way.

299
00:20:42,660 --> 00:20:45,380
I'm not saying I didn't have the innate ability. Sure.

300
00:20:45,860 --> 00:20:51,580
And I also had zero confidence. I would take courses that were below

301
00:20:51,660 --> 00:20:52,060
my,

302
00:20:55,340 --> 00:21:00,140
you know, below my skills. I would take jobs that were below.

303
00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:05,579
Because I so underestimated myself, even to the point before

304
00:21:06,079 --> 00:21:08,940
I went into therapy, I was temping in a design center,

305
00:21:09,900 --> 00:21:12,940
and the office manager asked me what happened to me,

306
00:21:13,740 --> 00:21:16,780
and she was very diplomatic and kind. She said,

307
00:21:16,860 --> 00:21:19,500
I think you kind of underestimate your abilities.

308
00:21:20,810 --> 00:21:23,370
So that's how lingering this imprint can be.

309
00:21:24,330 --> 00:21:28,130
It can be lifelong because unless you feel impelled

310
00:21:28,630 --> 00:21:29,530
to do something about it,

311
00:21:32,730 --> 00:21:36,810
it's not gonna get better on its own. Yeah. I mean, we see

312
00:21:37,310 --> 00:21:40,570
more and more so much talk around mental health and trauma.

313
00:21:40,730 --> 00:21:43,610
The correlation between mental health and trauma. Yeah.

314
00:21:43,850 --> 00:21:46,970
So do you believe that that is really

315
00:21:48,020 --> 00:21:51,380
how schizoid comes about in a person?

316
00:21:52,500 --> 00:21:56,620
I have read that. That's a speculation that they traumatized

317
00:21:57,120 --> 00:22:00,420
as children. And one of the schizoids,

318
00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:03,860
I think it's Arthur Anders that I quote in the book,

319
00:22:04,100 --> 00:22:06,500
said they had a pretty shaky childhood,

320
00:22:06,980 --> 00:22:10,900
which I had. I was definitely traumatized

321
00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:15,100
by the time I went to therapy, because this kept happening to

322
00:22:15,600 --> 00:22:18,660
me over and over and over again. And there's only so much a person take.

323
00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:24,080
I would be willing to wager that those homeless had

324
00:22:24,580 --> 00:22:28,360
the same kind of overload of dismissals and reject,

325
00:22:28,860 --> 00:22:32,480
and they just gave up. Yeah. It's one of those things,

326
00:22:32,980 --> 00:22:36,240
too, where I think we like to say,

327
00:22:36,740 --> 00:22:40,480
well, everybody has the same 24 hours in a day. But that's not true because

328
00:22:40,560 --> 00:22:43,360
we're all living different lives with different capabilities.

329
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:48,280
And so if we're looking at somebody's life through

330
00:22:48,780 --> 00:22:52,360
our own lens and we're not able to see that other people

331
00:22:52,520 --> 00:22:55,880
approach things differently, their brains work differently, they have

332
00:22:56,380 --> 00:23:00,440
a different past than we do, and they're all looking at that through that lens,

333
00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:06,160
then we really do have a hard time understanding other people's

334
00:23:06,660 --> 00:23:09,880
situations. Yeah. And, you know, you always hear people say

335
00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:13,500
very snidely, that the homeless don't

336
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:17,460
want to work or if they were, you know, showered,

337
00:23:17,860 --> 00:23:21,180
gave them professional clothing, that they'd be able to function.

338
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:24,820
We like to take a reductionist approach to everything.

339
00:23:25,380 --> 00:23:28,500
I mean, my father was in great denial about me.

340
00:23:29,460 --> 00:23:33,220
I asked him for help when I was in my 20s, and he was very

341
00:23:33,720 --> 00:23:36,860
dismissive that the whole thing was a lack of confidence. That is one of the

342
00:23:37,360 --> 00:23:40,310
symptoms. But it certainly wasn't just that,

343
00:23:42,150 --> 00:23:47,230
because having a child who's different or

344
00:23:47,730 --> 00:23:51,430
has some kind of neurodivergent

345
00:23:51,990 --> 00:23:55,430
is seen as failure. I think, particularly people

346
00:23:55,930 --> 00:23:59,070
of that generation who would look at any kind of mental condition as

347
00:23:59,570 --> 00:24:02,830
a character disorder, that everybody should be able to pull

348
00:24:03,330 --> 00:24:06,630
themselves up by the bootstraps. You can't really do that when you

349
00:24:07,130 --> 00:24:08,590
have none. It's like the guy in Westchester.

350
00:24:10,110 --> 00:24:13,390
He didn't have any life skills. He would visit me and I would end up

351
00:24:13,890 --> 00:24:18,110
packing his suitcase for him, bringing him to South Station

352
00:24:18,610 --> 00:24:22,310
with the hand truck, doing all the kind of coddling that he

353
00:24:22,810 --> 00:24:26,110
was used to because his parents did everything. Parents should

354
00:24:26,610 --> 00:24:29,830
want their kids to individuate and have their own lives. So they were the

355
00:24:30,330 --> 00:24:33,680
enablers, too. Yeah. And that's why I'm saying that,

356
00:24:34,180 --> 00:24:38,240
you know, if you take a more balanced approach with more acceptance

357
00:24:38,740 --> 00:24:42,240
and rejection, and that doesn't mean that you can't be critical.

358
00:24:42,740 --> 00:24:45,320
But if you're overwhelmingly critical and it's suffocating,

359
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:49,200
what's a kid going to do? I mean, I'm sure you've met

360
00:24:49,700 --> 00:24:53,320
people who were so disagreeable that you just stop listening to them. Right? Sure.

361
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:57,880
In certain social situations, you know that they're overwhelmingly

362
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:03,000
negative. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. And you tune them out. Well,

363
00:25:03,500 --> 00:25:06,640
that's what happens. Problem is that it's gonna stick. It's.

364
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:09,600
She said it was imprinted by five. Wow.

365
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:14,240
And I just remember that we went for psychological testing,

366
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:19,120
that I was disruptive in class, that there was one occasion

367
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:23,040
when the teacher slapped me because I could not descend the staircase and

368
00:25:23,540 --> 00:25:25,760
queue, which was probably hyperactivity.

369
00:25:27,340 --> 00:25:30,580
You know, it's a dual, it's a double

370
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:34,380
whammy having this for parents and their children.

371
00:25:35,980 --> 00:25:40,420
I don't think the Westchester parents really

372
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:44,340
envision that their kids would never leave home. And I think

373
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:48,260
that they would be very. They're deceased, but they'd be very disturbed

374
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:51,740
thinking about their kids circumstances. Now,

375
00:25:53,060 --> 00:25:56,820
you know, the very basic things are the most important things.

376
00:25:56,980 --> 00:26:01,620
Sure. I think it's also just such a reason

377
00:26:01,940 --> 00:26:06,500
that there needs to be clinical

378
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:10,420
help for people as well. You know, as a parent,

379
00:26:10,740 --> 00:26:13,140
you can't fix everything.

380
00:26:13,620 --> 00:26:17,100
And so, you know, like you're talking about them being enablers and

381
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:21,920
I think, you know, without judgment because I don't know them at all. But part

382
00:26:22,420 --> 00:26:26,680
of that has to be, well, you can't just

383
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:30,480
take care of their every need knowing that there's going to be

384
00:26:30,980 --> 00:26:34,000
a time when you're not there anymore. Right. And they're going to have to figure

385
00:26:34,500 --> 00:26:38,600
it out. But now they're 40, 50 years into life and

386
00:26:39,100 --> 00:26:41,240
you're making them basically start over.

387
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:46,120
Well, you know, the clinician that I saw also saw

388
00:26:46,620 --> 00:26:50,280
this man and she had told me that they infantilized

389
00:26:50,780 --> 00:26:54,320
him and that if I got together with him because it would be exhausting.

390
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:59,800
She said he was five or six emotionally and I

391
00:27:00,300 --> 00:27:03,600
should just think of it as being with a frightened child.

392
00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:08,560
So, you know, you see that as a 50 year old. Are people gonna understand

393
00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:12,440
at a party, at a bar, at a

394
00:27:12,940 --> 00:27:16,480
dating service or anything else that he's doing or is

395
00:27:16,980 --> 00:27:20,100
a woman who's a contemporary. You could have a very nurturing,

396
00:27:22,100 --> 00:27:25,580
doting type, but there are limits. Sure. People don't want

397
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:29,580
to take care of other people. They expect them to take care of themselves.

398
00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:32,420
And these people may not. Yeah,

399
00:27:32,980 --> 00:27:37,140
so. So what actually sought you or had

400
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:40,980
you seek out treatment or the diagnosis in your 30s?

401
00:27:42,180 --> 00:27:45,300
Well, I was. I had an advertising

402
00:27:45,460 --> 00:27:48,860
copywriting book that I kept working on and working, but I never

403
00:27:49,360 --> 00:27:53,000
wanted to show to anybod. I had a domestic incident

404
00:27:53,500 --> 00:27:57,400
that spooked that I opened up to a neighbor and she went berserk

405
00:27:57,900 --> 00:28:01,040
and she was drunk and kept it building up the whole night.

406
00:28:01,120 --> 00:28:04,880
And it was very frightening to me. But it just seemed like

407
00:28:05,380 --> 00:28:08,560
everything I did, I was either stagnant or

408
00:28:09,060 --> 00:28:12,160
backfired that I was in kind of a quagmire.

409
00:28:13,360 --> 00:28:16,900
And I had this book and There are

410
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:21,020
people who are willing to help me. But they also said even the

411
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:25,100
time it was taking me to produce a book, everything took me longer. Everything was

412
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:28,620
harder. It was like operating in molasses.

413
00:28:28,700 --> 00:28:32,060
Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, when I started

414
00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:36,060
this book, my writing coach, Harry Friedman, the author,

415
00:28:36,140 --> 00:28:39,620
said he thought I could do it in six months. And I thought, this man

416
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:43,700
really doesn't know me. Let's just double that

417
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:47,580
for starters. But I didn't understand. The thing is

418
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:50,680
that if you write a book or if you have a portfolio, you're going to

419
00:28:51,180 --> 00:28:54,680
have to make social contact. And that's the underlying problem,

420
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:58,200
is you can't live in a vacuum.

421
00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:04,040
There's no remote place. And then of course, she'll have contact

422
00:29:04,199 --> 00:29:08,520
with wildlife, which could be fatal. But that

423
00:29:09,020 --> 00:29:12,760
was what was undermining me. And other people would kind of say that this

424
00:29:13,260 --> 00:29:16,840
fear of people that they detected in me, that I wasn't really conscious about

425
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:21,100
how phobic I was, that a boss was boss left a

426
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:25,700
note on my desk, see me. It absolutely struck terror

427
00:29:25,940 --> 00:29:29,540
in my heart. Yeah, yeah. And how difficult

428
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:33,620
it is to operate with a phobia and how trapped I was

429
00:29:34,020 --> 00:29:38,100
and blocked. There was

430
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:42,060
a man that I was seeing and he kind of also coaxed me

431
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:45,820
to go, that he always felt that I was troubled and that he didn't want

432
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:50,100
me to sell myself short, you know, that he

433
00:29:50,180 --> 00:29:53,580
recognized my intellectual gifts and a lot of people did. And I don't mean

434
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:57,620
that immodestly, but they're useless if you're operating in

435
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:01,700
a phobia, if you can never finish anything, if you never want to present it.

436
00:30:02,180 --> 00:30:05,700
Most of Emily Dickinson, who is described as a schizoid,

437
00:30:06,420 --> 00:30:11,060
most of her work was published posthumously.

438
00:30:11,460 --> 00:30:15,640
Franz Kafka wanted his work burned, but his friend Max Brodt

439
00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:19,720
had the good judgment for us to save his work

440
00:30:20,220 --> 00:30:23,480
and publish it. But there is a kind of pattern there, you can

441
00:30:23,980 --> 00:30:27,200
see. Sure, sure. I just think

442
00:30:27,700 --> 00:30:31,800
it is pretty incredible, knowing having you describe

443
00:30:32,300 --> 00:30:36,520
this other man from Westchester and how debilitated

444
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:40,240
he is or was, and the fact that you

445
00:30:40,740 --> 00:30:44,990
were able to seek out mental

446
00:30:45,490 --> 00:30:49,070
health care. Because I will say, even as like even in

447
00:30:49,550 --> 00:30:52,910
the lesser or the more well

448
00:30:53,410 --> 00:30:56,710
known mental health afflictions such as depression or

449
00:30:57,210 --> 00:31:00,630
anxiety, even the more accepted ones, because, you know, they're more

450
00:31:01,130 --> 00:31:03,950
mainstream. Exactly. Getting.

451
00:31:04,750 --> 00:31:08,550
There are a lot of people that still don't want to go through getting

452
00:31:09,050 --> 00:31:12,510
help. There's still, you know, the stigma or the. Or they just can't

453
00:31:13,170 --> 00:31:16,490
get there, get to the actual doctor's office to get

454
00:31:16,990 --> 00:31:20,450
to help. So I do think that it's worth noting

455
00:31:20,850 --> 00:31:24,850
that you really did look for a

456
00:31:25,350 --> 00:31:28,489
way to help yourself live your

457
00:31:28,989 --> 00:31:31,890
life successfully. I did.

458
00:31:32,370 --> 00:31:36,130
But I also knew that I had such a dread of authority figures

459
00:31:36,630 --> 00:31:40,450
because of my parents. That in my mind, you know how we envision things.

460
00:31:40,950 --> 00:31:44,830
That the therapist would be wagging a fin at

461
00:31:45,330 --> 00:31:49,030
me and judging me and demeaning me. All this stuff that

462
00:31:49,530 --> 00:31:53,550
I carried over because of my family. Sure. Because of my parents.

463
00:31:53,630 --> 00:31:57,070
But my life was insufferable and I was in a lot of pain.

464
00:31:58,270 --> 00:32:00,350
So. As they all are.

465
00:32:01,470 --> 00:32:05,230
It's unfortunate that some never take their pain to that vital first

466
00:32:05,730 --> 00:32:09,390
step. Yeah. You know, steel themselves and go.

467
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:14,440
And even when I was in therapy, my clinician would tell me about

468
00:32:14,940 --> 00:32:18,520
going to an office. That it won't be so bad. The New

469
00:32:19,020 --> 00:32:22,880
York Office of Disability advised me about against going

470
00:32:23,380 --> 00:32:26,960
to offices with this. That I would be better off out and to

471
00:32:27,460 --> 00:32:30,680
get help with concentration. And they knew I could write.

472
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:34,320
But writing freelance often became free.

473
00:32:34,820 --> 00:32:36,040
It's not a livable wage.

474
00:32:37,860 --> 00:32:42,180
So again, you would probably become dependent on

475
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:46,740
your family or social assistance

476
00:32:48,340 --> 00:32:51,500
to get by. So it's best

477
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:55,300
to get to the root of this and get mastery.

478
00:32:56,500 --> 00:33:00,620
I understand most people won't become the

479
00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:04,580
CEO. And it doesn't matter to me if they marry or

480
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:08,800
date so much as that they're able to manage financially

481
00:33:09,300 --> 00:33:13,040
and not end up the way he did in a homeless shelter

482
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:17,680
or on the street or something. Cause they simply couldn't handle

483
00:33:18,180 --> 00:33:21,600
things. Was his sister diagnosed with anything as well? I've never

484
00:33:22,100 --> 00:33:25,120
met the sister. I would imagine she has issues.

485
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:30,120
But I only met him. And from the point at which he was

486
00:33:30,620 --> 00:33:34,320
admitted to a homeless shelter, that's when we kind of. He was very embarrassed,

487
00:33:35,180 --> 00:33:38,380
understandably, about his circumstances. Yeah.

488
00:33:38,780 --> 00:33:41,500
And you could look at it and say, well, he brought it on himself.

489
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:45,420
But that's looking logically and rationally, not looking

490
00:33:45,500 --> 00:33:49,580
at the emotional. That he's too terrified of interacting

491
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:53,340
with people to get the kind of intervention that

492
00:33:53,580 --> 00:33:56,780
would have prevented this from happening. Sure.

493
00:33:57,420 --> 00:34:01,180
You know, when we look at things only through a logical or rational

494
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:05,100
lens, we remove humanity from that. And that's a huge part

495
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:08,280
of how we interact with each other. And it needs to be.

496
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:12,360
It does. But, you know, we're looking at it the

497
00:34:12,860 --> 00:34:15,320
way we're looking at it empathetically.

498
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:19,480
The neurotypical person would have said to me, well,

499
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:22,280
put out your clothes at night.

500
00:34:23,720 --> 00:34:28,000
You know, set your alarm clock. All of these tidbits

501
00:34:28,500 --> 00:34:31,360
so that I could be at a job punctually. That's not going to work for

502
00:34:31,860 --> 00:34:37,120
somebody with a phobia. I could have given this guy all sorts of agency

503
00:34:37,620 --> 00:34:40,840
referrals and speak to this one. He wasn't going to do it. In fact,

504
00:34:41,340 --> 00:34:44,200
he would do most everything online to avoid direct contact.

505
00:34:45,720 --> 00:34:48,600
If somebody is seeing a nurse practitioner online,

506
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:53,200
she's not going to necessarily feel a lump or

507
00:34:53,700 --> 00:34:56,600
a thickening or the kinds of things that you need to.

508
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:00,640
Why you need to go to a doctor and have a quote, unquote physical.

509
00:35:01,140 --> 00:35:04,580
That's why it's called that. Yeah. People as

510
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:08,900
they get older who are zoids, have to realize that they're not going to be

511
00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:12,780
able to function autonomously as easily

512
00:35:13,340 --> 00:35:17,500
or if at all, because there are going to be health considerations

513
00:35:17,580 --> 00:35:20,860
and that's why it's called assisted living. Yeah.

514
00:35:21,340 --> 00:35:25,260
Do you think that people just don't believe that

515
00:35:25,500 --> 00:35:29,390
a phobia is like a real thing?

516
00:35:29,710 --> 00:35:33,350
Do you have people that are like. That can't be. It can't be as difficult

517
00:35:33,850 --> 00:35:38,030
as you're saying because you can't see it. And my experience is

518
00:35:38,530 --> 00:35:41,710
that when people can't visually see what you're struggling with,

519
00:35:42,270 --> 00:35:45,310
they struggle to understand it. I agree with that.

520
00:35:45,810 --> 00:35:49,190
I couldn't agree with that more. I think people want

521
00:35:49,690 --> 00:35:53,110
to take a reductionist approach to most things.

522
00:35:53,610 --> 00:35:57,270
That's why I'm not really a big believer, say in the Landmark forum where

523
00:35:57,770 --> 00:36:00,000
you're going to get a quick fix over a weekend.

524
00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:04,240
Therapies work and it's a long term investment.

525
00:36:06,240 --> 00:36:09,440
But this had been with me for a long time and I was still

526
00:36:09,940 --> 00:36:13,720
relatively young. As with

527
00:36:14,220 --> 00:36:17,600
anything else, the earlier it's treated. That's why I think it's a heads up to

528
00:36:18,100 --> 00:36:21,800
parents that are if this is the kind of parenting or if

529
00:36:22,300 --> 00:36:25,560
they're seeing this kind of symptomology, this could be the outcome. It happened to me,

530
00:36:26,060 --> 00:36:29,360
it happened to this guy. And I'm sure there are others. I don't know them

531
00:36:29,860 --> 00:36:33,310
personally because of course they're not going to want to know me personally.

532
00:36:33,550 --> 00:36:36,910
That's the nature of the disorder. But they

533
00:36:37,410 --> 00:36:40,790
could be really. They could be

534
00:36:41,290 --> 00:36:44,150
in for a lot of trauma and heartache. Yeah.

535
00:36:44,650 --> 00:36:47,550
Because it almost builds on itself in terms of trauma. Right.

536
00:36:48,050 --> 00:36:50,990
Like the initial incident was trauma.

537
00:36:51,470 --> 00:36:55,950
But then to be discounted

538
00:36:56,450 --> 00:37:00,130
or ignored or told that you're crazy or something

539
00:37:00,630 --> 00:37:04,410
like that is also traumatic. Yeah. If you're dealing with

540
00:37:04,910 --> 00:37:09,370
people who are insensitive or if you're not getting the right kind of insight

541
00:37:10,570 --> 00:37:13,050
and you see it as yet another rejection,

542
00:37:14,170 --> 00:37:17,890
that's what they see. They see other people are best avoided, that they're going to

543
00:37:18,390 --> 00:37:22,250
abuse, manipulate, demean, disparage, all that stuff.

544
00:37:22,570 --> 00:37:26,330
Whereas neurotypical people going into a situation look at

545
00:37:26,830 --> 00:37:30,790
it as 50% acceptance, 50% percent rejection,

546
00:37:31,750 --> 00:37:35,110
and they will deflect that more. It's just as

547
00:37:35,610 --> 00:37:38,510
I said earlier, that the clinician said,

548
00:37:39,010 --> 00:37:42,830
well, you would enjoy being around people more if you

549
00:37:43,330 --> 00:37:46,790
stood your ground and rebuffed them, rather than just going

550
00:37:47,290 --> 00:37:50,710
into fantasy or avoiding the situation altogether.

551
00:37:54,950 --> 00:37:58,150
And going into an office doesn't mean you have to be close to them.

552
00:37:59,870 --> 00:38:03,390
But I have to tell you that this family thing,

553
00:38:03,890 --> 00:38:07,390
when a company was described as being like family, that set

554
00:38:07,890 --> 00:38:11,350
a chill up my spine. Oh, interesting. Okay. You know,

555
00:38:11,850 --> 00:38:16,030
any kind of classified that build the office environment that

556
00:38:16,530 --> 00:38:19,870
way. And then people would carry on about more normal people, about how much

557
00:38:20,370 --> 00:38:24,430
they liked being in office now that we had the pandemic and more remote

558
00:38:24,930 --> 00:38:28,270
work. But I always found the office, the backbiting and stuff like that,

559
00:38:28,770 --> 00:38:31,930
the same kind of negativity that I really didn't like being

560
00:38:32,430 --> 00:38:35,450
in an office. First of all, I couldn't function, but I couldn't concentrate.

561
00:38:35,930 --> 00:38:38,650
You know, my days were numbered from day one.

562
00:38:40,650 --> 00:38:43,930
They would even interview. I can laugh about it now. They would interview

563
00:38:44,430 --> 00:38:48,050
people while I was on the job. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's how awful it

564
00:38:48,550 --> 00:38:52,250
was. That is awful. Yeah. I mean, listen, my position.

565
00:38:52,650 --> 00:38:56,650
I'm a huge fan of remote work, but for different reasons. But I

566
00:38:56,730 --> 00:38:59,770
do think that one of the things that Covid

567
00:39:00,550 --> 00:39:04,630
taught us was that we can afford to

568
00:39:06,070 --> 00:39:09,590
have people work in different ways, and it's not

569
00:39:10,090 --> 00:39:14,390
going to break down the whole company to have people in

570
00:39:14,890 --> 00:39:18,310
different environments. And so I do think that there is

571
00:39:18,550 --> 00:39:21,790
a huge case for what works

572
00:39:22,290 --> 00:39:25,630
best for you. Because some people love being in the

573
00:39:26,130 --> 00:39:29,550
office. Couldn't be me, but some

574
00:39:30,050 --> 00:39:32,990
people love it. I mean, I don't mind it when I'm around.

575
00:39:33,490 --> 00:39:36,670
I'm in the office, but I'm traveling a lot, too, so I kind of get

576
00:39:37,170 --> 00:39:40,790
the best of both worlds. Well, I don't

577
00:39:41,290 --> 00:39:44,790
think being in an office is optimum for somebody who's chronically late.

578
00:39:45,190 --> 00:39:49,270
No. Who's in fantasy. Who has zero social skills.

579
00:39:49,990 --> 00:39:53,290
And social skills in offices outweigh

580
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:57,680
job skills. Job skills can be taught, social skills can't.

581
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:01,760
Yes. So for all of those reasons, I would say

582
00:40:02,260 --> 00:40:05,360
just as the woman at the disability office told me to stay out of it.

583
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:08,800
I mean, you're dead meat. It's just a matter of time.

584
00:40:09,359 --> 00:40:12,800
Yeah. Truly. Before you are handed that proverbial pink

585
00:40:13,300 --> 00:40:17,640
slip. Yeah. It doesn't matter how well you can do the job. The next job

586
00:40:18,140 --> 00:40:20,320
will be on the stairs of a church,

587
00:40:21,440 --> 00:40:24,240
sleeping when you're not sleeping there at night.

588
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:28,920
Yeah, yeah. So how did you deal with getting

589
00:40:29,420 --> 00:40:32,360
the diagnosis? How did you feel after that? Well,

590
00:40:32,860 --> 00:40:36,760
it was kind of like having the lowdown on a terminal. It was something.

591
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:40,879
Yeah. And I was relieved to know that

592
00:40:41,379 --> 00:40:44,920
it was something beyond just lack of confidence or finding myself.

593
00:40:45,420 --> 00:40:48,520
I kept hearing about from my father with, well, if it will help you,

594
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:50,680
you're never going to find yourself with this.

595
00:40:53,460 --> 00:40:56,980
It was relief, but it was bittersweet because she had said it

596
00:40:57,480 --> 00:41:01,060
would take a long time to work through this. Yeah, it's a

597
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:05,540
character. It's a lifelong. It's an adaptation you learn. If you're 33

598
00:41:06,040 --> 00:41:09,700
and you learn this at 5, you do the math, you're going

599
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:12,420
to have probably spend as many years undoing it.

600
00:41:13,780 --> 00:41:17,300
Unless it's some of. It's just serendipity. If I happen

601
00:41:17,380 --> 00:41:20,980
to go into an environment. I did one time with

602
00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:25,080
a commercial brokerage where I was writing, and there was the boss and

603
00:41:25,580 --> 00:41:28,480
his assistant and I was very comfortable working there.

604
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:32,240
But then the guy couldn't afford to pay me. And so, you know, there were

605
00:41:32,740 --> 00:41:36,760
other ramifications, but it would depend upon

606
00:41:37,260 --> 00:41:40,600
it. But I would say corporate America isn't really going to cut a lot

607
00:41:41,100 --> 00:41:44,000
of slack for somebody who can't work as effectively.

608
00:41:44,720 --> 00:41:48,440
Sure. You know, it's all about productivity. And if that's.

609
00:41:48,750 --> 00:41:53,750
You're undermined again,

610
00:41:54,250 --> 00:41:57,630
if you are freelancing with this, aside from payment,

611
00:41:59,150 --> 00:42:03,070
meeting deadlines, getting paid is going to be more challenging.

612
00:42:03,230 --> 00:42:06,510
Anything that brings you into closer contact with other people is going to

613
00:42:07,010 --> 00:42:10,270
be daunting. Sure, sure. And it was

614
00:42:10,430 --> 00:42:14,190
pointed out to me that I was holding back in whatever I did for

615
00:42:14,690 --> 00:42:17,150
some reason. And I didn't really understand the reason was social.

616
00:42:18,220 --> 00:42:21,620
Yeah, yeah. And she would say, now there are

617
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:25,780
going to be people there. I mean, it sounds like, ludicrous. She'd have

618
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:30,940
to coach me to go to this or that situation because

619
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:34,620
for me, it was probably the people look like the bar in

620
00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:39,020
Star Wars. Hey, you know what, though? It's all.

621
00:42:39,900 --> 00:42:43,220
Just because our brains function differently doesn't mean it's

622
00:42:43,720 --> 00:42:47,180
not a valid experience. And so I'm so glad that there

623
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:51,020
are clinicians that are able to break that down and who are

624
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:55,300
able to validate hopefully those experiences. Because I can only

625
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:58,500
imagine growing up hearing that you were,

626
00:42:59,220 --> 00:43:02,900
you know, you were just like, not able to focus.

627
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:07,140
You were a daydreamer. You're a fantasizer and all of these things that carried a

628
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:11,540
negative connotation, you know, I know not on

629
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:15,830
this level, but I do know what it's like to be validated in therapy.

630
00:43:16,330 --> 00:43:19,670
To say like, yeah, this is real. What you're feeling, what you're

631
00:43:20,170 --> 00:43:23,670
experiencing. It's real. It's a real thing. Yeah, you're not messed

632
00:43:24,170 --> 00:43:27,910
up. Yeah. It's just. It's terrible

633
00:43:28,410 --> 00:43:32,310
luck, as she said. It's unfortunate, but there are far worse

634
00:43:32,810 --> 00:43:36,190
disorders. It's not psychosis. And this is a poor

635
00:43:36,690 --> 00:43:40,310
community. There are people who are so out of touch and whose circumstances

636
00:43:40,810 --> 00:43:46,100
are so harsh that you know it's

637
00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:50,900
serious because it could result in homelessness,

638
00:43:51,940 --> 00:43:56,740
lifelong dependency on parents. And because

639
00:43:56,819 --> 00:44:00,060
the parents imprinted this, I don't think they're going to be

640
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:04,260
too receptive to doing that. Yeah. So it's

641
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:08,460
like a catch 22. You're going to make yourself more dependent

642
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:12,260
on people who abused you. Yeah.

643
00:44:14,500 --> 00:44:17,700
Yeah. I mean, I started doing a lot of volunteering,

644
00:44:18,180 --> 00:44:21,140
which made me more comfortable about around people,

645
00:44:21,380 --> 00:44:25,420
but it also gave me a perspective that I wasn't terminally

646
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:29,300
ill. I was able to manage an apartment. I had cats

647
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:32,100
that I loved. I had a lot of interests.

648
00:44:32,830 --> 00:44:36,390
I mean, I'd volunteer, but I usually got there a

649
00:44:36,890 --> 00:44:40,230
few minutes late. I didn't really interact with the people too much,

650
00:44:40,730 --> 00:44:44,150
but I was there and I was productive. And the more I did it,

651
00:44:44,650 --> 00:44:47,990
the more comfortable I felt and met people who were nurturing. I was able

652
00:44:48,490 --> 00:44:51,310
to focus better. The symptomology subsided.

653
00:44:52,590 --> 00:44:55,830
So that I think was very helpful. It made

654
00:44:56,330 --> 00:44:59,750
more sense for me than just sort of moldering in an apartment. Yeah.

655
00:45:00,780 --> 00:45:04,660
And from that I was able to write a column because I found so many

656
00:45:05,160 --> 00:45:09,100
opportunities in New York City. I did the dollar wise dilettant for

657
00:45:09,600 --> 00:45:13,060
seven years. So I unearthed there

658
00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:17,020
would be film and restaurant openings, soft openings,

659
00:45:17,660 --> 00:45:21,980
hair salons that offered free cuts and color product

660
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:25,740
testing at Cosmere and Lancome. A lot of stuff that I found

661
00:45:27,050 --> 00:45:30,410
that I did. But also I would go through the Times, the home

662
00:45:30,910 --> 00:45:34,970
section, and be a volunteer for a decorator show house, which I

663
00:45:35,470 --> 00:45:39,370
loved, the Municipal Art Society. So I

664
00:45:39,870 --> 00:45:43,450
was active, like in my own way, but in a non corporate way.

665
00:45:43,530 --> 00:45:46,490
Yeah, but you're very active. Yeah.

666
00:45:46,990 --> 00:45:50,410
Yeah. You found all corners of spaces to be involved.

667
00:45:50,970 --> 00:45:54,060
That's really cool. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

668
00:45:54,560 --> 00:45:57,900
And you know, I was able to use, although I didn't do a.

669
00:45:58,460 --> 00:46:02,060
Have an advertising career, I was able to use my copywriting

670
00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:06,380
training for that column because they were done as mini Copy blocks.

671
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:09,980
Okay. And I'd find 25 leads a month in

672
00:46:10,220 --> 00:46:14,060
seven years. And there were. I did have a

673
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:18,400
readership, so that was gratifying. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah,

674
00:46:18,900 --> 00:46:22,080
it must be. Especially with, you know, everything that you had

675
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:24,880
walked through up until that point. Yeah.

676
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:27,840
So were you born in New York City?

677
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:31,200
I was born in Boston. Boston. And I grew

678
00:46:31,700 --> 00:46:34,800
up in Belmont, which is in the eastern part of the state. Okay.

679
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:38,320
And I moved to New York for a publishing job.

680
00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:40,960
Oh, okay. So I was there for many years.

681
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:45,450
And then, you know, I move back here, and it will be

682
00:46:45,950 --> 00:46:51,170
a decade next month to help somebody who's quite elderly and

683
00:46:51,890 --> 00:46:54,290
ended up in Lawrence because her son,

684
00:46:55,410 --> 00:46:59,289
actually her grandson, was a heroin addict, and he

685
00:46:59,789 --> 00:47:03,210
was in a motorcycle crash and died. So I

686
00:47:03,710 --> 00:47:07,250
came to help. His father was bipolar, to help manage

687
00:47:07,750 --> 00:47:11,130
the household, and I needed a place to live. And Lawrence is

688
00:47:11,630 --> 00:47:14,890
very easy to get around and, as I mentioned, extremely. Social service

689
00:47:15,390 --> 00:47:18,750
or. Yeah. How is that like,

690
00:47:19,070 --> 00:47:22,670
for you? Just, you know, in your opinion, to see

691
00:47:23,470 --> 00:47:26,990
a city or a town that is so focused on social

692
00:47:27,490 --> 00:47:30,830
services when it's something that you could have

693
00:47:31,330 --> 00:47:34,630
been leaning on so much more throughout your life,

694
00:47:35,130 --> 00:47:36,430
knowing what you had. You know.

695
00:47:38,750 --> 00:47:42,550
I'm very happy that there is as much social service as there

696
00:47:43,050 --> 00:47:47,560
is in. It's unfortunate that I wasn't aligned

697
00:47:48,060 --> 00:47:51,720
with it in my own life. Earlier, I survived this.

698
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:55,440
I was pretty traumatized when I went into

699
00:47:55,940 --> 00:47:59,800
treatment, but, you know,

700
00:47:59,960 --> 00:48:01,960
history doesn't have to repeat itself.

701
00:48:03,480 --> 00:48:07,400
And I felt that the trick in life was to take what had happened to

702
00:48:07,900 --> 00:48:11,930
me and break the cycle. Taylor de

703
00:48:12,430 --> 00:48:16,250
Chardin said that making something good out of something bad

704
00:48:16,750 --> 00:48:20,850
is what life is really about. And that if this were better understood,

705
00:48:21,350 --> 00:48:25,170
since it doesn't report clinically, it's rarer

706
00:48:25,670 --> 00:48:28,930
in women, and I could write, that would be

707
00:48:29,430 --> 00:48:33,330
the best use of my writing. And it's a paradox, because a

708
00:48:33,830 --> 00:48:36,150
schizoid isn't supposed to open up.

709
00:48:38,780 --> 00:48:43,020
The book is thought to break the memoir form because

710
00:48:43,520 --> 00:48:47,780
I'm writing about being intimacy blocked in

711
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:51,820
the most intimate, personal, literary genre.

712
00:48:52,059 --> 00:48:55,740
Yeah, it doesn't have a happy ending.

713
00:48:56,220 --> 00:48:59,100
It's recursive. It's nonlinear,

714
00:49:00,140 --> 00:49:03,620
actually. The form mirrors

715
00:49:03,700 --> 00:49:07,260
the thought processes, the fragmented thought processes

716
00:49:07,760 --> 00:49:13,020
of schizoid. So it's more like you

717
00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:17,020
can cohere a story, but it's not. You have to do a little bit

718
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:21,300
of work to do that. Okay. Rock stars

719
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:25,940
and the songs I love were my lifeline, and they appear throughout

720
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:30,460
the book. That was your. Was that what you kind of escaped into?

721
00:49:30,780 --> 00:49:34,460
Yes, they're emotional proxies because

722
00:49:34,960 --> 00:49:38,220
the songs, and some of the readers who are older,

723
00:49:38,460 --> 00:49:41,580
of course, grew up with this and they can hear the songs,

724
00:49:41,820 --> 00:49:45,500
but the songs replace the emotions I couldn't articulate.

725
00:49:46,620 --> 00:49:50,540
So they were my way of relating. The rock stars

726
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:54,780
are presented with their vulnerabilities, like John Lennon's mediocre report

727
00:49:54,940 --> 00:49:58,540
cards. Jim Morrison's estrangement from his.

728
00:49:58,690 --> 00:50:02,530
His admiral father. Rock.

729
00:50:03,890 --> 00:50:07,970
I don't know if you know, but his father was Rear Admiral George Stephen Morrison,

730
00:50:08,930 --> 00:50:12,530
and he was responsible for getting us into the Vietnam

731
00:50:13,030 --> 00:50:15,090
War, the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

732
00:50:15,970 --> 00:50:19,650
But he could not relate to Jim's life choices.

733
00:50:20,150 --> 00:50:24,090
He wanted a military career for him and he

734
00:50:24,590 --> 00:50:29,010
named him as Douglas McCarthy MacArthur Jim

735
00:50:29,330 --> 00:50:33,250
Douglas Morrison. So he didn't really get him either.

736
00:50:33,650 --> 00:50:34,850
But that's how they appear.

737
00:50:37,090 --> 00:50:40,850
They're not appearing as the

738
00:50:41,350 --> 00:50:44,370
lion eyes. They're appearing as more vulnerable and relatable.

739
00:50:45,650 --> 00:50:49,770
But the songs definitely speak the

740
00:50:50,270 --> 00:50:53,970
language I can't really speak. They relate for me. In other words.

741
00:50:54,520 --> 00:50:58,520
Yeah. Was that always

742
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:02,480
the way that you kind of escaped or went into fantasy

743
00:51:02,980 --> 00:51:06,320
was music. The music? Well, I mean, I was lucky. Nobody likes

744
00:51:06,820 --> 00:51:10,480
to be ill, but we lived through a wonderful musical era

745
00:51:10,980 --> 00:51:15,800
when the musicians were really talented. That music still plays now,

746
00:51:16,360 --> 00:51:19,560
and they wrote and performed a lot of their

747
00:51:20,060 --> 00:51:23,410
own stuff. So anybody of that era who grew

748
00:51:23,910 --> 00:51:27,810
up in the 60s and 70s, we may have our political differences,

749
00:51:28,310 --> 00:51:31,690
but I think they would be very unified in saying how great the music

750
00:51:32,190 --> 00:51:35,610
was. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And was

751
00:51:36,330 --> 00:51:39,610
an enshrined error. Yeah.

752
00:51:40,110 --> 00:51:43,370
I mean, I would agree with that. Not having grown up in the 60s or

753
00:51:43,870 --> 00:51:46,410
70s, but knowing a lot of the music for sure.

754
00:51:47,980 --> 00:51:51,100
So it's. You know, they're dying off now, which is sad, but.

755
00:51:52,300 --> 00:51:55,860
But they made something that lives on. Which is what I

756
00:51:56,360 --> 00:51:59,620
hope to do with this book. Yeah. You know, it will.

757
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:03,980
It will elevate the profile of SPD with the hope of preventing it

758
00:52:04,700 --> 00:52:08,540
or for the afflicted to get better treatment.

759
00:52:08,780 --> 00:52:12,380
But again, it's not just about spd. It's about any difference.

760
00:52:12,880 --> 00:52:16,950
And to understand that people who are perceived. It's different or

761
00:52:17,450 --> 00:52:20,670
in pain and to be more

762
00:52:21,170 --> 00:52:24,550
patient or understanding. They don't choose to be that way any more than the homeless

763
00:52:25,050 --> 00:52:27,910
who are sleeping outdoors. They don't want that lifestyle. Sure.

764
00:52:29,030 --> 00:52:32,190
Truly. I mean, when we actually sit down to

765
00:52:32,690 --> 00:52:35,510
think about it, nobody wants to be in that situation.

766
00:52:36,790 --> 00:52:40,470
Something happened or many things happened to

767
00:52:40,970 --> 00:52:44,390
get them there. You know, you do wonder what goes on. It's just the

768
00:52:44,890 --> 00:52:48,070
way that office manager asked me what happened to me,

769
00:52:49,350 --> 00:52:52,790
what goes on in somebody's life that they

770
00:52:53,290 --> 00:52:55,910
end up. And it happens, unfortunately, more often that we.

771
00:52:56,710 --> 00:53:01,710
It's like that horrific Debrina Kawam murder

772
00:53:02,210 --> 00:53:05,710
in the subway in New York last December. She was

773
00:53:06,210 --> 00:53:09,810
from Toms river, and if you read the Times pieces, her classmate,

774
00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:13,240
it said that she was a girl who they felt would have everything.

775
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:17,160
So they wanted to know what was she doing the subway on

776
00:53:17,660 --> 00:53:21,640
just sleeping on December 22nd. This kind of stuff

777
00:53:22,140 --> 00:53:25,640
happens, unfortunately, more often. Having the emotional

778
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:29,400
state is more important than having the iq,

779
00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:34,760
the looks, anything else. Yeah.

780
00:53:35,240 --> 00:53:39,860
Having a belief in oneself and ability to focus on is

781
00:53:40,360 --> 00:53:44,500
the fundamentally most important thing or

782
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:48,300
attribute one could have. Jim Morrison had everything but the emotional

783
00:53:48,800 --> 00:53:51,020
state. Yeah,

784
00:53:54,300 --> 00:53:57,780
I think you're right. And I think it's a great perspective for

785
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:02,220
us to think about. Because if we've never struggled

786
00:54:02,460 --> 00:54:05,310
with mental health,

787
00:54:06,020 --> 00:54:09,860
being outside of the quote unquote norm in our mental capacity,

788
00:54:10,900 --> 00:54:14,420
we can very much take for granted what that means for us and

789
00:54:14,580 --> 00:54:18,900
the privileges we already carry just by operating

790
00:54:19,400 --> 00:54:21,220
within the cultural normandy.

791
00:54:23,060 --> 00:54:26,620
But I think it's important to remember, I love what you said, that people

792
00:54:27,120 --> 00:54:30,660
that are different or that are behaving differently than you are in pain.

793
00:54:32,620 --> 00:54:35,980
Because I think once again,

794
00:54:36,860 --> 00:54:38,860
nobody wants to be on the outside.

795
00:54:39,820 --> 00:54:43,180
Nobody wants to be so.

796
00:54:43,900 --> 00:54:46,940
Othered. Yeah. Marginalized,

797
00:54:47,660 --> 00:54:51,060
vilified, made to feel like there's some

798
00:54:51,560 --> 00:54:55,820
kind of intentionality for their defense. There isn't. Have their

799
00:54:56,620 --> 00:55:00,660
good intentions backfire, not be able to work,

800
00:55:01,380 --> 00:55:02,900
not be able to self support.

801
00:55:05,140 --> 00:55:09,220
These are all things that are very difficult to

802
00:55:10,340 --> 00:55:12,740
deal with. And of course,

803
00:55:13,620 --> 00:55:17,380
in the kind of background that I had from eastern part of the state.

804
00:55:17,780 --> 00:55:21,140
When I was in high school, many of the students had parents who

805
00:55:21,640 --> 00:55:23,300
taught at Harvard and mit,

806
00:55:25,150 --> 00:55:28,430
you know, Smith College. If I were to go back there, would not understand

807
00:55:28,670 --> 00:55:30,430
why I was collecting disability.

808
00:55:33,390 --> 00:55:36,910
You know, it had nothing to do with the education I got there.

809
00:55:38,270 --> 00:55:41,590
I didn't have the emotional state and that undermined

810
00:55:42,090 --> 00:55:45,790
me repeatedly. It would be any. As long as I had this disorder,

811
00:55:46,290 --> 00:55:49,470
it didn't matter what profession or task I chose. Yeah.

812
00:55:50,030 --> 00:55:51,230
So I was trapped.

813
00:55:54,140 --> 00:55:57,660
And if people see this as courageous, I don't think that I did any.

814
00:55:58,160 --> 00:56:00,140
I think it was something that should be addressed,

815
00:56:01,900 --> 00:56:06,020
if not just for the parents, but as society. Because they're

816
00:56:06,520 --> 00:56:10,460
going to be paying the toll for people who are homeless from

817
00:56:10,960 --> 00:56:15,660
this. Yeah. You know, I do think, though, that anybody that

818
00:56:16,160 --> 00:56:20,800
is willing to be vulnerable with their story and tell

819
00:56:21,300 --> 00:56:25,040
it to other people, I do think it's an act of courage because there

820
00:56:25,540 --> 00:56:30,040
are so many of us that there

821
00:56:30,540 --> 00:56:33,120
are so many people that don't want to tell their story, and that's okay.

822
00:56:34,480 --> 00:56:38,240
But we all benefit from each other when

823
00:56:38,740 --> 00:56:42,440
we choose to share our life experiences and our triumphs and

824
00:56:42,940 --> 00:56:47,080
our failures. So I very much see it as an act of courage to be

825
00:56:47,580 --> 00:56:50,660
able to talk about your life. Thank you. Yeah.

826
00:56:51,220 --> 00:56:54,420
You know, for years people had said, you write a book.

827
00:56:54,900 --> 00:56:57,380
And I thought, what do I have to write? You know, it had been one

828
00:56:57,700 --> 00:57:00,980
failure after another. You know, I was embarrassed.

829
00:57:01,480 --> 00:57:05,259
My friends had careers and families and all

830
00:57:05,759 --> 00:57:09,620
the privileges of their Ivy League education.

831
00:57:10,100 --> 00:57:14,140
And here I was, living this really marginal. And then

832
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:18,110
I thought about it and I realized that was the story to

833
00:57:18,610 --> 00:57:19,390
tell, how this happens,

834
00:57:21,470 --> 00:57:25,430
to break open and to stop the cycle to the maximum

835
00:57:25,930 --> 00:57:29,270
extent. Yeah. Because it's just gonna keep self

836
00:57:29,770 --> 00:57:33,390
perpetuating. Absolutely. And I think too,

837
00:57:33,790 --> 00:57:37,630
I've never spoken to somebody that has been diagnosed schizoid

838
00:57:38,430 --> 00:57:42,070
or who has ever talked about schizoid. So I do think

839
00:57:42,570 --> 00:57:45,920
you're in a very important role just because

840
00:57:46,320 --> 00:57:50,080
there aren't people talking about it. And like you mentioned earlier,

841
00:57:50,480 --> 00:57:54,440
there's probably not a lot of people that are diagnosed as schizoid that

842
00:57:54,940 --> 00:57:58,160
would want to. No. Because they're conditioned to avoiding other

843
00:57:58,660 --> 00:58:01,200
people and internalizing.

844
00:58:02,240 --> 00:58:05,560
But. And I may just be very atypical of

845
00:58:06,060 --> 00:58:09,240
them, this is a problematic.

846
00:58:09,740 --> 00:58:12,760
It's a bad hand. It's a bad hand for the afflicted,

847
00:58:13,260 --> 00:58:16,700
for their families, for their teachers, for anybody who interacts with them,

848
00:58:16,860 --> 00:58:17,980
is kept waiting,

849
00:58:20,540 --> 00:58:24,260
asks them to do something, and it gets done

850
00:58:24,760 --> 00:58:27,940
haphazardly, not volitionally, but because

851
00:58:28,440 --> 00:58:32,060
they can't focus, who will end up supporting

852
00:58:36,860 --> 00:58:40,460
It's, to me, the right thing to do with the wrong

853
00:58:40,960 --> 00:58:44,600
hand. Yeah. And I don't consider it noble, but I do consider

854
00:58:44,680 --> 00:58:48,440
it a big societal. Aside from a personal problem.

855
00:58:48,600 --> 00:58:52,240
It is a pain to live with this and have to look for

856
00:58:52,740 --> 00:58:56,040
things all the time and double check.

857
00:58:56,440 --> 00:58:59,960
And I would have liked to have had

858
00:59:00,360 --> 00:59:03,640
some of the mainstream. I would have liked

859
00:59:04,140 --> 00:59:07,560
to have been able to travel. I would have liked to have been able to

860
00:59:08,720 --> 00:59:12,080
attend certain events that I couldn't. You know, it gave

861
00:59:12,580 --> 00:59:15,600
me. I was a notch above homeless. Yeah.

862
00:59:16,240 --> 00:59:19,600
There has been a very tappy kind of twist to this whole

863
00:59:20,100 --> 00:59:22,800
story, though, because the book is so musically oriented.

864
00:59:23,759 --> 00:59:27,520
A man from the music industry read it and wanted

865
00:59:28,020 --> 00:59:30,800
to meet me. So we are going to meet. So we have a kind of

866
00:59:31,300 --> 00:59:34,840
quasi romance that's amazing at this point. And I.

867
00:59:35,340 --> 00:59:38,510
Who would have thunk it? Right. I Love it. And I feel like

868
00:59:39,010 --> 00:59:42,590
that's just more encouragement to keep moving forward

869
00:59:43,090 --> 00:59:46,110
and to keep telling your story because the right people are going to hear it.

870
00:59:46,590 --> 00:59:50,110
Well, I think when I do this, I try to present myself

871
00:59:50,610 --> 00:59:53,910
as being a dignified person who isn't a threat to other people.

872
00:59:54,410 --> 00:59:58,030
It's more of a hassle and a pain for me than I really am for

873
00:59:58,530 --> 01:00:02,470
anybody else. I've become better about being punctual because I'm

874
01:00:02,970 --> 01:00:06,320
less afraid. And so the symptoms are going to subside.

875
01:00:07,280 --> 01:00:11,200
But I would say in general it's more,

876
01:00:11,700 --> 01:00:15,520
they're harmless. This is just a big headache for them and

877
01:00:16,080 --> 01:00:19,840
you know, and it's going to be lifelong unless they

878
01:00:20,340 --> 01:00:24,400
ought to and they may not have enough self. Awareness and

879
01:00:24,800 --> 01:00:28,160
our societies aren't built for people

880
01:00:28,660 --> 01:00:32,690
to function within them successfully with

881
01:00:33,170 --> 01:00:36,370
afflictions like this. Well,

882
01:00:36,930 --> 01:00:40,530
any job, even menial, you have to be able to focus.

883
01:00:41,010 --> 01:00:44,730
Sure. I just mean on a larger scale in terms of like what people

884
01:00:45,230 --> 01:00:48,610
understand about us and how we move through the world as well.

885
01:00:48,690 --> 01:00:50,930
Yeah, no, I absolutely agree with you.

886
01:00:53,170 --> 01:00:57,080
A clinician had said to me, didn't know either the condition

887
01:00:57,580 --> 01:01:00,000
had said those people are borderline insane.

888
01:01:00,880 --> 01:01:04,720
And I guess depending upon how much time they spend in fantasy,

889
01:01:04,960 --> 01:01:06,720
you could go over the deep end.

890
01:01:08,560 --> 01:01:12,520
It's like the guy that I told you in Westchester his situation was

891
01:01:13,020 --> 01:01:16,360
salvageable. Had he been willing to open up to

892
01:01:16,860 --> 01:01:17,440
people and seek help.

893
01:01:20,080 --> 01:01:23,800
People would get exasperated with me at times because they cared for me,

894
01:01:24,300 --> 01:01:27,810
but they felt I didn't take care of myself. So I've noticed

895
01:01:28,310 --> 01:01:31,890
since I've become more neurotypical that I'm doing,

896
01:01:31,970 --> 01:01:35,090
you know, going to the doctors and this, that and the other thing.

897
01:01:35,810 --> 01:01:39,650
But you can really easily imagine if you had a child

898
01:01:39,730 --> 01:01:41,330
who went through life,

899
01:01:43,010 --> 01:01:46,370
you would be always worried about the child not taking care of you.

900
01:01:46,610 --> 01:01:50,050
You'd end up caring, they'd end up living at home because you knew

901
01:01:50,550 --> 01:01:51,810
they wouldn't be able to take care of themselves.

902
01:01:54,340 --> 01:01:57,780
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that once again,

903
01:01:58,280 --> 01:02:00,020
it's hard when, you know,

904
01:02:01,860 --> 01:02:05,140
it's great that you live in an area now that is

905
01:02:05,640 --> 01:02:08,660
so socially minded, but many of our areas,

906
01:02:08,820 --> 01:02:12,740
especially rural areas, are not made for

907
01:02:13,240 --> 01:02:15,860
that necessarily outside of the,

908
01:02:16,500 --> 01:02:21,090
again, cultural norms of what we perceive as, as normal.

909
01:02:23,010 --> 01:02:26,770
Do you think that if people

910
01:02:26,930 --> 01:02:29,730
were more readily diagnosed,

911
01:02:30,770 --> 01:02:34,450
not necessarily seeking the therapies

912
01:02:34,690 --> 01:02:38,450
to get as far as you have, but even

913
01:02:38,950 --> 01:02:41,810
just diagnosed, that it would be better?

914
01:02:44,690 --> 01:02:49,630
Well, you know, there's the risk that they could be misdiagnosed and

915
01:02:50,130 --> 01:02:52,830
diagnoses are helpful but sometimes,

916
01:02:54,510 --> 01:02:58,110
well, I have anxiety or depression. It can become a defense.

917
01:02:58,270 --> 01:03:02,030
Sure. Yeah. Or a crutch in situations.

918
01:03:02,750 --> 01:03:06,510
As if I could have adopted. Well, you know, I have spd,

919
01:03:07,010 --> 01:03:11,390
so how could I possibly write a tell all memoir? But I did because

920
01:03:11,890 --> 01:03:15,200
I looked at the greater purpose of it. Yeah. So they can

921
01:03:15,700 --> 01:03:19,480
become constrictive. It depends upon how the diagnosis is

922
01:03:19,980 --> 01:03:23,480
interpreted by the afflicted and how defensive they are about

923
01:03:23,980 --> 01:03:27,200
their condition. I am very analytical by nature

924
01:03:27,700 --> 01:03:31,080
and I'm very motivated. So when I was in treatment, I also

925
01:03:31,580 --> 01:03:35,480
went to Cornell Weill I was at Columbia Presbyterian. I was

926
01:03:35,980 --> 01:03:39,560
continually seeking more help

927
01:03:40,970 --> 01:03:44,250
with whatever it was that I was under because

928
01:03:44,750 --> 01:03:47,610
I didn't want to live with it. Sure. It's a great perspective,

929
01:03:48,110 --> 01:03:51,490
really. I mean, there's two sides to every coin.

930
01:03:51,990 --> 01:03:56,010
Right. So there's pros and cons to everything. And while a

931
01:03:56,490 --> 01:04:00,130
more ready diagnosis may mean more exposure

932
01:04:00,630 --> 01:04:04,090
to something, it could also become a

933
01:04:04,590 --> 01:04:07,050
defense, as you said. Yeah. It depends upon how it.

934
01:04:08,220 --> 01:04:11,860
It's interpreted by the individual. And the individual. It's like

935
01:04:12,360 --> 01:04:16,060
anything else, weight loss or whatever, you know, your adherence

936
01:04:16,560 --> 01:04:19,980
is what's going to your willingness, your motivation to change.

937
01:04:22,860 --> 01:04:26,300
You know, it wasn't all terrible during the AIDS epidemic.

938
01:04:26,800 --> 01:04:30,700
I didn't have to worry about it. I'm good

939
01:04:32,060 --> 01:04:36,100
having that. You know, the Eleanor Rigby in me was well

940
01:04:36,600 --> 01:04:40,180
protected sexually. So there you go. I was

941
01:04:40,680 --> 01:04:44,220
able to read a lot and the reading filtered into my writing.

942
01:04:44,380 --> 01:04:47,100
So I don't want to. That was all doom and gloom.

943
01:04:48,460 --> 01:04:52,300
I'm always good at recycling. I was able to use my copywriting and that

944
01:04:52,380 --> 01:04:56,540
Delaware still attente. So it's always

945
01:04:56,620 --> 01:05:00,180
best if, whenever possible, you can take anything bad and turn it

946
01:05:00,680 --> 01:05:03,160
into something good. Yeah, I agree.

947
01:05:05,230 --> 01:05:08,550
And you like being here in Lawrence now? I do. I've been

948
01:05:09,050 --> 01:05:12,990
here for a decade. The buses run free. There are a lot of amenities.

949
01:05:13,390 --> 01:05:16,870
People tend to look out for one another. There's enough

950
01:05:17,370 --> 01:05:21,630
to do. There are a couple of art centers. There's El Taire, the bookstore

951
01:05:21,870 --> 01:05:25,430
Cafe on Essex street, which is kind of a funky

952
01:05:25,930 --> 01:05:29,750
place. That's where this book actually was born. Because I was with my childhood

953
01:05:30,250 --> 01:05:33,550
friends who appear in the book, and they kept asking me, when are

954
01:05:34,050 --> 01:05:37,760
you going to write a book? And I began to talk about this and they

955
01:05:38,260 --> 01:05:41,760
didn't know that I had been diagnosed. And Eliot or Elvin

956
01:05:42,260 --> 01:05:46,680
in the book was so moved, he called Smith College about

957
01:05:47,180 --> 01:05:50,639
this. And then the pandemic gave me

958
01:05:51,139 --> 01:05:54,440
the window of opportunity. Of course, social distancing came

959
01:05:54,940 --> 01:05:58,120
naturally. And being sequestered didn't struggle.

960
01:05:58,620 --> 01:06:02,360
And I wrote a chapter a month and everything was shuttered, including this library.

961
01:06:03,440 --> 01:06:07,280
So I relied on my wits in Wikipedia and

962
01:06:07,780 --> 01:06:11,000
the rest, as they say, is history. I'm just really hoping it does the trick

963
01:06:11,500 --> 01:06:15,200
and helps people. And if you read the dsm, I'm not supposed to care

964
01:06:15,700 --> 01:06:18,960
about it. So we can't always stereotype by disorders either.

965
01:06:22,640 --> 01:06:26,280
I lived with it. It impacted on me in ways I wish

966
01:06:26,780 --> 01:06:31,150
it had. And then again, as I said before, there were

967
01:06:31,650 --> 01:06:33,630
some positive. Sure, sure.

968
01:06:34,990 --> 01:06:39,590
Yeah. I think that's an extremely balanced take or

969
01:06:40,090 --> 01:06:43,830
view to have of your life, which is always a great place to stand

970
01:06:44,330 --> 01:06:47,470
and very self aware. But yeah,

971
01:06:47,970 --> 01:06:51,430
I think that it's

972
01:06:51,930 --> 01:06:55,790
a gifting that kind of allowed.

973
01:06:56,030 --> 01:06:59,590
But you know, your. Your whole trajectory kind of set

974
01:07:00,090 --> 01:07:03,710
you up to write this book in a lot of ways. Between the copywriting and

975
01:07:04,350 --> 01:07:08,190
the COVID situation and the being

976
01:07:08,690 --> 01:07:12,350
able to kind of embrace that and run

977
01:07:12,850 --> 01:07:16,270
with it, I think is great. A lot of us did not

978
01:07:16,770 --> 01:07:19,870
as many productive things during the pandemic. So yeah,

979
01:07:20,030 --> 01:07:23,430
I mean, you know, as I said, I was always motivated and

980
01:07:23,930 --> 01:07:27,360
that that confounds what the perception of

981
01:07:27,860 --> 01:07:32,320
zoids tend to be as unmotivated. But the underlying for being unmotivated

982
01:07:32,820 --> 01:07:36,120
is that being motivated for what and that's going to put you in closer relation

983
01:07:36,620 --> 01:07:40,600
to people just as having more of an ability to make decisions

984
01:07:41,100 --> 01:07:45,120
or goals will do the same. So they strike at

985
01:07:45,620 --> 01:07:48,960
what is a superficial. Anything that's going to put

986
01:07:49,460 --> 01:07:53,090
you sure closer is going to be daunting. That makes

987
01:07:53,590 --> 01:07:57,210
sense. But I also had. I had a strong social service.

988
01:08:01,690 --> 01:08:05,090
Spirit and I felt that this

989
01:08:05,590 --> 01:08:09,370
was really troubling and

990
01:08:09,870 --> 01:08:13,650
should be prevented. So I was a strong believer in what the mission of

991
01:08:14,150 --> 01:08:17,560
what I was doing was. Yeah, of course I

992
01:08:18,060 --> 01:08:21,080
enjoyed having the music I loved,

993
01:08:22,920 --> 01:08:26,520
but I really was more important about elevating

994
01:08:27,020 --> 01:08:30,480
the profile of this so it doesn't keep slipping

995
01:08:30,980 --> 01:08:33,400
through the cracks. Yeah.

996
01:08:34,440 --> 01:08:37,840
Wonderful. Thank you. So what's next for

997
01:08:38,340 --> 01:08:42,000
you? Do you have anything on your plans? I've been writing

998
01:08:42,500 --> 01:08:46,880
lyrics. I wrote some lyrics and I've been writing a lot about SPD

999
01:08:47,920 --> 01:08:51,440
and I'd love to write another oddball book.

1000
01:08:52,160 --> 01:08:54,960
Nice. I'm really hoping that it gets adapted.

1001
01:08:55,440 --> 01:08:58,960
That would be after that Hollywood Digest. That would be.

1002
01:08:59,460 --> 01:09:02,880
And then I would take a whack at that. Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna

1003
01:09:03,380 --> 01:09:05,360
write a sequel to this because actually I think the.

1004
01:09:06,890 --> 01:09:10,610
I don't have any additional insights unless people have particular questions for

1005
01:09:11,110 --> 01:09:14,690
me and I'm always happy to field them. But I think there's something

1006
01:09:15,190 --> 01:09:18,930
down the road for me. Oh, I imagine I can't see this

1007
01:09:19,430 --> 01:09:23,210
being it for you for sure after how far hard you've fought

1008
01:09:23,290 --> 01:09:26,170
to get here. Because you have. I mean it is.

1009
01:09:26,890 --> 01:09:30,650
You've worked against the

1010
01:09:31,530 --> 01:09:35,050
current in a lot of ways to get where you to arrive where

1011
01:09:35,550 --> 01:09:37,930
you have. And were my clinicians still alive,

1012
01:09:38,549 --> 01:09:41,789
elderly when I began to see her, she would have advised

1013
01:09:42,289 --> 01:09:44,549
me against saying anything about any of this.

1014
01:09:45,909 --> 01:09:48,149
So I mean, why?

1015
01:09:48,789 --> 01:09:52,909
Well, because of the stigma. Even talking about there

1016
01:09:53,409 --> 01:09:57,229
are schizoids who post on Quora and Reddit and they say

1017
01:09:57,729 --> 01:10:01,469
they never talk about it, they don't want to

1018
01:10:01,969 --> 01:10:05,709
live with the stigma. But also I think the underlying for them is

1019
01:10:06,209 --> 01:10:09,310
they're not socially minded. Yeah, sure.

1020
01:10:09,550 --> 01:10:13,710
You know they don't. That is the stereotype of a schizoid is

1021
01:10:14,210 --> 01:10:18,430
that they don't care. So if I'm an unconventional schizoid,

1022
01:10:18,930 --> 01:10:22,430
so be it. There's enough in that book that suggests that there is a

1023
01:10:22,930 --> 01:10:26,830
Zoid way of writing and looking at the world. So you know.

1024
01:10:26,990 --> 01:10:30,430
Well, like you said before, it's a spectrum. Right. And not everybody

1025
01:10:30,930 --> 01:10:34,390
has. It is a spectrum. I would not have ended up in

1026
01:10:34,890 --> 01:10:39,070
a homeless shelter. So that's the way. Although that individual

1027
01:10:39,570 --> 01:10:43,390
had a federal job for years, so he was able to sustain himself

1028
01:10:44,110 --> 01:10:46,990
in a job situation and I couldn't.

1029
01:10:48,190 --> 01:10:51,710
So things do impact on people differently. The main thing is

1030
01:10:52,210 --> 01:10:55,510
that people are in pain, whether it's this, that or the other thing. They don't

1031
01:10:56,010 --> 01:10:59,790
choose to live with any of this stuff. Yeah, yep, that makes

1032
01:11:00,290 --> 01:11:01,630
sense. And to help them,

1033
01:11:03,470 --> 01:11:07,230
not enable them, but do help them be patient and realize

1034
01:11:07,730 --> 01:11:10,990
and don't strike at it. Yeah, Just goad them to do the

1035
01:11:11,490 --> 01:11:13,950
next best thing for themselves and for yourself. Sure.

1036
01:11:14,510 --> 01:11:17,989
In society. The next best thing.

1037
01:11:18,489 --> 01:11:20,190
Absolutely. It's all we can do.

1038
01:11:22,990 --> 01:11:26,510
So I have a question that I ask everybody at the end of each episode,

1039
01:11:27,010 --> 01:11:28,990
which is through the lens of your experience.

1040
01:11:29,940 --> 01:11:31,780
What does compassion mean to you?

1041
01:11:33,460 --> 01:11:37,380
Compassion to me is mostly about stepping outside oneself.

1042
01:11:38,420 --> 01:11:42,740
And one of the things that was always reported to me was

1043
01:11:43,240 --> 01:11:44,980
that I always thought of the other person first.

1044
01:11:46,820 --> 01:11:50,020
I was very self absorbed as a schizoid, but I still

1045
01:11:50,520 --> 01:11:54,820
had that altruistic. So to me it's.

1046
01:11:56,190 --> 01:12:01,150
It means actually with pain. Literally or

1047
01:12:01,650 --> 01:12:06,310
I feel your pain. I'm asking people to realize that Zoids

1048
01:12:06,810 --> 01:12:10,750
are in pain, but so are other people of neurodivergent

1049
01:12:11,250 --> 01:12:14,790
and help them and you can emerge a better

1050
01:12:15,290 --> 01:12:18,830
person. It's a mutual dynamic.

1051
01:12:19,870 --> 01:12:23,470
Absolutely. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you

1052
01:12:23,970 --> 01:12:27,910
for your insight and your candor. I do really appreciate it.

1053
01:12:28,410 --> 01:12:31,870
And we'll have links to your book and any

1054
01:12:31,950 --> 01:12:35,110
website or anything like that in the show notes so people know where to

1055
01:12:35,610 --> 01:12:37,790
find you. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Jennifer.

1056
01:12:40,990 --> 01:12:44,870
Thank you for listening to the human experience. Everyone has

1057
01:12:45,370 --> 01:12:48,160
a story and I'd love to hear hear yours. So be sure to check out

1058
01:12:48,660 --> 01:12:52,080
the show notes for more information about how to stay in touch. Do good

1059
01:12:52,580 --> 01:12:53,080
and love well.