Symptoms

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

• Prefer being alone and choose to do activities alone
• Don't want or enjoy close relationships
• Feel little if any desire for sexual relationships
• Feel like you can't experience pleasure
• Have difficulty expressing emotions and reacting appropriately to situations
• May seem humorless, indifferent or emotionally cold to others
• May appear to lack motivation and goals
• Don't react to praise or critical remarks from others

Schizoid personality disorder usually begins by early adulthood, though some features may be noticeable during childhood. These features may cause you to have trouble functioning well in school, a job, socially or in other areas of life. However, you may do reasonably well in your job if you mostly work alone.

Schizotypal personality disorder and schizophrenia

Although a different disorder, schizoid personality disorder can have some similar symptoms to schizotypal personality disorder and schizophrenia, such as a severely limited ability to make social connections and a lack of emotional expression. People with these disorders may be viewed as odd or eccentric.

Even though the names may sound similar, unlike schizotypal personality disorder and schizophrenia, people with schizoid personality disorder:

• Are in touch with reality, so they're unlikely to experience paranoia or hallucinations
• Make sense when they speak (although the tone may not be lively), so they don't have conversational patterns that are strange and hard to follow

When to see a doctor

People with schizoid personality disorder usually only seek treatment for a related problem, such as depression.

If someone close to you has urged you to seek help for symptoms common to schizoid personality disorder, make an appointment with a health care or mental health professional.

If you suspect a loved one may have schizoid personality disorder, gently suggest that the person seek medical attention. It might help to offer to go along to the first appointment.