Last night, I came upon the word “schizotypal.” I have come upon the word in the past, but I didn’t know exactly what it meant, so I entered it into Google and was offered up “schizotypal test.” I love tests! So I made my way to Personality Disorder Test at 4degreez.com. Given my mood, I can think lots of terrible things about myself, including that I am a psychopath, or as the test would say, that I suffer from Antisocial Personality Disorder. For the record, the way this would work is that I am such a psychopath that I have convinced myself that I have empathy for others when I really don’t. We psychopaths are so clever!
So I took the test and I am please to inform you that I am not suffering from Antisocial Personality Disorder. (Or am I?!) Because my results indicate that I am much more normal than I ever thought, I will present them:
| Disorder | Rating |
| Paranoid Personality: | Low |
| Schizoid Personality: | Low |
| Schizotypal Personality: | Low |
| Antisocial Personality: | Low |
| Borderline Personality: | Low |
| Histrionic Personality: | Moderate |
| Narcissistic Personality: | Low |
| Avoidant Personality: | Moderate |
| Dependent Personality: | Low |
| Obsessive-Compulsive: | Low |
I suspect that my results here would be a good deal worse if were in a worse place in my life. Strangely, despite the fact that I’m broke and nobody loves me, I’ve been in a really good mood this year. In fact, I dare say this is on target to be the best year of my life. And yes, I know that’s really pathetic. The strange thing is that when I got a lot of my best work done, I was miserable. And even when life was going well, I didn’t feel a general sense that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. Mostly, I’ve always felt that I was in the process of getting somewhere else. Now that’s not true. Except, I hope I am in the process of making slightly more money so that next year I can buy season tickets to the San Francisco Opera.
But enough about my function; my dysfunction is ever so much more interesting. I was surprised to see that I scored moderate on the Histrionic and Avoidant scales. This is because they are more or less opposites. (Maybe I have a split personality!) Someone suffering from Histrionic Personality Disorder needs to be at the center of attention. Someone suffering from Avoidant Personality Disorder is basically afraid of being the center of attention. That’s me! Well, not exactly. Let me explain.
I have no problem standing up in front of a thousand people and doing my thing. Actually, I relish it. But that isn’t the real world. I think the hardest thing for me is to not have someone’s attention. A common experience of mine is to be at a social function and being in the middle of a sentence and have someone turn away so I’m left talking to no one. These people who just turn away are not critics. They aren’t giving me a bad review. I simply don’t register as important enough to notice. An audience will not do that to you. Being booed is nothing compared to being a non-person.
Regardless, I believe what the test is really noticing is that I am socially awkward but also need social validation. I suspect there are a lot of people who would score like that. But I’m kind of proud to score high on histrionics. It’s a character flaw I can get behind. As for avoidant, what can I say, I’m well aware of that. Hey! Where’d you go?!
Afterword
Andrea took the test too. Man, is she messed up!
You and your quasi-scientific personality disorder test make me want to set myself on fire!
Actually, I think some of the questions are deceptive. Do I think people sometimes think badly of me? Of course and they have good reason. That doesn’t make me a paranoid schizoid mind-reader! It simply indicates that I’m not deluded so I know for a FACT that sometimes people do think I’m annoying. Take you for example.
I’d write more but my stupid fucking cat is annoying the shit out of me even though she KNOWS it’s half-an-hour until dinner from now!!
@Andrea – I’ll bet you cat is talking shit about you behind your back!
I agree: some of the questions were hard. And sometimes how I answered depended upon how I took a single word in the question. But the only thing you rated high on is OCD and that’s probably about right.
You have that same thing going on as I do but with narcissism rather than histrionic. That’s because I will, unlike you, grab a mic and never let it go.
I think your schizo ratings probably come from the OCD. I want to take it again and answer as I think a psychopath would to see what the ratings go up to. It isn’t clear. Actually, your OCD being rated high seems unreasonable. You aren’t that bad.
My take is that it was a class-skewed test. Do people say bad things behind my back? Well, they are poor, and insecure, and say bad things about everybody else behind my back, so I assume they do the same about me. Do I care? Sure. I want peace in the valley. I’ve learned through the years that it’s helpful to subsume my ego and ignore slights by others, even pat them on the back for adopting ideas I helped create. They’re people, and they feel much shittier about their low-wage lives than I do. (I hate being poor, but I blame it on a society with skewed values and my own failings, not everyone out to get me.)
So, on that test, I rated "Very High" on everything but the two schizoid categories. Sanely paranoid, I suppose? But I don’t really mind other people saying bad things about me, if it boosts their self-esteem and doesn’t impact my job. I find it rude and dishonorable, and I forbid it when they try and spread gossip about others in my direction, but it doesn’t bother me.
Lock me up now!
@JMF – Really?! You scored very high on histrionic, narcissistic, and avoidant? That makes absolutely [i]no[/i] sense! If that’s the case, all I can think is that you did not approach the test correctly. Did you get very high for antisocial too? Did you say that you did in fact like hurting small animals? You don’t have my home address, right?
I can’t stop laughing because either we really do need to lock you up, or I’ve been totally wrong about you. It is very funny. I will have to go back and revisit the test!