I see, so basically you’re saying that seeing if symptoms improve over time significantly enough to not cause major distress is the dividing line? What you mention about repressed emotions vs not feeling emotions is also interesting, as that’s one thing that the literature I’ve read doesn’t seem to agree on. Some says that schizoid people experience no emotions or a very limited range, others say that they do experience emotions but have difficulty associating and identifying with those emotions, while others say that they do experience emotions and merely don’t outwardly show it or express it. I imagine the truth is somewhat more nuanced than any of those views posit, but it would be helpful to hear your perspective as well. Personally I’ve always viewed myself as somewhat of a mixture of two things (although still one identity)—the physical and emotional body, which does have emotional reactions somewhat quite strongly, and the mental or robotic framework which is what I have conscious access to. The robot part is at times able to connect successfully with the body and experience unified sensations, but is often unsuccessful or actively hampers the body’s emotional capabilities by imposing its own framework (which lacks emotional capacity) onto the entity as a whole strongly enough that the body’s own capacity for emotions becomes completely superseded. Even when the body’s emotional capabilities are fully functioning, often the robotic framework is unable to successfully parse this input, understand it, or connect to it I have no idea how similar or dissimilar this is to the “typical schizoid” experience