Schizotypal but I love being around people and interacting with them
Hi everyone,
I recently saw my psychiatrist, who diagnosed me again with schizotypal personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. I was originally diagnosed in 2021, and then in late 2025, doctors at the hospital said I had schizophrenia instead. My psychiatrist feels it fits me better and that I experience psychosis from personality disorder related reasons and not like schizophrenia. I am currently medicated and doing really well! I have a job that i absolutely love and find extremely fulfilling, and I am doing my hobbies again after like being put on better medication.
I am having a bit of a hard time accepting my diagnosis, mostly because a lot of information on schizotypal personality disorder says that we don't really experience psychosis and I for sure do. I also feel weird about it because I am extremely extroverted! I have a job where I interact a lot with a lot of people and I love talking to people and getting to know them. I'm the type of guy who will strike up conversations with strangers easily and I don't really experience social anxiety. I used to have social anxiety when I was younger but as I have gotten older it's been a lot better. I am extremely comfortable interacting with all sorts of people and I really like being around people. For a while I was severely isolated because I live out in the middle of nowhere and didn't see my friends regularly because I moved to a different town with my dad, and my dad often worked long hours and so I spent a lot of time alone and it made me really unwell. I also make friends extremely easily and get along with people really well. I like genuinely like people.
Is anyone else like this where they don't have the social difficulties but the other aspects of this disorder like being eccentric and odd? I often talk to myself and I dress very colourful and out of the norm for guys my age, and I have a lot of like the unusual experiences and thoughts and there are times when I am genuinely in psychosis. I also struggled with paranoia before I was put on my current medication and I have a lot of unusual fears such as an evil parallel dimension from a comic book is merging with our dimension and I am very afraid of creatures such as a the rake off and on like when I'm unwell I can't even leave my house because I am so afraid of the rake but now that I'm medicated I'm not afraid of the rake. The psychiatrist who originally diagnosed me told me that i am "an exceptionally different young man" and that being different isn't always a bad thing but there are times when I genuinely struggle with this disorder.
I'm mostly making this post to see if there is anyone here who has similar experiences to me because often time I feel like I don't have this disorder due to my extroverted nature and like actual psychosis and it makes me feel really scared and bad about myself because I don't know why I am the way I am.
If you read this far, thanks for reading! I am curious to know other's experiences!