And something that I forgot to mention: I know the emotions exist because they influence my behavior, but I don't feel them on the inside. In situations where it is plausible for me to have a certain emotion, other people sometimes comment that I appear happy/upset, but I don't feel the actual emotion. Sometimes, I do have recognizable emotions, but they are vague and hard to notice. Could it be that my level of awareness is so low that I don't notice my own emotions?
2. I do have a "feeling of unreality", but that is probably just caused by lack of awareness. I'm probably wrong, but my understanding is you can only get DP/DR through drug use or extreme anxiety, neither of which apply to me.
3. I'm not sure if I actually believed flat earth theory or if I just "enjoyed" thinking about it as if it were true. I don't think low-yield Schizo can be ruled out.
4. Is it possible to have a developmental disorder that reduces mental activity to an abnormal level without lowering intelligence below average? I was evaluated before and was high above average in everything except for processing speed, which was average.
About medication: Could it be possible that there is an underlying health problem causing the SCT symptoms?
https://www.ncbi.nlm...pubmed/23269197. In that case, medication would only be a temporary solution.
Thanks for replying!
1. What you're describing here is very much so something similar to DP/DR - a form of disconnect between various aspects of your personality, emotions and perception.
What the people in the reddit-post seems to describe is not as clear... it seems to me as if they are describing being somewhat emotionally subdued, and slightly depressed - Dysthymia, as it's called. I have period of this as well, when things aren't looking so good, when my SCT-symptoms become a bit too much - but I always come back from it.
It should be mentioned, that Prof. Barkley has statistical data showing that depression and depressive symptoms are a far more common comorbid diagnosis in SCT than among neurotypicals - possibly somewhat higher than among the ADHD-ers as well.
No, your awareness would not be so low - it's more likely you have something else as well, interfering with your emotions.
2. It is not clear what causes DP/DR - although anxious depression and drug-abuse are the two known states to seemingly trigger it, the etiology, the cause, is not clear. There are cases wherein none of the above seems to precipitate it, they are simply rarer.
3. Indeed. There are multiple neurodevelopmental diseases which could give similar traits.
If it turns out that you have something like Schiz, then, I would suggest you try BREXpiprazole! : ) It's the first SDAM - Serotonin Dopamine Activity Modulator (well, possibly the second, after aripiprazole) a compound used for treating Schiz, but which may have several other uses.
It's also the first officially approved antipsychotic for the treatment of Major Depression - it was also, because of its semi-stimulating properties, trialled for the treatment of ADHD, but ultimately it did not show as high of an efficacy as the other treatments available, so it was scrapped for that patient-group.
There is a fellow whom was in the trial-group for Brex, and he had similar ADHD-PI symptoms, but was possibly in reality some kind of Schiz, and hence, had such GREAT results from it, that it made him cry with joy.
4. Yes.
SCT, Idiopathic Hypersomnia, Narcolepsy and possibly something called "Low Processing Speed" - a concept, much like SCT, but wherein the patients don't have attentive problems, but are merely slow - fairly debated at the moment, as to what it is and if it's even a thing.
And yes, it's possible that there is an underlying physical condition which causes similar symptoms - the most common and easy to test for are these:
Hypothyroid
Lyme disease
Lack of minerals, most commonly:
Iron Deficiency
I've been tested for all of them, and everything came up just roses - it should be noted, these were only tested for, because I demanded and nagged my Dr's about it.
There is one more, which should be fairly easy to test for, but which often have a complex and difficult to understand reason:
Hypocortisolism
Wherein your body produces too little of the stress-hormone Cortisol. However, since I got occupational burnout, which is caused by hyper-exposure of the brain to cortisol, I didn't figure there was a need to test this... Maybe I should, just to see if my cortisol is normal these days.
BTW... when it comes to intelligence, my mind is similar to yours, I place fairly high up, among the clever ones too, but have issues with processing speed, as well as with basic arithmetic. (comorbid Dyscalculia - statistically more common among SCT-ers according to Barkley -interesting note is that DysLEXia, a related disease, is more common among ADHD-ers, but NOT dyscalculia)
If I was to guess why there are some people online with seemingly above average intelligence and SCT-symptoms, then my best guess is that it's nothing but coincidence - the ones with SCT whom would be intelligent enough to deduce that there is a problem, and what the symptoms correlate to, and then start researching cognition and neurology, to find an answer, just so happen to be intelligent.
Still, get yourself signed up for an evaluation, and then get yourself tested for Iron Deficiency, Hypothyroidism, and Lyme's Disease - then you can at least cross off a couple of things.
And you're welcome! =) I wish someone had told me more about these issues when I first started looking into it.
