A Square Peg in a Round Hole: Writing a Memoir About Schizoid Personality Disorder, I Found My Family

By Blair Sorrel, author of A Schizoid at Smith: How Overparenting Leads to Underachieving

This oddball book had a humble origin. Not the legendary cocktail napkin provenance of a famous song (Garth Brooks’ “I Got Friends in Low Places”) or a lowly toilet paper debut (Richard Berry’s “Louie, Louie”). My genre-less opus came into the world over a laminated menu at El Taller in Lawrence. What would eventually materialize was not nearly as glossy or mass market as that bill of fare.

When my homie pals treated me to lunch, it came with a hidden clause. Jared mused, “It would be a shame if you came and went without leaving something more substantial.” Elvin nodded in unison. I had heard this pitch over the years but now with increasing frequency.

Relax. There’s still time. Leos Janacek composed his best works in his late 60’s. Yet those who lived through 9/11 endured a tragic realization that time and possibility are never guaranteed. I should definitely commit words to a page and the sooner the better. But that residual self-doubt, those tenacious demons, lingered. Then again. Why squander a gift? And the most daunting imponderable of all, write what? We were still huddled over appetizers and suddenly as if possessed I disgorged my disorder. A blurting out a long-suppressed secret that shadowed me wherever I went. Those three ugly letters that detonated like a four-letter word strangulating my existence – SPD. Say what? Schizoid Personality Disorder.

Never heard of it, they grunted over mains. Neither had I. How I had struggled with that nemesis all these years. And if I could scapegoat my marginal output – SPD was the perp. Do tell.

“The best use of my writing would be to recount the daily challenges it poses.” They listened with rapt attention as I spilled out my DSM guts. And yes, they recounted its disorienting effect on our friendship. Egad! Those humiliating vignettes when I became too addled to perform with clarity even the simplest of tasks in their company. My confession moved sensitive Elvin to call Smith College. It was unanimous that villainous SPD should be exposed, unmasked, and given its long overdue public drubbing! 

Airing dirty laundry. Napoleon coined the adage (1815) upon returning from his exile in Elba.“Il faut laver son linge sale en famille,” meaning “One should wash one’s dirty linen at home.”  

What if the crux of the matter is in fact family? Poor parenting accounts for SPD so how could I not involve them and remain transparent?

Any memoir risks polarizing those mentioned unflatteringly in its narrative. And with SPD, the kin are likely to suffer along with the afflicted.

An impaired schizoid will be dependent and the parents emerge as their life long benefactors. Or worse, their dysfunctional child may in time become homeless. So what’s a private embarrassment becomes a debilitating public toll.

Still the book festered as a notional must do and pended as I pondered this duality and other ramifications this maladaptation posed.

Life is what happens to you while you‘re busy making other plans”. John Lennon appropriated this catchphrase from Allen Saunders (author of” Mike Nomad – The Arson Ring”).

Any excuse not to write was my way of filling white space. I was still too enmired in my own little world to allow the rest of the world entry. 

And then the world spun out of control in the spring of 2020. The unprecedented global pandemic forced us all into seclusion and this ‘zoid into another kind of void.

For an intimacy blocked individual, vulnerability on a page is more daunting and contemplating a comprehensive work is an overwhelming proposition. And while I am used to going it alone in most respects, I needed hand-holding.

I found my mentor in acclaimed English nonfiction author Harry Freedman on Reedsy. First he had to acclimate to my strange cerebral slant and then there were a few Brit. ling disparities. “England and America are two countries separated by the same language.”  George Bernard Shaw

A chapter a month was doable and I began to spend that surreal hiatus doing what I loved most – reliving that enshrined era.

Timelines, old movies, and imbibing that glorious music, “my special friend” that was my lifeline. If the writing wasn’t a labor of love, the research was.

Everything was shuttered. A ghost town without tumble weeds so I had to rely on my wits and Wikipedia.

Social distancing was second nature to a ‘zoid anyhow. Sheltering in place meant  finding my literary space. My voice. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I unleashed my inner expository child, “You’ve always had the power, my dear. You’ve had it all along”  Glinda the Good Witch reassured.

Jared and Elvin appear prominently in the pages as childhood cohorts and co-conspirators. If they weren’t my muse, they were now the two most beloved men in my life who stayed the course throughout my tumult. They believed in me and my writing ability long before I ever did. But commiting to that many pages is torture. My greater “fear and loathing” was plying that vintage content. Repressed memories that had tormented me for years resurrected themselves but seemed to flow seamlessly.

And then my real mission emerged.

Stop the presses.

Preventing SPD became the overriding leitmotif. Forget this Debbie Downer’s All Too Many Disturbed Days in a Life saga. No Hallmark Channel happy ending. Caveat emptor – no cure, no catharsis, no chick lit.. Yet many find it an engaging, offbeat read. Fun and educational too.

Today is Father’s Day. As always, I’m reprising Eleanor Rigby.

Were I more normal, I would probably be toasting my husband or celebrating with my kids (or OMG, grandkids). That’s how the other half lives. The preponderance of people who don’t dread other people. You see them in the jungle. Dating, mating, dotting the horizon with their giggly group gatherings. Schmoozing and boozing in backyards, beaches, or bistros become their omnipresent backdrop. Normals can be seen shaking and stirring whiling their happiest hours away. Chilling and grilling. A litany of little ones, laughter, and Instagram moments.  Another rite of passage for mainstream individuals with broods. 

Prolific card writer, I send them by the handfuls to others’ spouses envisioning their celebration to be more gregarious than mine. 

Yet I don’t feel envious or deprived. The stage was set for me in childhood. And I would have to rack my brains to recall a single, memorable Father’s Day in my youth. My clan now consists of my loyal cats and the appreciation of my cherished readers. My hard earned, extended family hews to genuine love and respect, not faulty guardianship.

*** 

Blair Sorrel is an author, innovator, and animal lover. She was Free Time’s “Dollarwise Dilettante” columnist, Together Dating Service’s matchmaker, and New York Blood Services’ apheresis recruiter. She founded StreetZaps to protect dogs and people from stray voltage, and was the first community representative invited by Con Edison to their annual Jodie S. Lane Stray Voltage Detection, Mitigation, and Prevention National Conference. Her memoir is A Schizoid at Smith: How Overparenting Leads to Underachieving. Learn more at rockingtributes.com.

A SCHIZOID AT SMITH

WHEN STRIVERS SPAWN SLACKERS.

Strange as it may seem, some status-seeking parents actually sabotage their children’s chance of success.

Early disparagement imprints lifelong low self-esteem, a social phobia impairing concentration along with a stultifying dread of authority figures. An overall shoddy rearing-style that ensures educational and professional disappointment nowhere near approximating those lofty aspirations. Genius or genes doesn’t factor so much as the fundamental influence of competent, caring guardians.

A Schizoid at Smith: How Overparenting Leads to Underachieving is a breakthrough female narrative instilling greater understanding and possible prevention of this cryptic condition. The memoir is set mostly in the 60s, the heyday of classic rock; icons appear as bit players providing the protagonist’s saving grace. Share this Seven Sister’s struggle through humor, hope, and all that stellar music, her “special friend.” Read on and perhaps you will also emerge a better person.

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Category: On Writing