A Schizoid at Smith: How Overparenting Leads to Underachieving shares the struggles you went through growing up with parents who sabotaged you at an early age. How hard was it to put this story out in the world for people to read?

The story was many years in the making with its publication seeming inevitable. “Let it Out” (“Let it All Hang Out”, The Hombres, 1967) is daunting especially for the socially phobic. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual’s ABCs of SPD underscores “indifference to praise or criticism.” When I read reviewers’ rebukes of the book’s florid prose and disjointedness, while symptomatic, I am stung. Beyond the narrative, playlist, and template, my goal is to elevate the profile of this invisible condition with the hope of prevention or earlier intervention. My chagrin, critics, or the consternation of the cast of characters therein are incidental to a greater public service contribution. And that’s another myth, that schizoids are not supposed to care about others. Dr. Elinor Greenberg (“Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations”) has stated that they are some of the most sensitive and nice of her clients. I surmise not misanthropic but with a higher wall, a more encrusted shell. They’re operating on the ingrained assumption that intimacy will engulf/annihilate them and that supposition becomes habitual. Dr. Greenberg is clear in stating that schizoids can recover from the diagnosis (retaining traits) if they develop whole object relations. In sum, my DSM-defying and underlying altruism made it far harder not to bare all or miss the main chance.

What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?

Contrary to what I often read, I am completely convinced that schizoid personality is preventable. My classmates who have led fulfilled, successful lives came from households that provided a more stable, positive environment. My Jewish clinician intimated that our culture puts simply too much emphasis on achievement. Berating as motivating, setting adult standards, perfectionism, and preempting grappling with assignments to gain mastery are enfeebling. A child’s only defense against hypercriticism is to stop listening. So where does this leave a kid? A future filled with harassment (I wish I had a dime for how often I was castigated for not listening – I heard that!), underemployment, dependency, diffidence—well, you get the picture. My father claimed I would not do my homework so my mother did it for me. I am far too old and they are decidedly too dead to discuss it. Babies aren’t born with “a set of attitudes and coping mechanisms” (Elinor Greenberg) that would undermine taking initiative and individuating. If parents can’t deal more appropriately with their recalcitrance, seek professional intervention instead. You may be fostering suffering in your child and unwittingly becoming their lifelong financial support – spawning kids who grow old but never grow up.

Be aware that not every schizoid is in a fog and may function better vocationally than I was able to or had more insight into a career track that would have afforded more isolation. Their level of anxiety about dealing with people is the determinant for the impairment. That said, a clinician would insist that man is meant to be social and there’s greater potential for happiness (and statistically, longevity) than with this marginal life. Please understand this book is not meant as a vilification of my folks’ limitations, merely an analysis of what occurred as a means of thwarting its duplication. I loved my parents. Fortunately, we now live in more sophisticated, transparent, therapy-tolerant times.

With music from the ’60s playing such an important part in your self-preservation growing up, is there one song that you always turn to for comfort, if so what is it and why?

One song had a really humble origin as a simple housekeeping request. The London Fog’s owner asked The Doors, “When the music’s over, turn out the lights.” after they finished their live sets.
I have channeled Jimbo through many hurdles and his epitaph, KATA TON DAIMONA EAYTOY (loosely translated, “True to his own daimon or spirit guide”), became my guiding light. The upside of a dark side. Jim Morrison wrote from the position of being a “lonely, alienated person” (James Riordan in Break on Through: The Life and Death of Jim Morrison). The lyrics that most resonate with me are this epic song’s:

For the music is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
Music is your only friend
Until the end

What is one thing you hope readers take away from your story?

What is key is that the DSM delineates only the most salient camouflages. I fully believe that schizoids would want to be sociable but are relationship averse. Abuse survivors, they dread risking vulnerability and allowing others to see their true feelings. As my clinician, Selma Landisberg, suggested, they touched a hot pot, got burned, and pulled away — stunted through no fault of their own. Robert Bowers’ (The Pittsburgh Tree of Life shooter) and my SPD manifest antithetically. Readers may stereotype any mental condition as potentially violent through fear, misapprehension, or sensationalism. Dr. Park Dietz was quite clear in noting that Bowers has a “maladaptive, learned behavior,” not a mental illness.

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