After perusing some posts, I feel like I can relate to many of the posters. This is going to be a bit long and winded because I just want to throw everything out there. Since I was little I felt out of place. I had difficulties understanding people when they talked with me. I would pronounce words wrong; there's a place called Oak Hills and for the longest time I kept referring to it as O Q. I had to go to a speech therapy class when I was in kindergarten. I excelled in most classes and was labelled gifted. I never had many friends and I did not understand why it was so easy for some kids to make friends. I always tended to have a one best friend that would change every few years. I was never much for large groups of friends. My earliest contemplation of suicide was when I was around 7. I hated being so alone, so isolated. This feeling followed me continually through my life, and remains still in the back of my head every day. I began to take pride in my depression as it worsened in 7th grade. I became more mature by analyzing why this and why that in my head. And slowly I began to believe I was superior than all my peers who did not have to think this deep, who did not have to contemplate living. I was better than them. I did not bother with trivial activities, I did not need people to pass the time with. I prided myself on having experienced a wide range of emotions for such a young age. It took me a few years until after high school to realize how wrong I was. I've met amazing people over the years and I envy them being born to fit in with the crowd. How, when I would stare each day into the mirror and ask "who the f**k are you, why can't you be normal.."
I used to have repeat tasks because I was doing it "wrong" when I was young. I would walk through a door over and over until I got it right. If I walked up the stairs wrong I had to go back down and repeat it. I knew this was weird and out of the ordinary. I had to condition myself not to do these rituals as it was stupid and didn't make sense. It took time and eventually I lost the desire to repeat these simplistic actions. Yet later in high school when I had a car, I would find myself continually checking if I shut the garage door. Good, it's shut, and I would drive off. Wait did I press the button again, did it open? Let's check. Good. Wait, I know I went back but I don't remember seeing it shut, was it shut? When I forced myself not to go back after the 6th time, it would constantly be on my mind, "what if we get robbed? why couldn't I just check one more time? Should I call someone?" This would happen every few months. The more it happened, the more I realized it was a problem and had to again condition myself to not care/worry about these things. I think my complacent attitude today stems from this conditioning. Whatever happens will work out to be ok. When I saw a psychologist for depression when I was 20, one of the things he asked was if I was OCD. I said what's that and he said OCD people like to count things and get irritated when things are out of place. I laughed and said no. I read one of the Ender books in which a whole planet had OCD and would feel compelled to count and clean things. It still did not click with me. Then I saw an episode of Scrubs that guest starred Michael J. Fox. And I was in complete disbelief of what I just saw. It brought back so many memories and I felt so ashamed. Here, Michael J. Fox played a doctor with OCD who could not walk through a door properly too. Later I watched a movie called Dirty Filthy Love. I was terrified that my OCD would return.
In high school, I did not understand why I would do well in some classes and extremely poor in others. I did not understand (and still do not) how I can set out to be productive and spend hours not getting anything done. How could I spend two hours reading a Tale of Two Cities and not getting passed the first page. What was going on in my head? Why was I avoiding work? I know I'm not dumb so how could this be? I must be lazy and have no motivation I convinced myself. And once I did this, all my other classes began to slip away too. And now in college, I am experiencing this all over again. This feeling of helplessness. I am terrified.
Growing up I always felt a longing to have that one best friend or that one girl to make me complete. When I had my first girlfriend my sophomore year in high school, I felt like I was finally whole. But not everything was perfect. I was not her first boyfriend and it ruined me on the inside. I wanted to get rid of her but I loved her so. I mentally abused her, playing mind games. And in my head I told myself, I'm teaching her to be more independent. If she can break up with me she will be a better person. She was too in love with me, too clingy. Although, this was what I wanted in my heart, the whole scene was not perfect. How can she be the "one", I asked myself when she's my first and only and I'm her third. Years later, and to this day I feel great sadness and regret for my actions...
All my life I have always been looking to feel belonged somewhere. When I saw my first psychologist, I wanted to be diagnosed bipolar. My father is bipolar, so I must be too. This would explain everything. But it doesn't. And I am not diagnosed bipolar. Maybe I have ADD? But all psychologists seem to want to observe it, rather than take my word. It makes sense I suppose. But at the same time, talking one on one with a person in a quiet room, I am usually pretty damn focused. "No you don't seem to be exhibiting any ADD symptoms." I spend so much time analyzing and re-analyzing my life and actions that when it comes time to talk with a psychologist, everything I say seems so contrived and made up. But I have no idea how else I am supposed to talk with them, when all my life I had to use logic to justify my life. All my life I never felt normal. When everyone else is singing to songs , I could never remember anything passed the hook. At clubs, I pretend to sing along as I dance. Usually I'm just mouthing the words or saying some gibberish. I can never remember anything verbatim without a lot of effort and repetition, my mind always wants to rearrange words. I will never sing a line on the right beat. And I will never be able to sing a whole song (non-nursery rhymes/songs) verbatim. I may be able to sing the hook to a song on the radio, but I wont' be able to process the meaning unless I read it before hand or thought about it in advance.
I'm a bit tired now, but thank you for reading all this..I know it's all a bit jumbled and probably hard to follow...I guess I'm always searching to find a place in life where I'm not so alone.
01 Dec 2011, 2:51 am
