A discovery

[JenK]

I have been reading about AD for the last few days. I have been labeled everything from Bi-polar to Borderline Personality Disorder to the most recent-nothing wrong with me. So why do I not care about anyone? On the surface I do, but deep down I could walk away from anyone and really not care.

I am 39, married for 16 years to a wonderful man, have two really sweet and unique kids 19 and 14. We have a nice home, I drive a great little car, will start a job in Sept with very kind people doing something I really enjoy. But again, all I want to do is go back to sleep, where time slides by fast, I cannot fail and no one expects anything of me.

I was given up for adoption at birth, kept in foster care for 9 months, then adopted by my parents. I had chronic ear infections until I was 3 and was hospitalized multiple times for high fevers and convulsions, resulting in the destruction of my sense of smell. My brother was adopted when I was 2, and I showed immediate hostility to him. At some time when I was 2 my mother left me to cry all night. She waited until my dad went to work all night, then sat up with a book and let me cry for hours until I "gave up and never did it again". My mother told me that story a year or so ago, and I went home and sobbed.  It made me feel so completely abandoned even 35+ years later. My parents were decent ones but I never felt like I belonged, and to this day still don’t most of the time. I have always felt that they would have been much better off just the three of them.
I was a horrible teen, promiscuous, drugs, lying, shifting from one persona to the next with the ease of a professional actor. Got pregnant at 19, quit drugs, got married at 24, quit sleeping around. Quitting things does not make you a whole person though.
Someday I hope I can be whole. It feels like I finally found the core problem though, the problem which explains all my issues-with friends, family, intimacy, the disconnection with life, the depression.
I have no clue what comes next, how I start to heal. Maybe I won’t. It is nice to know I am not just empty, that there may be something behind the wall. 

[JenK]

Thanks.

 No, I have never been diagnosed with PTSD, the only trauma I have gone through was self induced and a result of already being messed up as a teen. I have no evidence that there was any abuse in my history, only well intentioned mistakes and the normal inadequacies of my parents. I grew up thinking my mother disliked me, and maybe that was true, but I question that it was just my inability to attach with her rather than any real failing on her part.

I just got back from lunch with a friend and her new friend. I kept thinking I could get up and walk out and not even care. I enjoyed our conversation, had fun, but it was all surface stuff, and everytime I stopped to do an 'internal temp check' (how am I feeling) the answer was sadness.

Ah well. It came, it will go eventually. I try to just keep busy enough I don't notice most of the time.

[chris]

Hi Jen nice to have you hear. You’re in the company of others like you, kind of freaky isn’t it.

[JenK]

Thanks Chris. It is really a relief. I was starting to think maybe I was a sociopath. I just do care  very passionately about a lot of things (just things which are ideological), and I really want people to like me, so it seemed not right. My friend told me a few weeks ago that when you love someone you don't see the flaws/or the flaws don't matter, and I told her either that was a lie or I was incapable of loving anyone. It is nice to know maybe I can change that someday.

[chris]

Sorry I didn’t respond sooner, I’ve been really tired at night and my computer was down for a bit.
I think people defiantly notice peoples flaws and that is why the divorce rate is so high. I think people overlook the flaws. I think they overlook to much sometime though as well. if someone isn’t right for me, I don’t want to have a romantic relationship as I don’t think it will work out and I don’t want to put my child or myself in that position. 

[Silver]

Someday I hope I can be whole. It feels like I finally found the core problem though, the problem which explains all my issues-with friends, family, intimacy, the disconnection with life, the depression.
I have no clue what comes next, how I start to heal. Maybe I won’t. It is nice to know I am not just empty, that there may be something behind the wall. 

Hi, I am new here too. I was struck with what you said here. It is like you are speaking my own thoughts. I know I never had any idea this is affecting so many people. anyways, glad to see you here. mrssusie