Posted by gunhild on July 12, 2014, at 6:42:34
I am a 27 year old male and I have had problems for some ten years that are very detrimental to my life and development aswell as time- and energy consuming. It gets so bad that I find life too difficult to bare sometimes.
My parents went through a divorce when I was very young and I still struggle to this day with the emotional ramifications of this event.
My father has been an an on-and-off alcoholic my whole life. Alcoholism is deeply rooted in his family and drinking were part of his upbringing. After my parents divorce I've often played the role of emotional support to my father. I tried very hard to appear strong and able, to reassure my father, but this had the negative effect of me always having to hide the turmoil I felt inside.
My brother has autism and I felt terribly ashamed of him when I was younger. He likes to test people in order to create a reaction, something he still does. Consequently, nobody wants to work as his assistant, so I feel obligated to help my brother in this capacity, even though working with this doesn't help me develop any new skills or perspectives. Stuck in a rut basically. Also it's worth mentioning is that he seems to have developed the family trait for alcohol abuse.
My mother tells me that I were a sensitive child. When I strugged with my fathers drinking and she offered her support, I would clam up and say nothing or show no emotions outward. This pattern has continued into my adulf life.
In high school I felt that life got to be too stressfull so I had to change school to complete my studies. After my first year in high school, my mother finally managed to get me to see a doctor and she prescribed for me my first anti-depressant, Mirtazapine. On this drug I felt like I was in fifth gear all the time. Before I had my calm moments but now I was on the brink of panic attacks on a daily basis. My ability to concentrate and to focus was completely gone and has never returned to me since. I had constant anxiety and my body was always strained and never relaxed. I also have problems with feeling my pulse in my gut, something that came about during my turbulent first year in high school.
During this period, the extreme introspection as I have come to call it, came about. It appeared in my tireless efforts to hide everything I felt, as I had done since childhood, but now it was so much more to hide that I developed new symptoms. I started to see myself almost in third person, recording everything I did, said and felt. I feel every sensation in my body very acutely, it's like banal events on and in my body are raised to my consciousness whereas in other people they typically do not. When speaking to someone, I see myself in third person and register everything I do. Conversely, I register very little of what the other person says or does. This isn't connected to any specific situations, it is always present. Even in my dreams I see myself from the outside, every time. It doesn't matter if it's positive or negative.
I have a hard time to extract information from written text or from TV. I don't remember much of TV shows I have just watched, and I have a hard time comprehending the plot. I feel completely lost. I can however respond strongly to depictions of animals and people, they can make me feel elation.
I am looking for people with similar experiences of extreme forms of introspection and self-image. What has helped people with similar situations?
Best regards from //The Lonely Ace
poster:gunhild
thread:1068215
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20140619/msgs/1068215.html