Been suicidal almost every day of my life

[Richardalexander]

Hi I'm new here.
What can I say, my life is like a sick puppet show, always has been. Posted this on a suicide forum the other day.

Hello my name is Richard, I am utterly suicidal.
I have a hellish condition called emotional deprivation disorder. It is the cause of my social phobia.


All my childhood memories are of crying out to my mother, who was mentally ill and deliberately kept me alone.
Consequently I have never had any friends, have crippling social anxiety ( extreme avoidant type), and have been suicidal for almost every day of my life, which is not an exaggeration. The sick twist is that I am mentally fully developed, and desperate for love and friendship. I have literally an emotional age of 3, while being physically and mentally 21. I recently escaped my 'mother', and moved to my biological father. After 5 months of hardly talking, I finally broke down and basically revealed my child-self, who is desperately alone. He gave me a few hugs but no love. He is scared of my 3 year old behaviour, despite the fact that I am utterly non-violent, or self harming. I am just reduced to a weeping toddler, desperate for unconditional love. Having never had it I am nihilistic and uncaring, and cannot form any relationships. The only people to give it to me were my grand-parents, and consequently the year I spent with them was utter happiness, with no social anxiety whatsoever. Since they died my life is absolutely unlivable. Leaving the house is absolute torture, I literally cannot speak to anyone. In public I don a 'false personality', whereby I muffle the cries and put on an adult face, to avoid any stares. It is so painful to maintain I often twitch.


I have not had a social conversation for 10 years, trapped in my own body. The difference between me and someone with autism or schizoid is that I am desperate for social contact and friendship. My quality of life is torture, from waking to bedtime. Without the social phobia, I can be very witty and intelligent. With my loving grandparents alive I was a social magnet and could charm girls with ease. Without them I am utterly trapped inside myself, it feels like being literally buried alive. Even my father who has a history of working with mental illness, won't embrace me or engage my 3 year old personality. It's not an issue of family therapy, he just doesn't give a ****.
It's a complete ****ing nightmare, I have nowhere to go. I am so lonely I just constantly spasm/shake, and seeing anyone my age makes me cry because I know that with a normal mother, I would have been socialising with them. For all his intelligence my father has no desire to spend time with me, he refuses to acknowledge that I have an emotional age of literally 3 or 4, which is the age my 'mother' took me away. I haven't even mentioned the 20 years of psychological abuse she gave me, or a decade of school bullying, but the damage was caused by my childhood rejection. The single most painful memory is when I went to a summer camp, once a year for a few years. There was a girl I was obsessed with, and with my Grandmother alive I still had a small amount of confidence. It turned out the girl also liked me. Then the next year my Granny died, and at the camp I was physically frozen, I literally couldn't talk to this girl. She looked at me like I was insane. It was the most humiliating thing imaginable. I spent the whole camp hiding in my tent. That week haunts me every single day, and if I go on the facebook page of any of those kids at camp, I see they all have countless friends, relationships and so on, while I am trapped in my room possibly forever. Or I can go on the facebook pages of the countless kids who bullied me. Again, all their photos show them with happy faces. It is so torturous I just twitch with pain all the time. For many years I thought my problems were due to the way I looked, and I saw a freak every time I looked in the mirror, partly because of the many insults. I spent over £4000 trying to improve my looks, from dental improvements to steroids. The steroids made no difference because my actual physique has been affected by the psychological state. My muscles haven't grown since the year my Granny died, which only adds to the torture. Nobody has a clue what it feels like to be a 21 year old male, and can only do 1 or 2 pressups. It is so ****ing humiliating it feels like you are not a man. For 5 years I haven't left the house without a heavy fleece on to hide my looks. Because of imagined problems with my teeth, every time I have talked to someone I have done it with a half closed mouth, making conversation or friendship impossible. These aren't memories, they still take place today, every time I go outside. And I could have had a completely happy life, if I hadn't been raised by my mother. Knowing this fact just kills me.



To escape the horror I live in a fantasy world, where I imagine myself as popular and accepted. I go back to nightmarish situations and imagine me impressing everyone, instead of being utterly rejected.



I know that even seeing a therapist wouldn't be unconditional love, because obviously you are paying, there are rules of professionalism and so on. You can't 'buy a mother'. And in any case it took me 5 months living privately with my father before I even felt safe enough to reveal my true personality. The two occasions he has shown genuine kindness, I have grown up within minutes, and have become my healthy adult self. But he later revealed that those events were something he would have done anyway, for his own benefit. I often dream of a mother who consoles me and loves me for who I am.
The nature of my condition is that I don't think I could even see a therapist, I would just sit there silently. When there is a desperate adult trapped inside. I can't ring anyone either, my voice is that of a crying baby. I find it humiliating. There is so much locked up emotion I can't physically use any words to get it out.

When I initially broke down to my father, I mistakenly thought everything would be alright, and began to develop a parental attachment to him. With that came the same anxieties of any baby - the desire for constant affection, and a longing to be played with. As mentioned above, the one time he did 'humour' my child personality, I felt utterly calmed and grew up within minutes. I no longer thought the world hated me. But then I found out it didn't come from his genuine affection, he was just 'experimenting' in his words. I am dying of loneliness. I find myself using the same body language as a baby, crying out for a caregiver. Obviously coming from a 21 year old male, to an outsider it looks as if I was retarded - When in fact I am fully aware, and utterly harmless. I can no longer display the child behaviour, because he threatened to literally have me sectioned. 21 years of hell and then put in a mental home!?. I am just so ****ing lonely, it feels like I have just been born and there is no parent around. Having looked at my mother's history, I now find out that the entire thing has taken place for no reason, and I would have been a normal kid if I had any other parent, which makes me weep even more. There is no single 'bad memory' I can expunge with a therapist, my entire life is unthinkable pain. If I get a sudden memory of that year with my grandparents, I just shake with ecstasy. And yet that would be normality for anyone else. All I have is a little box with my old photos of them, my only friends, and they are dead. I don't even have the balls to kill myself, and I don't want to. I am just locked in my body, it feels like having surgery while fully conscious, for years and years.

Apart from all that I'm 21, alone in my room I play guitar, I'm pretty good, been playing for many years. From hard rock to marvin gaye, I play for hours as a substitute for friendship or parental love. I guess I'm trawling the internet looking for someone or something, who maybe gives a honeysuckle and accepts me for who I am. I don't know the meaning of the word 'friend'. I don't want to die, I'm starting online therapy soon as a first step.

thanks for listening

 

[evanescencefan91]

wow I am so very sorry you've had it so rough do you know if there is any kind of available treatment for your disorder, or maybe liek a support group for people who have the same disorder as you?

Talking to a psychatrist would be good too, although they can't really replace a friend, there are some good ones out there that can help, and make you feel a little less alone

it is scary but just try to small steps at a time smile at a stranger or hold a door open for someone

your not alone and I;m sure there are plenty of other people who have the same disorder, but you just don't see them becuase they are also hidding

we're in this together and I'm pulling for you

*hugs*

 

[EveWasFramed]

Hi Richard...

Maybe the chat room might be a good place for you to be around other people? I know it isn't real life, but it's a second best.
Here's the link...


http://xat.com/chat/room/54564440/

 

[cheaptrickfan]

Hello Richard, and welcome. Reading your story made me heartsick. I have children and could not imagine doing that to them, or that anyone would do that to any children.

I hope that getting t know people on here might be a healthy first step for you, though I do second EvFan's suggestion about inquiring into therapy. Someone must be able to help you, somehow.

(((Richard)))

 

[keyring1]

Hi Richard,

I read your letter with a great deal of interest. First of all you show a great deal of insight into the difficulties that you are experiencing and have experienced. I am sure you are aware of Bowlby's attachment theory since you mention that you feel that your inability to form relationships stems from your mum and dad's separation and specifically your mum's unresponsiveness as a child. It might be worth considering your mum and dad's experience of attachment (you didnt mention whether your significant grandparents were maternal ar parental grandparents).

You mention false personality, however this is actually normal behaviour as each and every one of us acts depending on the social situation. We act differently whether we are in work to whether we are in a pub for example. Although I think you may be finding difficulty with adapting to the different social roles and feel that you are unable to fit in. This can be extremely stressful as your environment fit dictates how resilient you are when facing stressors (look up Germain and Gitterman's life model).

You also mention throughout your post, your grandparents, and this may be clue to how low you are feeling. Elizabeth Kubler Ross writes numerous books and journals on Bereavement, death and loss and it may be worthwhile reading some of her work to identify how grief has affected you. the major component being depression.

You also mention living in a fantasy world, and then feeling bad when you have to feel real life. This in fact may be contributing to feelings of low self esteem. Carl rogers stated that if there was a big gap between an individuals ideal self and what they perceived to be their real self then the result would be low self esteem. The larger the gap the lower the self esteem. Rogers was also the father of person centred counselling the type of counselling that I think you reckon will not do any good.

Counselling is a method of therapy that allows individuals to find their own stregnths in problem solving. Rogers stated that the core conditions that a councellor should set is unconditional positive regard (You mentioned unconditional love which is Kelmer Pringles theory), congruence (that is a match between ones inner self and outer display), and finally that the therapist shows emapathy. In all respects I feel that you could could benefit from undertaking therapy.

Finally from the psycho social shool of personality you might want to consider the writings of Erik Erikson and his Eight stages of man theory and how you fit into his stage theory. Eriksson states that your everyone must over come challenges to successfully move forward to the next stage. The stage you are currently at is identity versus role confusion, however successful navigation of this stage depends on addressing failures to address previous crisis at previous stages of development.

These are the tools that a therapist will use, and I am sure you will look up these things on the internet. There are ways to solve the difficulties you face.

FYI I am a final year social work student in the UK, and believe strongly in these theories as agents of change

Best wishes

 

[Badjedidude]

Welcome to the site, Richard. We're all open, good folk here, so pull yourself up a chair and join on in!!! ^_^

----Steve

 

[Richardalexander]

Thankyou for the responses everyone. Keyring, thanks for the thought out response, but most of my horrendous problems are not covered by those theories. For instance my 'grieving' of my grandparents death is certainly not the cause. You'd be in quite a state too if your only friend in the world, DIED, and you were left completely alone in the hands of a child abuser, watching your youth waste away. It was the abscence of anyone else. Nevermind initial mourning, the complete loneliness makes the world a very dark place.
A therapist online told me that It's widely believed within her therapy circles that clients themselves often have the right answer to their problems. It's just emotional support that has improved me, not any psychological theories.
If you want to know, my grandparents did indeed never raise my mother, she too had the exact same condition I have - emotional deprivation disorder. However she is still a child abuser, still has my two brothers in her grasp. I have to get them out, but social services don't give a honeysuckle because it isn't the stereotypical 'pedo' male abuse. They don't know the meaning of the world psychological abuse.

Anyway thankyou everyone.

 

[Phaedron]

I just want to say my piece about suicide here. It's a perspective most people don't think about.

A huge portion of the world believes in reincarnation, you can't say for sure it's not true. They believe that we learn things in each life, pay off past karma, and are continually incarnated into the same situation until they learn what they need to from it.

So yeah suicide is running away from lifes problems. If there is any chance you will continually be reborn into the same situation and kill yourself, then this is the most pointless thing you can possibly do.

I don't want to get into religion or anything, but since suicide is facing death you may want to explore the possibilities of what will happen after you die. In nearly every case, suicide is frowned upon spiritually. You think life is bad, the afterlife could be worse for all you know.