# Hello new here.



## Starfish (Dec 16, 2005)

Hello everyone.

Yesterday I found this place after quite a bit of reading over at wikipedia. By the time I read through some of the stuff here, I was too tired to post so I told my self I would today. Boy what a mistake as I was lot different yesterday, for one I could concentrate.

From everything I have read depersonalization seems to fit what is going on with me. Even the name fits how I feel.

Bare with me as this is going to be long, but I'm just to lay out all my cards.

First I often don't feel like a person, I feel like a robot that is controlling a human body. Very rarely does it seems like I am in the first person.

Some background.

My mother was schizophrenic and my father was an alcoholic up until a few years ago. My parents divorced when I about 8 or so, and my dad remarried. They just had there 10th anniversary so I would have been about 14 at the time. They dated for a year or two before that. I don't recall much from my childhood and much of what remember just seems like pictures in a book. A lot of the stuff I know about things back then someone has told me about because I don't remember it.

My mom was very selfish and never cared about me or my brother. I'm told that on several occasions she locked us out of the house because she wanted to be alone. She never keep the house clean and it was always a mess. It was so bad that we always had bug problems. She would always spend every dime we had on her self. I remember once being chastised for asking for dinner, and not being able to cook it my self because I did not know how to used the over. I was about 4 or 5 at the time.

My dad could become abusive at times, would often take punishment way too far. I can only recall one indecent with that happened with my brother and my dad penning him against the car after we got back from somewhere. Even that memory seems as familiar as watching something happen on CNN. I know there were others but I can't recall them.

I never did fit in at school since day one and the other kids would always pick on me. I only ever made one friend. There were a few people I got along with but not much of a relationship. A uncle of mine died of cancer when I was about 7. I must been pretty upset about it because the school made me go see a councilor for a couple of years because of it. In this things only got worse in school and I hated it. During this time I made one "friend" but he was ass and always getting me in trouble and using me. We fought quite a bit to. About half way through this "friendship", I met the only person I was really a friend with in school. He was about 5 years younger than me. About the time I started High School we grew apart, and he fell in with the rough crowd. This also about the time I started to feel the way I do. 3 and half years ago he was killed, the details are not very clear but I think it had to do with drugs. I kind of feel responsible as had we stayed close he might have never ended up on that path. Well back to school. High School was hell. We were a small school my class only had 52 people. I became even more alienated. I got along great with the faculty and was very well respected by them. My peers were pretty much 180 degree difference. Half way though my Junior Year I quit the band because they were picking on me so much. I never dated in High School only ever went to 1 party. I left at about 10:30. During this time I became a computer geek. I spent all of my time huddled up in my room on my computer.

During the second half of my Junior year, my mom went off of her meds and lost it again. She started having delusions, lost here job and was evicted from her apartment. I did every thing I could to help her but she fought me every step of the way. She was eventually kicked out onto the street and just disappeared for about 3 years.

After this my Dad and step mom had a child. So I have a sister that is 17 years younger than me. During those brief times I can feel anything I love her very much. After that I totaled my dads truck. He was very upset about that. And I can understand why but it was very stressful. I got a job at a Grocery store and bought my own truck. Then after a few months I got a job at a small computer store. Things got better for a little while. While working there I met my best friend of 7 years and my other 2 friends. Then I graduated high school. I became very depressed because of that. My dad wanted me to go to college but I wanted to start in the spring instead of the fall. I also wanted to a school away from home and live on campus. My dad would have none of that and there was a lot of arguing about that. Again another stressful time. I was eventually told go the local university and start in the fall or move out and pay my own way. I gave in and enrolled in the local university.

During that summer the manager of the store I worked at left and much to my objection I was made manager. So that fall I was working 50 hours a week and going to school full time. Needless to say I did bad in school and dropped out. I moved into my own place on Jan 1 2000. Work sucked and I did not like working there any more. It had stopped being fun. Then sometime in 2000 my mom showed back up. She had gotten on disability and had an apartment. This brought out all kind of feeling and just made things worse. Then in Dec 2000 I started a tech support job for a large software company. While I like the job it was very stressful and combined with emotions brought up with my mom things got bad. I used to have a lot of feeling and really reading about the past and would think about it a lot.I would think what was it like to go the moon, or live in the old west. Just thinking about those things I could feel what it was like to be those people. After a very stressful day I went to bad just wanting it to go away. The next morning it was gone, but along with it was thoughts or the past and the enjoyment I got from them. I was hallow. Before this point I don't remember much. This is defiantly where it happened.

After this came extreme anxiety. It got so bad I was unable to go to work and spend all day watching reruns of MASH. I lost my job and was unable to find a new job. I was broke and had to move out of my apartment. My dad said I could move back on the condition I return to school. I agreed and though going back to college would be a good thing. I also decided to go to the local university as I did not want to move away at this point. This was the middle of 2001.

So I moved and found a part time job. As I had to pay the credit card debit I had racked up. The job was okay. Started a bit rocky and at first I hated my boss. After a while that changed and we got along great. School was okay. Keep in mind that up to this point I have never been on a date and generally viewed women with distrust. Sometime in late 2001 I met this girl and she was fairly nice. At the end of the semester I got the courage up to ask her out. I was shot down, and was fairly upset but not too bad. Then again sometime in early 2002 the same thing happened again. I remember the day as after I was shot down I had to go to my High School and get a copy of my transcript. I remember thinking how much easier it would be if I was a Vulcan and did not have emotions.

I got my wish. For the most part my feeling were gone. They would come out from time to time. Usually in feeling of extreme depression and feeling that I was going insane, and that it was taking all of my will to hold it together. Though I also feel that one day I would no longer be able to hold out and would become like my mom. Maybe once or twice a year I would have feelings of happiness. Every couple weeks I would have these hour or two long fit of extreme anger. These fits of anger is the most common feeling. And about every few moths they would be followed by the depression.

After that I remember feeling like a third wheel in my own life and often walking around the University feeling like I don't belong. Like I was a say in a foreign country. In this time my grade have been generally lousy. Not that I don't know the stuff I just can't concentrate.

Since I started back not too much has happened. My mom lost it again and was homeless again for a year. Then she lived in a halfway house. Then this time last year the company I worked for went bankrupt and I lost my job. I got a new job and for the most part like it better. Though once again my mom dropped off the face of the earth. She was still at the half way house, she just never called or want to do anything.

Spring 05 was a very tough semester. Summer 05 was tough also. Then in June my mom called and she was in the hospital. I found out she had breast cancer. This was a very tough time. I became the point man for everything on this as was unable to care for here self. I also had to make all of the decisions as they took her off of her meds and was no long of sound mind. In all this I was completely snow jobbed and was told she would be okay. She did not want to miss to much school so I did not see her much, as I was also working 30 hours a week. I did not worry about that as she would be okay. Then I had to put her in a nursing home. And I finally learned the truth. I spoke with the nurse practitioner and was told she would die in no uncertain terms. I understood this but with the doctors and my mom telling me other wise I did not act as so. At 5:30 in the morning on July 4th I got a phone call, they were taking her to the hospital. The drive to the hospital is normally a 45 min drive. I made it in 25. I pulled into the hospital behind the ambulance and went into the ER. 5 minutes later the chaplain came in and took me to a conference room. He left me there to go get a doctor, but I knew. The doctor came in and told me my mother had died. I felt weird. I was completely controlled by logic but knew that the emotions were going to come out. They let me see the body and 24 years worth of stuff came out. Then after 15 minutes it was all gone. Even more so than before. No emotions at all, I was completely controlled by logic.

I made all of the arrangements and other what not. In that week until the funeral people seemed very concerned that I was not upset at all. I felt nothing, until the day of the funeral. After the funeral I had a feeling. We went to lunch and to a movie, but I did not want to go but was overruled by my family. I became very agitated because I wanted to go home and work on one of my school projects. After this I again became a robot and did not feel anything until the first day of the fall semester sometime in late august. There sitting across the room I saw this very beautiful women. I felt something, I felt like a person again, no longer this this third person robot. After class I went to work and became a robot again. She was in two of my classes. So I started to sit by her and chat. After a couple of weeks we would talk while walking between classes and to her next class. Every time the same thing would happen afterwards. I would often get to the first class before her and would think, what are you thinking being in a relationship is a stupid idea. Then she would walk in and I would feel like a person. The feeling is something I can really describe, it was not a sexual feeling. It was more like just being a person and understanding why people are in a relationship. In talking to her I found we had a lot in common and she was lot like the kind of person I had always though of being with in a relationship. I decided on the last day of class I would ask her out. It did not happen, the anxiety kicked in and I chickened out. I did at least manage to give her my email address and suggest we should stay in touch.

It was latter that day I work I realized that something was wrong and I need to do something about it. So the next day I started reading on Wikipedia and after several hours I read about depersonalization. It seemed to fit but the page was light on details, but had a link to here. Reading the intro page I kept saying hey thats me. I know that is a lot to read, but it helped to say it all. When I started writing thin 2 hours ago I would just stare out into space for 20 minutes at a time and could not concentrate, and felt like I was looking out a view-hole in a ship. Though now I at least feel like I am in my own body.

In writing all of this I have realized that it is not something that I can work out on my own. I think I am going to have to get professional help. While I am looking into that, I think I will start keeping a journal. Maybe that will help.

If there is anything that does not make since feel free to ask to I may have left something out as there is just too much to proof read.

Also I notice I used the word feel a lot even though I really don't have a feeling. I guess it is like how most people use the word ironic without knowing exactly what it means.


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## Guest (Dec 16, 2005)

Hi, rough life, it took less than that to screw me up. Hope you'll learn a lot here. BG


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