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Other Interpersonal relationships completely broken.

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Do *you* want those things?
Or do you want those things because society tells you should want those things?
The honest answer? I'm not sure. I don't really want a job because I don't give a shit about capitalism. All the jobs I'm qualified for are useless and bullshit. I get a lot more out of volunteering. I used to feel bad about myself because I'm unemployable and our society says that means I'm worthless. But there is a reality there that I don't currently have any form of income. & that sux.

The social component? I... see what I'm missing. I look around me and all of my friends have families, or they have careers, or they are in school (this is something I'd like to do but I am too poor and I don't have my high school). Or they have other friends. In real life. I just don't... have any connections like that.

Humans are social animals, but I'm so messed up, this fundamental part of me just doesn't exist in the same way as it does for others. I'll never have a partner, I'll never have children, I'll never be able to be intimate normally, and I think it would be nice to have a family someday but I don't see how that could ever happen.

Ugh, and I know this is real incel shit but that's not really what I mean. But I more mean like the emotional component of a partnership, with another person/s. I'm just kinda broken. I don't see where I could ever have a family and be like a provider or offer something to another person. Like my ex was a great guy but I couldn't... I dunno. I dunno wtf I'm talking about.

Bc it's not even really that either like, "I'll never have a romantic partner and that's the problem!" It's more just an example of the problem. Like, that my ability to have ordinary human connections even on a surface level is incredibly damaged and I'm very isolated and lonely. I'm alone, I'm disabled, I'm dependent. And I don't know how to make friends or be a person with all of this heavy slog of stuff in my background, because people know there is stuff off about me because I don't know how to relate to people.

And I don't want to trauma dump on strangers, but everyone knows that I'm not right because I don't know how to answer basic, simple questions about myself. But then no one understands me and I can't make connections with people. A big part of the RD program was about community reintegration and they had a lot of outings and we went places and did things and got involved with the locals.

Bc they say that's the most important part bc this stuff tears u away from ur community and from ur humanity and healing that means coming back to human connection. Idk, but thank you for your comment! I really appreciate it & is given me a lot to think about. I'm really sorry that you as well struggle with that feeling of isolation but it's good that many days you can say f*ck it and stay true to yourself! That's the most important thing.
 
Not replying to everything (because, yeah, mental capacity is a negative 10 right now and brain is foggy and ready to reboot), but just quickly, because that stood out

or they are in school (this is something I'd like to do but I am too poor and I don't have my high school).

I don't know about the situation in Canada(?) but are there no adult education places? I know those are a thing in other countries (I know from my home country and from my mom teaching at one in the US). Maybe they have financial support programs? Maybe start with just one - any - course, and possibly further down the road you could look into getting your high school diploma? I know actually quite a lot of people didn't finish highschool until their 30s.

Or they have other friends. In real life. I just don't... have any connections like that.

Nah, overrated. This sounds like you have (more or less meaningful) online connections? Here's something I continuely have to fight to make others who insist on "real life social contacts": people you interact with online are still *real* people.

That is, of course, unless *you* actually *want* IRL friends.

But I'm probably the wrong person for this topic to begin with. I wouldn't be able to define "friend" or "friendship" if you'd ask me. I don't reeeeeally know what actually a "friend" is.

A big part of the RD program was about community reintegration and they had a lot of outings and we went places and did things and got involved with the locals.

I have a lot of thoughts about that that I may or may not come back to tomorrow, but right now this is rather upsetting to me and I think that's more due to my personal shit and less about the actual very real and significant importance of such programs. So I'm trying not to go down that rabbit hole right now until I had at least some sleep in my system and time to give my overactive system a chance to settle following it's first reaction upon reading this.
 
(because, yeah, mental capacity is a negative 10 right now and brain is foggy and ready to reboot)
I hope your brain feels better soon!

I don't know about the situation in Canada(?) but are there no adult education places?
There are, yea. I actually attempted to do a program called ALP when I was around 24, but my learning disabilities were so significant that they did not know how to help me achieve a passing grade in my courses. I actually met with the academic chair of the community college who essentially told me that if I couldn't pass the tests, I wouldn't be able to graduate. And I couldn't pass the tests.

Sux bc the courses I could do? I did 2 years worth of coursework in 2 months. Biology, communications, computers and history.

The other option was to directly apply to university as a mature student, but it costs $70 and I'm afraid I wouldn't be accepted, nor approved for student loans, because I cannot pay for anything on my own, and I don't know how to navigate that system. Bureaucracy, paperwork, my nemesis. I'd love to do literature or philosophy. I know that I'd kick ass. I just don't know how to get there, and I feel so defeated.

This sounds like you have (more or less meaningful) online connections?
Yes! And I agree. Having IRL friends isn't really possible for me anyway simply because I can't be around people for long periods of time without going mask-off. I try to think of it as being online is a reasonable accommodation for reactive folks. But ppl really do make u feel like online relationships aren't as "real" as in-person connections.

And we do VCs and video chats and stuff. I'm very grateful for the connections I do have, I just know that not being able to sustain an in-person friendship is abnormal. Because even my online friends (the people I'm discussing when I say my friends) have other, IRL friends. So there's something distinct about me, y'know?

But either way I appreciate the back-and-forth. I hope you and your brain can get some good sleeps and I always welcome input! And I didn't mean to cause any distress.
 
I have severe ADHD

but my learning disabilities were so significant that they did not know how to help me achieve a passing grade in my courses.

I actually met with the academic chair of the community college who essentially told me that if I couldn't pass the tests, I wouldn't be able to graduate. And I couldn't pass the tests.

You have a whole host of severe physical and mental/developmental disabilities. You have PTSD, ADHD, and a TBI. You qualify for a shit ton of accommodations.


Bureaucracy, paperwork, my nemesis.

I FEEL ya. Yours and mine both.

Is this something you could ask your therapist to help you navigate or at least connect you with someone who could help you navigate any and all of this? Including getting proper accommodations.

But ppl really do make u feel like online relationships aren't as "real" as in-person connections.

Yup. And it's total complete BS. There's so much stigma around this. And it's complete nonsense. If anything, because it generalizes "people", one size fits all.

I just know that not being able to sustain an in-person friendship is abnormal.

Because even my online friends (the people I'm discussing when I say my friends) have other, IRL friends. So there's something distinct about me, y'know?

You and me both. 🤷🏻‍♀️ And again, I don't even have RAD or your trauma history.

And no, it's not abnormal. That's just what society tries to tell you. Because society for the longest time and still has a really hard time understanding and accepting diversity.

So yeah, there's something distinct about us. Distinct doesn't automatically mean bad or wrong, though.

And I didn't mean to cause any distress.

You didn't :) Nothing you did or said. Society-level stuff.
 
You have PTSD, ADHD, and a TBI. You qualify for a shit ton of accommodations.
Oh I do! The problem is that they literally do not know what accommodations to give me in order to help me pass. I'm allowed to use a calculator and to write all my assignments on a computer (I can type 135wpm but I can't write very well by hand) but I misread the #s on the calculator.

(A big blah blah blah)
They "said" that I qualified for having my tests read aloud to me, but having the test read aloud doesn't really help because by the time they finish saying the equation I've forgotten it and I couldn't compute it anyway. They also literally just didn't do this, because they (??? didn't want to??? didn't have the time/resources? I don't know, they had a special testing room literally available but just didn't use it.)

Pearson, the people who make the textbooks, won't provide audiobooks because of copyright, so they're not allowed to give me audio snippets of the books & they did not have alternate materials. I'm not sure if Pearson even offers audio versions of the books but they did not at any point make those available to me despite my repeated asking. And even if they did, it's most likely that it wouldn't assist me well enough to pass the tests anyway.

The only real accommodation that would probably help, is a completely separate curriculum designed for me to be able to demonstrate that I understand the material without actually having to compute things, and that's a tall order for my small maritime province. Even when I was at Bridgeway, they didn't understand how to help me (the first class I ever attended was special education and they had me sit in front of a row of blocks and count them. And I'd say "bruh, I know how to count," but I did f*ck that up, sooo.)

And a pass/fail system where the student isn't required to pass a test of knowledge would... undermine? Maybe? The educational system. I was tutoring physics and chemistry to my classmates but couldn't pass the tests. It's a f*cking wild conundrum. I understood how to do the equations and how the make-up of particles functioned and how they interact together to the point that I could explain it easily to others who didn't intuitively grasp it. And to be able to show that I'm intelligent enough for some of it but not all of it usually doesn't translate to educators. It's because my issues go beyond learning disabilities, I presume.

It's also unfortunate that most of teachers don't even understand exactly what is wrong with me, because it goes way past NVLD and dyscalculia (the two things I was diagnosed with in addition to my TBI). So I put a ton of work into creating accessible documents about visual agnosia and the visual perceptual system that essentially involves teaching people neuroanatomy just so they can understand my disability. Unfortunately, that didn't help, because they had no idea how to circumvent it.

I had a really great math teacher who helped me a ton at ALP. She was able to explain things in a way that I understood (often times I have trouble with math intuition because it feels like people skip over information that is necessary for me to understand what it means, and that they expect you to "just know" or "just memorize it.") I was able to ask certain questions like where does this number come from, why does it suddenly change like this, and she was able to come back and linearly make it make sense. She loved math and understood math, unlike a lot of my previous math teachers, which helped.

But when we started to get into Cartesian coordinates I completely could not do any of the coursework whatsoever and they had no idea how to get me to pass that module, which was necessary to graduate. When she had to go get surgery I just kind of gave up, because the other teacher had no idea what to do with me and I was tired of failing over and over again.

And ppl are like try harder, try harder (the refrain of all learning disabled people, lmao) and I honestly don't know how much harder I can try. I put so much time and effort into ALP. I studied for months on my own beforehand which you can actually see at the beginning of my diary, all I do is talk about preparing for school and how much work I did on my own to get myself from a 2nd grade math level to a 10th grade math level in terms of intuitive understanding. I did math and chemistry courses from elementary through middle school.

By the time I had left school in grade 9 I had a 2nd grader's math level and they had given up teaching me then as well. They actually blocked off my math class and sent me to audit a psychology class at Dalhousie. I taught myself fractions, multiplication addition and subtraction and algebra and chemistry over like 6 months. Can I pass a test with those? Not really, but I understand how the numbers work. As u can tell by my huge blah blah blah, it was a huge fight and a significant problem in my history & I still haven't overcome it.

&& It's hard for ppl to hear me talk and how badly I would like to pursue higher education and see how intelligent I am (my Google Docs is filled with original research on TBIs, learning disabilities, attachment & personality disorders, PTSD, 5 original constructed languages, sci-fi lore/stories including worldbuilding alien anatomy/physiology, I'm fluent in 4 languages and 1 non-original conlang [Vulcan]) but still officially have a 9th grade education. Ppl see "potential" but that's kind of all I Have. Potential and nothing else to show for it.

Is this something you could ask your therapist to help you navigate or at least connect you with someone who could help you navigate any and all of this? Including getting proper accommodations.

My Ts have been both looking into the TBI society here in NS. Tbh I don't have a lot of hope for that. It's mostly a support group for brain injuries rather than neurological rehabilitation. I feel like maybe this is just the best that I can do and I've slipped thru the cracks and there's not much else I can do, this is just gonna be my life, n I'm never gonna be able to do any of the things that I have wanted to since I was a kid.

I've always wanted to help ppl and produce materials to help others who struggle with similar issues but... bleh, sorry.

It's a struggle every day not to fall into self-pity and depression. I'm not successful and I never will be and people have harmed me so much that it destroyed my body and my mind, and I have no way to recover from it on my own and the lessons I've learned from trying to get help is that no one knows how to help me and eventually they get frustrated with me and give up, so I should give up too.

And no, it's not abnormal. That's just what society tries to tell you. Because society for the longest time and still has a really hard time understanding and accepting diversity.

So yeah, there's something distinct about us. Distinct doesn't automatically mean bad or wrong, though.

I do appreciate this a lot though. It's hard being so different from everyone all the time.

I posted all this stuff which is mostly self-centered as a thread I think because, I don't know. There's such a component of isolation that is involved in having experienced the type of trauma I have. Most people that I encounter have not experienced these events and I make them very uncomfortable as a person.

It's just lonely, and that ties into the dehumanization aspect because there are fundamental components of being human that I just don't have. Like sexuality and relationships and occupation and education. All the ways that everyone around me relates to the world that I can't. And I know I'm not the only one as evidenced by the fact that this forum exists. I know I'm not the only one. I run a support group for survivors of extreme trauma and it's helpful to look at the ways in which I am similar, not different.

But on a day-to-day basis, in my physical life, it is impossible to ignore.

Some days I just wake up and I want to be like everyone else and I want things to be easy or at least recognizable and I want to feel human. Like there's such a thing as too diverse where you lose the fundamental nature of being human and you are alone, completely isolated, physically and mentally isolated, and it's like being in solitary confinement. You're just alone.

N I know that isn't true. I've met people in real life who are like me. They were in my program as a kid, but that was 16 years ago. And I still talk about it a lot because it's the only place that I have ever felt like I even peripherally belong, even though my issues were nowhere near as complex as some of the other kids. Like Friday said, it's a 2-10, not a 10-10. The scale used is just a different scale.
 
Do I even deserve human connections?

Yes. You do. You have lived through terrible things. You've done what you learned and needed to, to survive. You deserve care and connection.


I really want ppl to know that as messed up as I am I don't want to be like this. I don't want to harm people, even when sometimes I do want to hurt them, as evidenced above, I don't want to be a person who wants that or who leans into that

This is very clear from your posts. And here, at this forum you've been very caring and supportive. As others have said, it is human connection and it matters.
 
Thank u a lot @Muttly
🥺


I think its becoming somewhat more clear particularly today that a good chunk of my feeling like this comes from the dehumanization component. And part of that is the asocial factor, but I also think that I get triggered because I remember, like, all the ways that I was dehumanized and all the ways that I dehumanized other people as well and the idea of having normal relationships gets farther and farther away.

Like I had a nightmare tonight about an event that really happened and I don't know how to talk to people and also remember that this happened. I feel like a non-human entity and I'm worried that even talking to other people, will hurt them. And I don't want to hurt people and I don't want to make people scared and I don't want to traumatize people.

When I was a lot younger I used to do the pen pals thing for prisoners, where you write an email and they print it off and send it and then email you back their response. I think I was trying to find people who I could relate to or to show humanity to a subsection of people that are very often dehumanized as well. Having the history I do and like, this is also new, because I never used to conceptualize it this way. I never used to conceptualize it in the sense of, "oh my G-d, look what I've done."

It was always very like, I intellectually understood that it was violent and wrong but there was no emotional remorse component to it. I viewed it as something that I was forced to do and something that I also participated in, that I no longer participated in. In a way I was almost more compassionate to myself back then because I was missing the emotional remorse piece where it matters on a human level that I hurt people like that.

I would explain my history very calmly and almost like, as a caveat to others speaking with me, like they needed informed consent to be my friend or talk to me so that they knew what they were getting into. And now it's not really like that because of the remorse, which was the first emotion I ever got back after psilocybin. Literally like the very first emotion. I don't exactly remember the circumstances but I started to go into like, death spirals, about how I possibly didn't deserve to live and how retributive justice may actually be valid because of the emotional catharsis it provides and that those emotions of victims matter, etc etc.

So all of this is really new to me. I think before this I had an easier time with human relationships. Like when I was at work in CB everyone in the office liked me after I told the truth about having PTSD and developmental problems. Before then, though, I remember that I had done something wrong and socially inappropriate at a party and everyone like formed a circle around me to tell me how wrong and offensive I was, LMAO. I was like OK either I tell the truth or Im gonna be the office pariah. And I was at that job 2 years and still talk to some of those ppl on FB! And same with synagogue. I was able to form connections there too.

Now it's like... I don't know how, anymore. Like I gained the emotional piece but I lost what ability I had, which wasn't much to begin with, to socialize as a result. Because I don't know how to integrate the facts/truth of reality (I hurt people, I literally am responsible for the loss of human life, I am responsible for causing trauma and PTSD and behavioral and personality disorders in others, almost certainly.)

And what it means, with integrating with my community and being an upstanding member of my community. B always talks about "being a citizen" and like, that stuff is important and that context is really important for me (and "acting as a citizen/upholding your duties" is something of a major treatment focus in Africa, which is where he was trained, and that stuff really seems to help me as well whether or not I'm similar.)

Bc and I think it's also something that's helpful with the population of humans that are in prison, if we teach them how to engage with society and how to draw meaning from doing so and how to have skills that are beneficial to them and others and learning skills to manage conflict aside from violence, like, all of that is very relevant to me as well. I feel like idk, I kind of mentally just got out of prison after going thru therapy and I'm like in the "sink-or-swim" phase with my $80 at the halfway house. Like, how do I move forward? What am I supposed to tell people? Am I supposed to say anything?

What's the most ethical way for me to be myself and have my history?

Blee blah.
 
if anyone made noise or clinked dishes or stepped too heavily I would lose it and yell at them.

Uhm yes, I have been there. I have sensory issues and clinking of dishes sets me off BIG TIME. I have screamed at people over it. Fortunately my meds really help with my reactivity even though drugs aren’t usually used for sensory stuff. I don’t like them but at the same time they help so much.
 
When I was a teenager (14) I was diagnosed with inhibited RAD (now just RAD in the DSM-5). I was trafficked into armed violence and sex slavery at 8 until I was almost 13. I operated firearms and hurt people but my RAD was caused in infancy as my mother had post-partum depression until I was 6-7 and would routinely smother me every time I cried and kept me locked in a room with my own excrement, didn't clean me or feed me or take care of me, routinely starved me, and I had severe bronchitis and medical neglect due to her bombing the apartment with RAID.

Our relationship is much better now and I have forgiven her for these things, as she got over her PPD and was not violent or abusive toward me at all since I was a little kid, and she has taken responsibility and apologized for her past behavior. But it does no good to deny the reality that RAD is caused by mistreatment in infancy and that was the origin.

The gang involvement almost certainly did not help and resulted in a significant brain injury as well. My impulse control is shit and I have an explosive temper, but my TBI occurred in the back of my brain, though it's possible I have more than one TBI and multiple concussions. The temper could just be me, or it could be a result of shock (I was present during/carried out firebombings and explosions, I've been hit in the head many, many times, I don't even remember how many times I lost consciousness.)

I have severe ADHD and impulse control issues, and my therapist has confirmed that at least at one point I met the diagnostic criteria for ASPD (this is common in RAD kids, usually they end up meeting the dx crit for a cluster B personality disorder at some point) as I have a history of criminality (theft, assault, stalking, hacking) and affective empathy challenges. I would watch people die with zero care, and I didn't understand why other people cared about things.

When I first came up here someone choked to death in front of me and I performed CPR on them until the nurses and fire dept got there (which was like 2 minutes since it was in the hospital). I also responded to someone ODing at the ferry terminal where I also responded for much longer until the EMS came with narcan. But I didn't give a shit either way. The 2nd guy Patrick I knew by name. Didn't even faze me at all, I was digging the vomit out of his mouth with my fingers.

I broke a dude's finger on the bus, didn't care. He was harassing me and following me around. I shouldn't have physically harmed him and I can understand that, but emotionally, I don't give a shit and still don't. I was also in a bar fight with four guys. This is starting to change and I'm starting to have more of an awareness of what being a human being really "means" and why people deserve compassion and why the ways that I harmed others was so egregiously wrong and how much I really hurt them and what it means to die. So while I am making progress on one hand, on the other I'm still getting into shit.

Most babies don't develop RAD, it's something like less than 1% of the most severely neglected kids will develop it, but my family is riddled with personality disorders and mental illness (BPD, NPD, schizophrenia, and there was a point of incest [as in, a child of incest, which I presume caused genetic anomalies] as well.) So I got the dumb ass luck, and even though it's a disorder of childhood, as an adult I essentially am completely stagnant without any human connections and I don't see any possibility of this getting any better.

I can't imagine that these issues haven't persisted into adulthood and affected my ability to form human connections and with all that has happened to me, I often struggle to believe I am worth the title of "human" at all.

I'm 31 years old and I've been in 1 relationship which did not work because I had no ability to be affectionate in any capacity and would routinely go weeks without speaking to him. I was not abusive but I was extremely distant and would become uncomfortable every time he expressed emotions to me. I have struggled with being abusive in the past, if anyone made noise or clinked dishes or stepped too heavily I would lose it and yell at them. The few times I have voluntarily had sex it was within kink spaces and I refused to allow anyone to touch me. I didn't even remove my clothes.

I have ZERO IRL friends. I barely leave my room. I can't hold a job.

I am feel broken beyond repair. I have no capacity to be intimate in any way, emotionally or sexually, and I probably never will. I don't even know why I'm posting this. I have started to recover some emotional function since 30, due to psilocybin and DXM therapy, but it is nowhere near approaching normal. I never cried until I was 30. For the most part I feel flat and empty, interspersed by periods of absolute insanity and crying like an infant, literal wailing. I'm fractured into probably thousands of pieces on the inside.

When my mom dies I will be homeless since I have no capacity to help myself in any way and I can't get a job. I've tried hard to work over and over again and I just can't stick with it because every time I speak to a customer (I was not able to graduate high school due to my TBI and learning disabilities so the only jobs I am qualified for are menial labor which I can't do because of my chronic physical disabilities or customer service/call center) I want to kill them and then kill myself. I would make mistakes constantly at work because I couldn't focus. I would have flashbacks in the corner in the bathroom or just fail to respond to anything like I was having a seizure, but I think it was just dissociation.

I'm trying so hard not to be a victim and with my medication regimen and therapy regimen I'm starting to be able to do chores and go outside and talk to my mom and have an actual connection with her, and enjoy TV shows and stuff, but is that all my life is going to be? What happens when she dies and I have literally no one because I am too broken and stupid to make friends and work and be an adult? My therapists say how functional I am and how rare and amazing it is that I'm capable of holding conversations and how self-aware I am but when my mom dies I will be just like every other kid like me, I will be on the street probably addicted to crack again.

I wish I wasn't so f*cked up. I'm sorry for going on and on and on about this. Just feeling sorry for myself today. Sometimes this all seems so insurmountable and so huge and I'm just one guy, and I don't think I have the resources or capacity to truly heal from this. I'm just not smart enough, I just don't have enough neurological capacity. I guess just wondering if anyone can relate. Because not only do I have PTSD and trauma but I have no capacity for human relationships and I have a history of hurting people. Do I even deserve human connections? Probably not. I don't know.

Anyway, I'm sorry, jeez. I should have probably just posted this in my diary, lmao.
Well, first of all, I will echo each of the responses you have gotten thus far.

The truth is that you have survived a nightmare of epic proportions.

I'm sure others have mentioned this and perhaps you know of it already, but have you ever tried EMDR?

I would love to hear back from you about how you are doing.

This community rocks!
 
have you ever tried EMDR?

Unfortunately I don't have enough of a coherent baseline for EMDR. Every therapist I have ever had has told me that EMDR is essentially contraindicated for my case.

EMDR accomplishes neurogenesis via bilateral pathway stimulation, though, which I have managed with psilocybin therapy. It's been very effective, but you can only do it for so long. There's such a thing as "informational burnout" as our neuroanatomy is only designed to handle so much input. It's been about a year since I've last dosed, but I'm still receiving positive effects.

I gained a limited capacity for affective empathy as well as subjective emotional sensations, which is definitely not nothing when you have RAD and ASPD traits. To the best of my ability I have improved relationships with my family and have an online friend group that I socialize with when I am medicated. Sometimes I can do chores and activities outside, but not on my own cognizance.

I would love to hear back from you about how you are doing.

Overall, I am the same as I was when I wrote this post. I still do not have a job, or friends, or much meaning to my existence beyond maintaining the processes of homeostasis. Dextromethorphan therapy has been assistive, but I don't receive medicine on a continual basis, so there are periods where I am completely nonfunctional interspersed with a week or two at a time of ability (which I use to volunteer what I can to assist others with trauma and processing).
 
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