YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Right, so. Normally in real life I throw some jokes out to try and make the tension less thick and disguise my mental health issues, but I doubt that'd be appreciated here. Hello, my name is Jory - well, my nickname is Jory, my actual name is so grating to me I wouldn't tell it to anyone if not legally required to do so - and I am... I'm trying to take my therapist's advice and not be blunt or so forthcoming with horrific details that I unsettle people. Let's go with 'not doing well'. I was born without empathy, guilt or much of a sense of right or wrong and in a better life, those would be my main issues. Because my life has been a mess, those are only just now even registering as problems, because I had three much bigger issues that took up my mind's entire real estate growing up: stay alive, try to survive the sadistic sexual abuse with as few injuries as possible, and come up with a plan to get out of there.

The details of what went on, I'll spare you. It's not really going to help anyone to know the details of how I was pushed far past my breaking point. There was the sex, the group sex, the demeaning of myself by my foster family, the depersonalization, the ongoing verbal and psychological abuse telling me I wasn't a person, the starvation, and of course, the being punished for trying to get out. It was a rough decade between when I was 5 and 15. Eventually I got out - it's a long story and as with most of my life, it's ridiculous in a way that I would usually mock, were that not considered in bad taste - and then I got to live with my grandfather. It's been five years, almost six.

I survived. I have not been spared. I have fits of rage about what was done to me that make me trash the room or lash out at myself and injure myself. I can't connect to anyone, which is not actually a feature of my diagnosis - most people with Anti-Social Personality Disorder connect to someone - but is instead the result of not having connections my entire life. I stockpile food I don't need. I casually think up ways to ruin the lives of everyone around me in case I should need to do so because a lot of people have failed me when I tried to reach out and get help and get out of that hellhole and I do not trust a single person not to let me down. I keep in shape solely because I want to be able to fight the next person who tries to hurt me physically. I have never felt remorse for a single thing I have ever done and I don't feel bad for other people. I logically understand why things people have gone through are wrong and serve no purpose and therefore do not do bad things, because so far, I can't find much of a point to most asshole behaviors. As with most people with ASPD, I have no sense of self-preservation sometimes. I will do things that are insanely risky for no other purpose than because I feel like it.

A lot of the time I don't feel anything. A lot of the time when I do, I feel like a monster. That was what they always called me when they abused me. A monster, disgusting, deserving of everything they did to me. It was their biggest mistake. You can kill a person. Monsters are immortal. I am not a person. A person loves others, has empathy, feels regret, knows what they're feeling, and, tragically enough, can be broken. I was born broken and thus strong enough to get through everything they did to me without either killing myself or killing them (they do not deserve death, which is painless, when their entire existences were centered around causing pain). I am, like most monsters, more or less fine with what I am. It got me out of there.

It doesn't make it easy to live now. People ascribe a personhood to me that isn't there. People speak to me as if I'm meant to know how to act and react, as if we're part of the same society and just the same species. No one wants to admit that I'm a monster until they hear my diagnosis. Then they think sociopath, they think of violence, they think of danger and they leave. Opening up to people hits an eject button to throw them out of my life. Sympathy and empathy have hard limits and my diagnosis is one of them. It's not new. No one cared when I was a crying five year old, and I was cute back then. I can't blame them for backing away from me in the present when I've lost any hint of endearing traits. But knowing the reason why I can't connect and why any honesty will send people running away doesn't make it any less exhausting. I want a connection. I want hands in my hair like when I was four and my mom, may she rest in peace, would run her hands through my hair and tell me stories. I tried sex. It's not what I was hoping for. It's perfectly serviceable in the moment, but it doesn't address whatever this internal issue is. I think that might require keeping someone around long-term. The problem is, acting normal and feigning emotions you don't feel is extremely difficult long-term.

My therapist does what she can. It's not enough, not due to lack of skill on her part, but due to faulty wiring on my end. The podcast gives me a lot of insight into the minds of people. It makes it easier to know how to act to pass as a person. It also deeply exhausts me at times, because people seem to have hauled themselves out of dark places while my eyes have adjusted to the dark to the point I can't see in the light. But due to lack of other options and that classic ASPD "eh, even if it goes horribly, I'm not sure I actually care that much" mentality, I decided to throw this up here. Let's see if I can get some snippet of something that'll make me a bit less of a mess and more of a functional sort of monstrous. Worst case scenario, all of you just go "too long, didn't read!" and scroll on.

I'd apologize for the length of this message but honestly even if I felt remorse, I probably wouldn't about a lengthy vent after a decade of being a fucktoy and starved animal locked away in an attic. If anything this is pretty mild compared to what I could write if I weren't on my best behavior.

It might feel like you are a “monster” from the inside, but what you describe is not the path of a monster. Happy to read your whole post. Please take care, all blessings to you, all strength to you, and all courage to you.

Hello BlueGold,

Welcome, and we're glad you posted.
Your post contains so much. (And is quite eloquent I might add... You write very well).

..I throw some jokes out to try and make the tension less thick and disguise my mental health issues, but I doubt that'd be appreciated here

Communicating in this relatively anonymous way - there's less tension than when face-to-face, and humor is often the only way to express and deal with such heavy things....

....I decided to throw this up here. Let's see if I can get some snippet of something that'll make me a bit less of a mess and more of a functional sort of monstrous. Worst case scenario, all of you just go "too long, didn't read!" and scroll on.

I read at all, and twice. I'd like to respond in more detail when I have more time, but here are a couple of quick thoughts -

You are *not* a monster but you've had monstrous things done to you. And the rage is certainly understandable. Don't turn it inward though. You are a worthy human being, trying to find yourself.

Whether the lack of emotion is biological/organic, or is the result of the abuse, it seems to have protected you to some degree.

And you're certainly self-aware and trying to learn how to navigate in society.
Believe me, it's hard enough for many of us too. Feels like a continual minefield sometimes. Emotions can a blessing and a curse.

It's good that you escaped your tormentors and found some kind of refuge with your grandfather and a good therapist. Is she recommending for you? Any particular books, mental exercises, role playing type of interactions, etc?

I'd apologize for the length of this message

Don't be silly. No apologies needed or expected.

manuel_moe_g wrote: ↑December 21st, 2023, 8:14 pm It might feel like you are a “monster” from the inside, but what you describe is not the path of a monster. Happy to read your whole post. Please take care, all blessings to you, all strength to you, and all courage to you.

My gut instinct is to say, 'you don't know that'. But a more rational part of me points out that none of us can be entirely sure what path we're on until later. I'm not sure I can see myself as a person or on the path to being a person. It's hard to conceptualize what that might entail. However, I am at least on the path to not being destructive, which is probably a good thing to aim for at the start until I get more specific goals together. Thank you for the well wishes.

snoringdog wrote: ↑December 21st, 2023, 8:48 pm You are *not* a monster but you've had monstrous things done to you.

I'm not sure I would agree with this assessment of myself. Lack of remorse and empathy are not very common human traits. They're certainly not traits that I would think of as inclining me towards humane behavior. My long streak of minor crimes and outright violence against bullies at school (I once nearly killed someone who tried to kill me; if I was going down, he was going down too) do not indicate a particularly sweet creature. Besides, I take substantial solace in the concept of monsterhood. Monsters can't be easily defeated. They especially cannot be beaten by average people - and describing the people who raised me as average is probably being generous regarding their overall value.

snoringdog wrote: ↑December 21st, 2023, 8:48 pm Whether the lack of emotion is biological/organic, or is the result of the abuse, it seems to have protected you to some degree.

The lack of empathy was there as early as three. It's been an ongoing issue. Remorse is also not on the table for me, instinctively, and wasn't even when I was in a stable environment. Whether I lack emotion as much as I think I do is a much more complicated thing. Emotion does seem to be there at times, but 1., I've never been in an environment that allowed me to express emotion after the age of 5, 2., I was never taught to identify my feelings, and 3., even people with ASPD in loving home environments struggle to identify their feelings. At times, my therapist has had to correct me on this: I think I'm not feeling something, but in fact, I am doing so, I simply don't identify that hoarding food is an anxious action, or that wanting to die is not a casual emotionless thought but is an indicator of sadness or being overwhelmed. How much ASPD and alexithymia protected me or made things worse, I honestly can't assess. I think we would need a professional to weigh in on that, while I'm just a college student with a single psychology class under my belt.

snoringdog wrote: ↑December 21st, 2023, 8:48 pm It's good that you escaped your tormentors and found some kind of refuge with your grandfather and a good therapist. Is she recommending for you? Any particular books, mental exercises, role playing type of interactions, etc?

A lot of mental exercises, we're finding, aren't working super well for me. The degree of alexithymia I have is so extreme that we're going to have to work through that in order to make it so more techniques work for me. Roleplaying has revealed a lack of capacity to imagine myself in other people's shoes or in specific roles, not solely because of my ASPD, but because I have a hard time imagining myself in any real capacity. Characters, I can imagine clearly. I wrote a lot of stories and read a lot of books in order to get through life. Conceptualizing myself is much more difficult. Too much of my formative years were spent trying to stay alive. My therapist is determined to help, but she's honest enough to admit that trying techniques with me may take some time before we get the right options for me, and there's work to be done before we try more. Her first order of business was going after the credentials of the therapist I'd seen while I was abused who hadn't done anything to help me. She is, like most short, motherly women I have met, very sweet and extremely capable of destroying someone else. If I felt fear outside of fear-for-my-life level physical threats (which is actually not a given, for people with ASPD; sometimes our minds shut fear off even in extreme situations, hence the 'lack of regard for your own safety' part of the diagnosis), I would likely fear her as much as I like her.

Hi BlueGold

First of all I like your forum name.

Second I really appreciate your post for a number of reasons. I have read it multiple times, and I mean multiple. I felt your words in a way that made me sit back and try my hardest not to relate as your descriptions very much relate to my emotional state a few years ago, before I found this forum and therapy. And in ways I relate to some of what you describe to this day.

Being sexually assaulted by a family member from a very young age it left me with feelings that I am nothing but a toy, convenience and emotional project to practice emotional abuse on. I felt like I was an experiment to my mother and oldest brother.

The hatred that came with this lives on to this day. I feel like a monster or evil creature for having such anger and hatred towards my parents and brother. Now only one is still alive (brother) I find myself emotionally detached from all my family alive or dead.
Took my friend to the graves the other day of my twin, mum, grandma and grandfather and I had absolutely zero emotion. My mums is seperate from the others so it’s at the opposite side of the cemetery, I wanted to kick it, deep down I wanted to yell at it, scream and smash it. But I just stood there and pretended I was ok. Then there is the numbness of emotion on top of that anger, aggression and oppression that just goes home with you like a ghost. It’s haunting.

I don’t know about your but I feel more emotions in my sleeping state than I do when awake. Hence my sleep walking problem.

The numbness to certain situations is still there for me, but after therapy, the team of support on here and self care I can feel more comfortable with my emotions and let them just be there or not be there.

Recognise is the first step. You have achieved this

Accept is the second step. You are in the process???

Investigate is the third. You are doing this with therapy.

Have you ever written a letter to yourself at different points of your life?

With your emotional acknowledgment around sex and how you felt it served its purpose etc, this is to this day something I struggle with and not really talked about on the forum.
When you have had your body used in such a way as what we have, we become detached from our body mentally in a way. Sex in later years doesn’t mean the same to someone that say hasn’t been used or abused for their body. Sex or intimate moments become very distant, detached and sometimes aggressive. There is a need to be in control or controlled depending on your abuse experience. Sex for me, huge problem to this day.

You my friend are not alone, your very much heard. Your post moved me in ways only we can understand. Evil and numb we may feel but we can learn to like, love, care for and be there for people. You just now have been there for me in a little way by reading this.

I’m about to have surgery and part of me believes I deserve the pain I am in because the voices that linger from my past are ingrained in my brain. We much learn to love ourselves.

Please take care and stay on the forum

Mental Fairy wrote: ↑December 22nd, 2023, 8:28 pm The hatred that came with this lives on to this day. I feel like a monster or evil creature for having such anger and hatred towards my parents and brother.

Something I was thinking about the other day, which my therapist actually agree with, is that anger is not inherently bad. In order to be angry at your mistreatment you have to believe that you deserve better treatment on at least some level, if only subconscious and instinctual. Monsters are not inherently evil in a lot of cultures, including my biological family's. They become evil when pushed unduly or wronged. If it is wrong to be monstrous, it should only be because the things that happened to shift you into a monster should not have happened in the first damn place.

Mental Fairy wrote: ↑December 22nd, 2023, 8:28 pm I don’t know about your but I feel more emotions in my sleeping state than I do when awake. Hence my sleep walking problem.

One of the things that makes people with ASPD hard to deal with in therapy is our alexithymia. Alexithymia, most accurately described as colorblindness to your own feelings, renders it hard for someone to recognize their own feelings even as they're feeling them. I think it's more accurate for me personally to say I can recognize my feelings while asleep. They might in fact still be present while awake. It's realizing that that's the issue. I didn't really learn to do that growing up. I don't think there was time for my brain to learn how to do that because I was so busy trying to find ways to stay safe and survive and that eats up a lot of brainpower. You only have so much energy to give. You devote it to whatever keeps you out of harm's way to whatever meager degree that's possible. I don't sleep walk, but I do find it addicting to lay in bed and drift in and out of consciousness. It's the closest to a state where I can feel things nearly normally. And at my grandfather's place I can actually sleep and not have to worry about being woken up and assaulted, though sometimes PTSD kicks in and I sleep under my bed out of some deeply ingrained instinct that tells me it's safer there than somewhere visible. Old habits die hard.

Mental Fairy wrote: ↑December 22nd, 2023, 8:28 pm Have you ever written a letter to yourself at different points of your life?

No. I'm not sure I'd find that helpful. My advice to my younger self would probably amount to informing him of what I did that actually worked to get someone to get me out of that hellhole and telling him to go do it immediately. I can't think of much else I'd want to say to younger me. "Here's how you get out, here's how to do it, go forth and make their lives miserable, Godspeed and goodluck," would be about all I'd have to say. I barely have a sense of my present self. Attempting to write to my younger self is extremely difficult. Sometimes all of those years blur together in my mind's eye. It's a series of violations and lashing out and begging people to intervene who did not take me seriously and then getting angry at that and deciding if someone wasn't going to help me, I was going to make them at least a fraction as miserable as I was. (This is part of why I enjoy getting people who failed me fired. The other part is that if you failed me, a child capable of giving you play-by-play recitations of sexual abuse, you are absolutely going to fail normal kids being abused, so you have thus proven you do not deserve to be in this position. And I am more than happy to be the one who removes people from positions they have proven themselves unworthy of. Monsters exist to eat the arrogant and teach others a lesson, after all.)

Mental Fairy wrote: ↑December 22nd, 2023, 8:28 pm When you have had your body used in such a way as what we have, we become detached from our body mentally in a way. Sex in later years doesn’t mean the same to someone that say hasn’t been used or abused for their body. Sex or intimate moments become very distant, detached and sometimes aggressive. There is a need to be in control or controlled depending on your abuse experience.

I fall into the 'need to be in control' part of that. If I'm not in control I'm not able to think of it as about to turn into an assault. The problem with that is that it implies a substantial lack of trust, which most partners do not find particularly engaging and usually find hurtful. I can do sex as a practical thing to get a result. I didn't get the substantial fee to study abroad next semester waived via ethical means, I just slept with the ISEP coordinator a few times and saw it vanish from my billing statement. I can do that. I can do transactions. I can't quite manage intimacy. That does not mean I don't want it. I want it more than I have words in my limited emotional vocabulary to convey. Something is broken within me, where I can't really wrap my mind around what sex that isn't distant would look like, and yet it's still an endgame goal for me at some point in the future.

Unfortunately, given I still have a lot of damage to work through from my last relationship ending when I was honest with my partner about my diagnosis and how I process emotions... this is a goal for future me. 20-or-more-years-later me, a me with substantially more therapy under his belt and distance between himself and that total rejection of who and what I am. Or, hopefully, I'll find that 'self-fulfillment' thing every wellness influencer on social media talks about and won't need connection with others. That sounds utterly ideal and a lot safer, although I'm not sure how feasible it is for me. IDK, I'm a junior in college, I'm not at my most knowledgeable about life just yet. I'm open to advice and words of wisdom from people who aren't currently too young to drink legally.

It's late and I'm rambling. I'm sorry. This was not a very cohesive response and I don't know if I just adequately related to you or revealed that actually we have nothing in common whatsoever. I'm new to this whole 'honesty' thing. Compulsive lying to make yourself look normal is a common trauma reaction and a common ASPD behavior, so as someone sitting in the middle of that Venn diagram, I'm not used to being this honest this regularly. I'm not sure I'm good at it just yet.