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

No, this isn't about PTSD -- at least, not military-related PTSD.

I was on active duty from fall 1972 to summer 1982. While in Naval Officer Candidate School, I volunteered for the Navy's Nuclear Power Program, and for submarines. ADM Rickover interviewed me in late Dec 1972 or early Jan 1973; I was commissioned in Feb 1973; I finished my formal training in March 1974; and I reported to my first (of two) submarines in May 1974. Qualified in submarines in summer 1976 (OK, during my first year the boat was in overhaul). I resigned my commission in summer 1982, and then immediately joined the Reserves. By the end of 1992 I had completed 20 years of service (active and inactive) and retired from the Reserves. Now that I have beaten the odds -- I have survived past the age of 60 -- I'm getting some retired pay. Whoopee.

Now, people ask me how I could possibly want to have served aboard submarines. I doubt that my reason is common among submariners, but in a way I was a submariner before I ever reported aboard. I recently figured part of this out.

A couple of days ago, I stumbled across this article on "Childhood Emotional Neglect:" http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sto ... al-neglect. A few of you may have seen me rail, in my introduction, about how isolated I had felt, as a kid, because I was so smart that the adults around me didn't know what to do with me and left me terrified that I would "cross" them without knowing, while being helpless before them.

This was my own entry into Traumatic Stress, into long-term ongoing traumatic stress, into long-term ongoing high levels of stress-chemicals, into disassociative responses to highly stressful events.

At that time, I thought I was so-rare in feeling like this -- because (indeed) I am smarter than about 99.97% of the people around me.

This article has made me think twice about that. This article talks about the consequences when a child feels that his emotions are being ignored or dismissed. If a child's care-giver adults dismiss the child's emotions, then the child herself is likely to adapt by following their lead: by dismissing his own emotions -- in effect, by "submerging" the child's own emotions. Because her own emotions are not good, or not valuable, or not worth noticing or acting upon. How logical that is, isn't it?

This, I think, is what I did. Which naturally led to to becoming socially isolated. After all, if I was dismissing my own emotions, would I pay attention to others'? If I expected that they would dismiss my emotions, would I do anything to encourage them to notice me? How logical that is, isn't it?

So -- I had "submerged" from humanity long before I had ever walked aboard a boat. This worked pretty-well for me, while I was a junior officer in my first ship's engineering department. Those jobs were so technical, so hard-engineering, that your professional knowledge could trump your social ignorance (so long as you behaved honorably, of course).

Now, any veterans who are reading this will be nodding and smiling when I point out what, to youse guys, will be the obvious: in the long run, ignoring your shipmates' emotional lives is not going to help your career. And it didn't.

And the Root Cause could be said to have been my being So Smart That I Freaked My Caregivers Out.

But perhaps the Effective Cause could have been said to have been, Childhood Emotional Neglect.

Which is more widespread than that "too smart" stuff.

I wish I had something to help you, AsynchronousMe. (I am envious that you were interviewed by Rickover - I have a portrait of Rickover over my desk at work)

I am working through in EMDR my parents dismissing my anxiety constantly and thoughtlessly. I wish they had not done that.

Good luck to you, all the best.

Thanks, Manuel. Best wishes to you, too.

I have only just realized this -- like, only a day or two ago -- so I haven't had much "time to do anything" with it or about it. Right now, I'm just at the "aha" moment.

For what it is or might be worth, I have been mulling this situation for a very long time. I have tried working with a couple of therapists, but -- funny thing! -- I have not felt an emotional "connection" with either of them. I was able to work through some of my personal history, and make some intellectual connections here-and-there; but there was nothing visceral, nothing that would "degauss" the "freeze" response I learned to make.

I'm at a point where I do not blame my care givers: with ~50 years of perspective, plus the experience of being a parent and an instructor myself, I can see that they were all flat-out overwhelmed by the situation they were in, when trying to deal with me. My teachers were overwhelmed by all these kids flooding in (I was one of the babies that put the "Boom!" in the Baby Boom). My dad traveled a lot for work, and my mom -- well, she felt pretty helpless in the wake of her own turbulent childhood. They all did the best within their capacity to do; sometimes that just isn't enough, and this was so with me.

I have been wary about jumping into an acronym-treatment before I know what the heck I'm getting treated-for. Some of these things get marketed -- and get recommended by other patients -- like patent-medicine cure-alls.

I have also been reluctant to jump into a "support group." "What am I getting support for?"

PTSD? Well, most of the PTSD groups I know-of have members who got shot at, or who got physically or sexually assaulted. How would they take my complaints seriously?

Child neglect? Again, most of those groups will have people who were starved, or left to wander on the streets as children. Nope, not my crowd.

Well, still not yet sure which therapeutic direction to go. But now, I think, I have a clearer picture of the landscape.

You'd never catch me on a submarine and I'm hardly smarter than the average person, but I did find myself relating to a lot of what you said. My parents completely disregarded much of my emotional experience. My father was simply absent in an emotional way... and my mother was wrapped up in her own overly emotional experience and unable to mirror back my emotions. I was always a sensitive kid, but by the time I hit puberty I felt completely shut down and dead. I was unable to socially interact in normal, healthy ways with other people because their emotions were so anxiety-producing in me. For instance, I still become terrified when confronted with someone crying. I can recognize that they are sad, but I cannot engage with that sadness on an emotional level. This, I am sure, causes me to come across as uncaring and callous. Within the last few years I have come to understand how important recognizing and allowing emotions is in social context and day-to-day living, but it is a slow process of teaching oneself. I guess it's kind of like trying to learn a new language as an adult. It's possible, but it would have been much easier if learned as a child.

You mentioned that you do not blame your caregivers, and I relate to you there as well. My parents didn't have the tools to help themselves, let alone give me what I needed. I look back on them (especially my mother) with sympathy. For me, I like to focus on process. The most helpful things for me are to identify my emotions (and emotions in others) and to translate my coping mechanisms (overeating, depression, anger) into the feelings underneath them. Identification really helped me the most, because for the longest time if someone asked me how I was doing... I was really limited to either "I'm fine" or "I feel like shit."

But anyway, it's great that you've had this realization and I hope that it does allow you to move forward in a positive way. Good luck.

Thank you, shrew. Clearly you are not achieving your full potential for "bitterness." Perhaps, with some more work, you can make progress toward living up (or down?) to your name!

Yeah, I am pleasantly kinda surprised to find myself looking at something that is not limited to so-few-people-that-I-have-nothing-in-common-with-anyone.

I have been able to get-along in ordinary social situations, thanks to lessons I picked up along the way in small-talk type stuff. Currently the biggest problem I'm noticing is that I don't usually expect people to notice, or care about, my feelings. If I meet someone new who does -- I have a track record of being so utterly clueless for so long that the other person eventually gives up and moves on.

That's not completely catastrophic. I am married, to a wonderful woman -- we've been married for 23 years now. But new friends would always be welcome.

If I can recognize them, when they show up.

(Adding) There is also a dash of distrust in that.

A: "Hi there! I've just met you, and I care how you feel!"

B: "Uh, hi. That's nice to hear. Um, are you telling me the truth about that? [beat] Oh. Did I say that out loud?"

Of course I never do (say that out loud). But it's inside, there. And ... not being sure whether someone is telling you the truth is one kind of not-trusting that person.

I've had the online nickname "bitteroldshrew" since I was sixteen, back when I was much younger, probably less bitter, and definitely less shrewish. The name is more fitting now than it was then. lol

I can certainly relate to that distrust you mentioned. I think, for me, it goes back to that feeling of being different, misunderstood, a league apart. I don't know if your experience was similar, but for me, all I really wanted when I was growing up was to be understood. I didn't really think much about emotion or validation or anything like that. What I wanted was for someone to look at me and really see for who I was and LIKE me for who I was. That was what I really craved (and still do.) My parents seemed to regard me as a thing, rather than as a person. I wasn't someone to get to know, but more like a pet, fed and watered and left in the cage.

I do believe that people can have caring feelings for me, but my issue becomes one of how much value I place on those feelings. I am so reserved that most people can't ever truly know me, and if they don't truly know me, then how can they really care for me?

It's that initial act of sharing and being vulnerable that I really struggle with when it comes to other people. I suppose the goal should be to be open regardless of their intentions and the people who truly care will stick around no matter what.

By the way, I didn't mean to hijack your thread! Your post was interesting and it made me think about my own situation. So thanks for the chance to air some ideas.

Don't worry -- you didn't hijack it. It's still going exactly in the right direction.

I definitely resonate with your middle two paragraphs, about not feeling "seen" and about being reluctant to assign value to other people's feelings about oneself.

Sorry, not much more words coming -- I'm at work, and distracted.

Hmm. Looks like maybe this does apply to a wider collection of people than I had once thought. Maybe I'll start a new thread elsewhere, one not focused on vets.

Later!

So I have never been in the military, but was looking at this topic because my roommate was Army and your thread because my dad was on a sub as well. He was a marine corpsman on a sub but I can't remember which boat, in the late 70s and early 80s. That's what attracted me but I found so much of what you said in your original post to ring true correctly in my life. My problem is I know all this, can see all this, they seem obvious glaring links to me but not to my family. It's an issue we haven't been able to move past. Mostly I believe because my mom doesn't want to feel blamed and I so badly need validation and for them to understand that things effect people differently. I don't blame my mom, she did her best, it was enough for my sister but not enough for me and psychology has come so far since I was a kid... The things that you said totally 100% relate, just minus the military service. I know this link is older, but I thank you for helping me find a better description than I have been able to on my own.

Lucy --

Welcome to the forum. And you're welcome.

My own approach to handling my parents' limitations has been, frankly, to walk away. I myself don't feel compelled to hear them say they gave me less than I needed.

(For one thing, my father passed away several years ago; for another, my mother is in her 80s, and doesn't need that in her own life.)

Perhaps that says as much about my readiness to walk away, as it says about my "forgiveness" or "forbearance."

Perhaps it also says something about my decision not to seek validation in other people's statements, perceptions, or opinions ... since they didn't "see" me for so long anyway.

Dunno.

Best wishes.