i cant understand or relate to most people

[Ras]

I honestly get so annoyed and frustrated over this.
I fake feeling things based upon how people are reacting around me a lot of the time. Not with everything of course but with people being sympathetic to others or upset about some things that happened to a stranger or anything.
Truthfully i feel nothing when it comes to stuff like that. I just dont want to be around it because it kind of annoys me.

But i dont know if i do feel things like that for real though. Like with my son, i would do anything for him and i mean anything. I get very paranoid about him getting hurt and people hurting him and lets just say i will and have in the past done things to make sure that didnt happen or stopped it from continuing.
I dont know if that is sympathy or just because he is the most important thing to me.

Anyone else i just dont feel anything towards and straight out just dont care anything about them.
I think i am pretty good at faking that i care though but its very draining having to do that around them.

All i feel is annoyance most of the time and it seems to have cost me a lot. For one i cant seem to stay employed for long. Not only because the extreme boredom is like torture to me but i cant be around people for long periods of time without things getting bad.
And that isnt even getting started of hearing voices and the extreme paranoia i put up with daily.

I need to find some way to be able to better withstand people so that i can better myself financially so i can do more for my son. Doctors, therapists, psychotherapists and counsellors are no help what so ever since i keep being told for a little less then a year now that i should not be working atm yet the boredom and wanting more for my son is slowly eating away at me

 

[Crazyswede]

Hi Ras, have you been diagnosed with anything which might explain these feelings ( NPD?)

 

[GeminiMoon]

I can relate. With severe ptsd I had a lot of repressed issues that I couldn't face let alone deal with. It was hard to care about other people when I felt so numb. Took a lot of time to work through it. Didn't have much hope I ever would.

 

[DD040894]

Hi, I can relate to part of it. When I am under some extreme feelings I kind of cut off all emotions from myself, I feel like evrything is nonsense, unimportant, I just have no interest in others as I can't even help myself. This is kind of protection. I can't imagine myself a my worst and helping others with their feelings.It is a suicide.

 

[Ras]

Hi Ras, have you been diagnosed with anything which might explain these feelings ( NPD?)

hey, yep diagnosed with ASPD and schizophrenia

 

[Ras]

I can relate. With severe ptsd I had a lot of repressed issues that I couldn't face let alone deal with. It was hard to care about other people when I felt so numb. Took a lot of time to work through it. Didn't have much hope I ever would.

what did you do to work through it?

 

[Ras]

Hi, I can relate to part of it. When I am under some extreme feelings I kind of cut off all emotions from myself, I feel like evrything is nonsense, unimportant, I just have no interest in others as I can't even help myself. This is kind of protection. I can't imagine myself a my worst and helping others with their feelings.It is a suicide.

You said you cut off all emotions when under extreme feelings, does that mean that you also have those emotions at times?

 

[GeminiMoon]

Lots. First I gave up watching or reading anything about the world that made me feel hopeless and paranoid. It was just making me feel worse. Instead I watched videos about survivors of abuse and learning the things they did to overcome it. Also it helped to connect emotionally to someone else's experience.

I learnt about the psychology of people who do cruel things. Also how to respond to someone like that so I can feel safer and more confident if I'm ever in that situation.

Learning to forgive was a big one. Took a lot of practice attempts before I could do it genuinely. Holding onto resentment would mean I haven't really gotten over it.

I studied physics and how the universe worked and spirituality and religion. Trying to figure out if it is all just a random accident or there is some purpose behind it all. Learning astrology blew me away. I saw my whole life in there. It was like looking into the matrix code of the universe and helped me to see everything I went through had a reason.

And over time letting things bubble to the surface and trying to make sense of them. Letting it all vent out in small bursts. Having a flood of emotions. Anger and bitterness. Many times telling the universe "I give up and just want to die". And falling asleep in a ball and waking up and trying again. Sometimes it was days or weeks before could.

That's a short version.

 

[Crazyswede]

With your diagnosis, I guess it’s always going to be hard/impossible to relate to others in an authentic way.
Faking certain emotions and reactions must indeed be very draining and irritating for you, since you are not benefitting from the inner feelings that the real emotions would give you...therefore it’s perfectly reasonable for you to say / assume that this display of empathy that you feel you need to put on, is a chore.
My ex partner was undiagnosed, but would often be totally puzzled by other people ( including me). He simply didn’t have the capability of “ putting himself in someone else’s shoes”, and so only ever thought of himself. In the past, I often thought of him as selfish and uncaring. In actual fact, he was not like that on purpose, he simply lacked the capability to consider that everyone is a person in their own right, with feelings, rights and so on. Once I realised what he was like ( sadly at the end of our relationship), I used to try and say to him, “ If you hurt, upset or otherwise do wrong to others, then think what it would feel like if they do that to you - You wouldn’t like it would you? Well, why do it to someone else because you are giving that person the very same feelings that you wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of”
In my partners case, he had childhood trauma which totally explained how he came to be this way, how he came to grow up without certain emotions.
I am not sure that’s helped you any, but I guess the message is that we are all different, and think differently.
I hope you find peace, a job which suits ( maybe consider being self employed?), and wish you the very best of luck with both.

 

[DD040894]

You said you cut off all emotions when under extreme feelings, does that mean that you also have those emotions at times?

I have all kinds of emotions. But some of my emotions are supressed by torture where I lived, so I supressed anger, normal fear, but sadness the most. And this created world of depression, huge anxiety, suicidal thoughts...
For example, my uncle died 2 days ago. I was not close to him, I saw him once in 2 years at most. Can't remember last time seeing him, maybe in 2016. I felt a bit sad, but just a bit. And I felt guilty that I wasn't feeling bigger sadness. And I didn't even go to the funeral, because I was feeling bad today. Even though I was scared that everybody will think that I am a bad cousin and so on, I felt better that I didn't need to go there and pretend, because I was in my own s*it deep enough. If I felt better I would maybe come. Hopefully you can understand me.

 

[Ras]

I have all kinds of emotions. But some of my emotions are supressed by torture where I lived, so I supressed anger, normal fear, but sadness the most. And this created world of depression, huge anxiety, suicidal thoughts...
For example, my uncle died 2 days ago. I was not close to him, I saw him once in 2 years at most. Can't remember last time seeing him, maybe in 2016. I felt a bit sad, but just a bit. And I felt guilty that I wasn't feeling bigger sadness. And I didn't even go to the funeral, because I was feeling bad today. Even though I was scared that everybody will think that I am a bad cousin and so on, I felt better that I didn't need to go there and pretend, because I was in my own s*it deep enough. If I felt better I would maybe come. Hopefully you can understand me.

sorry to hear that. I fully understand what you are saying but cant really relate. I do hope things get better for you though

 

[Ras]

With your diagnosis, I guess it’s always going to be hard/impossible to relate to others in an authentic way.
Faking certain emotions and reactions must indeed be very draining and irritating for you, since you are not benefitting from the inner feelings that the real emotions would give you...therefore it’s perfectly reasonable for you to say / assume that this display of empathy that you feel you need to put on, is a chore.
My ex partner was undiagnosed, but would often be totally puzzled by other people ( including me). He simply didn’t have the capability of “ putting himself in someone else’s shoes”, and so only ever thought of himself. In the past, I often thought of him as selfish and uncaring. In actual fact, he was not like that on purpose, he simply lacked the capability to consider that everyone is a person in their own right, with feelings, rights and so on. Once I realised what he was like ( sadly at the end of our relationship), I used to try and say to him, “ If you hurt, upset or otherwise do wrong to others, then think what it would feel like if they do that to you - You wouldn’t like it would you? Well, why do it to someone else because you are giving that person the very same feelings that you wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of”
In my partners case, he had childhood trauma which totally explained how he came to be this way, how he came to grow up without certain emotions.
I am not sure that’s helped you any, but I guess the message is that we are all different, and think differently.
I hope you find peace, a job which suits ( maybe consider being self employed?), and wish you the very best of luck with both.

yeah it very much is a chore at times unless i feel like i am getting something out of it.

You sound a lot more understanding and i guess patient compared to people i have been in relationships with. Granted they never knew my diagnosis. Well the schizophrenia they did as that is not the easiest to hide but the ASPD doesn't really go well when people find out about it and actually know what it is.
thank you for the reply and the kind words

 

[Crazyswede]

Hi again Ras, I guess my first question was a bit of a leading one ( ie have you got a diagnosis), since your very honest initial description of yourself could well have been out of the mouth of my ex. Sadly, I never knew he felt this way when we were together and so between his fake feelings/emotions, and my constant overthinking and trying to make him happy, we were always on a path to disaster. Why? Because we were talking different languages, like trying to live and converse with an alien. Not suggesting you are an alien of course, I simply mean that him and I just never understood each other - it’s a two way street, see, with neither person understanding the other.
My ex’s idea of love was someone who could make him happy.
My idea of love ( also dysfunctional) was being able to make someone happy.
Both scenarios were about him, and that’s how we stumbled along for 22 years. I guess the same set up can be applied to non romantic relationships, ie work colleagues, friends and family members.
If it helps you any, I would always have preferred the truth from my ex over one of his lies or fake emotions. In short, he couldn’t give me what I wanted, because his past hadn’t equipped him with the emotional tools to do so. It wasn’t his fault.

 

[Ras]

Hi again Ras, I guess my first question was a bit of a leading one ( ie have you got a diagnosis), since your very honest initial description of yourself could well have been out of the mouth of my ex. Sadly, I never knew he felt this way when we were together and so between his fake feelings/emotions, and my constant overthinking and trying to make him happy, we were always on a path to disaster. Why? Because we were talking different languages, like trying to live and converse with an alien. Not suggesting you are an alien of course, I simply mean that him and I just never understood each other - it’s a two way street, see, with neither person understanding the other.
My ex’s idea of love was someone who could make him happy.
My idea of love ( also dysfunctional) was being able to make someone happy.
Both scenarios were about him, and that’s how we stumbled along for 22 years. I guess the same set up can be applied to non romantic relationships, ie work colleagues, friends and family members.
If it helps you any, I would always have preferred the truth from my ex over one of his lies or fake emotions. In short, he couldn’t give me what I wanted, because his past hadn’t equipped him with the emotional tools to do so. It wasn’t his fault.

so you asked if i was diagnosed with anything because i sound like your ex and you are relating me to him and if i have a diagnosis, it might be what he has. Is that correct?

I get the talking different languages while speaking the same language thing.
You seem very well at understanding your ex by the sounds of it. i am assuming it wasnt always like that and maybe after your relationship ending you starting to kind of get him more?
22 years is a long relationship though, so congrats on that.
Longest relationship i have been in for is about 3 years and it was a train wreck.
I also need to be alone a good amount of the time and dont like it when people i am dating just always want to be around me. So relationships can be difficult for sure

 

[Crazyswede]

so you asked if i was diagnosed with anything because i sound like your ex and you are relating me to him and if i have a diagnosis, it might be what he has. Is that correct?

What he has doesn’t matter to me, we are no longer together and I have to give myself closure from that relationship since my ex never will, I am still working on completing that closure, but am almost there.

You do indeed sound like him, but my replies to you have been about you and not him. I am not sure I am making sense here lol !

We lasted as long as we did because for as long as I didn’t realise who he was, he was happy to carry on pretending. Post break up, when there was nothing to loose or gain from discussion. he gave me the opportunity to know him for who he really is. It didn’t give me the closure I needed exactly, but it helped.
That’s how I recognised you if I am honest. That is also why I can understand you, to a certain extent.
Had my ex not talked to me, I don’t think I could have ever learned his language.
All the time I thought I was having to walk on eggshells so as not to make him angry, all the bending backwards, all the sacrifices I made....were to make him happy. I now realise that I was just as dysfunctional as him, but in the complete opposite way. He wasn’t the only problem, I was too.
I wish we could have talked whilst we were still together, because we would never have had all the miscommunication that we had, and might have been able to make things work. I only ever saw he mask he always wore, till it slipped and I glimpsed his real face. He saw my real face at first, and then my mask went on, bit by bit, till I was suffocated by my own attempts to make him happy.
I don’t blame him at all for who he is, we are all different