Hi Iz,
So many problems solved or on the way to being solved. You're good!
Following their inborn temperamental style, perhaps they adapted to their unsatisfying environment by turning inward, away from any attachment to anyone" (Oldham, pp. 291-92).
I've wondered about this. I think having a bent for living in one's mind could very well shield one from attachments. I have the bent. Had the hostile, aggressive, icy environment. Was terribly withdrawn until I hit my stride in my middle to late 20's. I looked at the statistics and figured that out of the 3 billion souls plus or minus on the planet, (at the time) our paths would cross and bingo, our lives would become interwoven as in a tapestry. I think having an open mind about it (my personality type can hardly be any other way) facilitates my attachments. I have a handful of friends. I have a bunch of relationships and I love people.
tt
'
Hi tt
and you too PR
I remember being withdrawn and shy from as far back as I can remember, of feeling not a part of the family and not liked by anyone, but to go off on my own, even at 2-3 and hide, and sit quietly was the only peace I knew. I would climb to the top of the granary bins and just sit, and into the raspberry patch (and didn't even eat the berries, against the law) and just hide and sit, and climb the maple tree at the side gate as High as I could and just sit, maybe chew on some gristle (which would last forever)
I recall the beatings from Dad and mom's being quiet: the fights with 4 siblings because I was not a red head and I did not belong, so I was told. None of this went away because I believe it was ingrained too young.
I was always changing best friends in public and high schools, and was afaid of a relationship with boys, because I didn't know what to do, because I was "different".
After I finished school and went to the city to work, I had a big job ahead of me to get on with my co-workers and boss, but I usually ended up, without realising it, with a job I could do on my own and have one supervisor. So I was alone in a crowd and always very careful to never make mistakes and I tried to follow the pattern that life was taking everyone, into a relationship and marriage.
Throughout life I could tell "who was to blame" for whatever went wrong, but even if I could not see the part I played, I expected it was something unknown to me, as I was "different". No one taught me the rules of life, so I made up my own .
I have often said that I live inside my head, therefore am an enigma to some people who "don't know who I am". I don't know who I am. When my inner self is invaded, I am "hït where I live", I become angry, like the hammering upstairs this morning, when I need my sleep for my therapist (in 2 hours now.) They don't know I've been awake most of the night, not falling asleep until 3:00, but I have tried to see the other person's side and there is no fault to be laid here, just my thoughts.
My best freind is Karla, my therapist, as I have been saying, since July, 2009, and we have but 1½ hours together, at a spell, during which I am the best patient, and she is the best therapist. we laugh, and vent with each other---yet as time went on, I wondered why I felt that if this was every day and all day, that it just wouldn't last.
I do very well with store clerks, as we 'pass in the night' and in all cases, if I pay a bill, I can afford to be expected to be treated well, to be able to crack a joke, but I don't invite them for Sunday dinner.
My lawyer "adores" me and calls be 'awesome', 'beautiful' so I rather built a non-existent? personality/character out of nothing and it works as long as I don't live with the people.
I wouldn't doubt now that whatever emptiness was inside me, and filled with things to make me appear normal, emanated to my daughter, and she might have felt phoney feelings from me. I don't know but I blame myself underneath but not as harshly as she has treated me, because I knew I was 'different.
Now I am alone and content, as I've said before, and had gone through 2 serious accidents and have pulled myself up by the bootstraps, with the professionals and have all in order, even to prepaying my funeral.
Yes, I am disordered, and anything I do that appears normal was my invention from very young as a means of survival in a world where I have been 'different' for 72½ years.
xx
Izzy