Community

[Jacky9]

Hi, I’m an international.

I grew up in a dysfunctional family.

Dad committed domestic violence.

He is narcissistic, overbearing, despicable.

Mom was not attentive or caring.

Attachment style was anxious one.

They neglected me.

As a result, I developed low self esteem and social anxiety(selective mutism).

There were not many problems during primary school.

I always hung out with friends, achieved academic success.

In the middle school, I was bullied for 2 years, because of my personality and appearance.

After that, my personality became extremely avoidant and sensitive.

At 17, I dropped out of high school due to some issues including stress and bad reputation of school.

Since then, I chose complete isolation.

I assume I had had depression since then as I never laughed or enjoyed anything.

At 20, I enrolled in a university but due to extreme social anxiety, I couldn’t be around people in the same place. 
It was uncomfortable, fearful, and panicking.
I stopped attending uni, instead, I wandered, or read books at cafes.

At 21, I had mania and was diagnosed as bipolar disorder.

for 3 years, I did unusual, dangerous activities and was very impulsive, aggressive, and unrefined.

Since having bipolar, I got cognitive function impairment. 

I have difficulty understanding new concepts or reading articles. 
And I always had suicidal ideation since having bipolar.

Recently, I read about associations between personality disorders/mood disorders and childhood neglect/abuse.

And I was in rage blaming all my mental pain on parents as my life was painful.

I realized I can’t work with people due to social anxiety.

Except mania, I always chose withdrawal.

For recent 5 years, I didn’t have any friend to talk to.

I have zero friend, and I don’t feel comfortable with people or trust people.

Additionally, today I slept 15 hours, couldn’t go to school due to lethargy and lightheadedness.

I am abnormal, incompetent, disabled, lonely, resentful, and hopeless.

There is no job that I can get (I can’t work with people, and I only can focus on things for 5h), I have no one to talk to. 
There’s no positivity or hope.

I want to end pain, worries, trauma.

[tacocat]

Hi @Jacky9 

Welcome to the community, and thanks for sharing your story. 

I'm really sorry to hear about the trauma and isolation you've experienced in this life. 

Having supports and a safe place like the forums might be exactly what you need. You'll always have friends here; welcome 🙂

[MJG017]

Hi @Jacky9, welcome to the forum.  Thank you for sharing your story, i get how difficult that must have been.  A lot of us here will identify with a lot of what you wrote, so you're in the right place and definitely not alone.

I recently found out about insecure attachment styles and did some reading and it definitely described me pretty well and explained so much about the struggles I've had my whole life, especially childhood.  I could also identify with a lot of the causes it talked about.  I even found a test and did that and it scored me a disorganized.

I also missed out on so many things growing up because I just found it so difficult to be around people and be in any situation where any form of rejection, big or small, was a possibility.  It certainly makes finding friends, partners, even a job very difficult.  I never did have much success at any of it.

Do you have much professional support around you?  I know for me, it was just too much and too difficult to start trying to figure out on my own.  I have an appointment in a couple of weeks to see someone to talk about attachment styles and hopefully start to work on undoing some of the masses of damage done from childhood.

Like I said, you're not alone and not abnormal or incompetent... just a victim of a lot of childhood trauma combined with a lack of any support.  It's a hell of a lot for anyone to deal with.  We're here to help and support you however we can.

[defaultusername]

Hi @Jacky9,

Welcome to the Forum, and thank you very much for sharing.

I am very sorry that you've had this experience, I can sense how distressing this must be for you.

I can relate to some of what you've had to deal with in your childhood, and I understand how much this affects our development. I also left uni at age 20 after having a really hard time with my mental health. It can be such a difficult time with all of that outside pressure on us.

You have a really good sense of self awareness, which is something not all of us are gifted with and is an absolute strength. I hope that you can see that there is so much more to who you are as a person — you are brave and resilient and have showed courage in reaching out on the Forum here today.

And I am sorry to see that you are feeling like there is little to be hopeful for right now, but I do promise you that it does get better…

As mentioned previously by @MJG017 — having the right supports in place can be really beneficial to our healing and recovery.

If you do feel like you need to speak to someone, the following support services are available:

Lifeline 13 11 14
https://www.lifeline.org.au/

Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636
https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support 

SANE Support Line 1800 187 263 (available 10am - 8pm Monday to Friday)
https://www.sane.org/get-support 

As @tacocat said, you'll always have friends here. Hope to hear back from you soon, take care.