My story....this is why i'm here.

[Hiddendreams99]

Hello. It's taken me over forty years to finally understand why i am the person i am. I always believed that i was 'different' to everyone else because everything i did seemed so 'normal' to me and since my parents had personality 'defects' ( i didn't know about personality disorders until i was recently diagnosed) then obviously i had inherited them.
TRIGGER WARNING: what follows might upset those of you who've suffered abuse/violence.

  When i was a child  i was repeatedly sexually abused by my school sports teacher, his wife, and their friends ( respectable, responsible individuals.. policeman, doctor, lawyer, another teacher). My dad never showed me any love or affection. He punished me when i told him that i was being abused by a teacher at school. He sent me to a well known psychiatrist who proceeded to abuse me as well. My mother just looked pretty, behaved submissively around my dad, and spent all her time in the kitchen cooking delicious home made food which she then overfed me with. If i was suffering then i was certain my mum would bake another scrumptious pie.  I never got  any emotional attention from them. The only time my dad physically touched me was to hit me with a leather belt and punch me when he tried to teach me how to box. Not once did he show any love, caring or affection towards me. I was literally starved of any positive human contact and i grew up believing that i was emotionally neglected because i obviously deserved to be.

I lived in my own make believe world. I read books every day, wrote adventure stories and neglected my school work. Everyone treated me like i was dumb, stupid, undeserving of any care and attention so just ignored me. The other boys bullied me because i was stocky for my age, had bright blond hair and deep blue eyes. They called me the 'blond angel', or 'babyface.' I was hyper sexual as a consequence of the brutal sexual assaults i was enduring several times a week and became obsessed with violent pornography. I would buy 'dirty books' in second hand book shops, or steal from my dad's piles of taboo girlie mags that he'd stashed away in the attic. I received all my sex education from those things. Sex was never discussed at home even though my parents would go away twice a month to stay with 'friends' ( i figured out they were into 'wife swapping' as it was called then).  He made me sleep in the garden shed or the attic as punishment ( especially during the colder months).

When i was 16 i witnessed a car bombing.. I'd walked off after 'zapping out' in a large store and simply wandered outside. No one in their life should see the things i saw. My body shut down and i completely dissociated. I just walked away, found my parents and we went off as if nothing had happened. Months later i started having terrible nightmares of burnt, mangled bodies, people screaming and the wailing of sirens.

I still have those images in my head even now. My dad just sent me to see another psychologist who told my dad i was just suffering from paranoia and an active imagination.

I've always had problems describing emotions. It's weird that i can look someone directly in the eye and 'feel' their emotions but i can't express my own. I could hold down several jobs at the same time, have a house and a wife and two kids and yet inside i was in turmoil. No one ever knew who the real me was because i was so good at hiding it. If i ever got angry or stressed i simply swallowed it and kept it all in.

I never enjoyed any friendships at high school or university because i didn't trust anyway and anyway they would be certain to abandon me if i got too close... therefore i saved myself all the inevitable pain and suffering. I'm an incredibly emotional person... i have so much love and attention to give to others but i can't. My mood swings are terrible..i can literally swing from one extreme to the other in under an hour.

I've had  such strong feelings inside me that i have the impression they would literally break me apart and burst open on a tidal wave of raging uncontrollable intensity.  When i first met the woman who would become my future (now ex) wife the emotions were so intense; She was overwhelmed with all the passion, love and desire i had to offer her. The relationship almost consumed us both... she told me she'd never met a man with such intense emotions before. We got married quite quickly after first meeting and the first few years were filled with breathless lust, desire and love. I'd never felt like this with someone before. I didn't know how to regulate my emotions. With me it was always either 100% raw emotion or nothing... one extreme or the other. There was nothing in-between.  Eventually i began to see another side to my wife. She was diagnosed, just like her mum with Bipolar disorder. She also became very narcissistic and manipulative. The intensity transformed itself into a dead bedroom marriage and we just stayed together for the sake of our children. I never told her about what i'd endured growing up.

My life exists in a kind of time capsule bubble. The outside world often resembles something else.. its difficult to describe.. to me its 'foggy' and time seems to move at a different speed for me. I've always dissociated ever since i first started school. I feel like a distant, detached observer unable to feel any pain or joy. I can't connect to other people. It feels like a wire isn't connected corrected inside my head. I don't see the world in the same way as everyone else. My head is full of a whirlwind of thoughts and images. I write things down all the time because i just think differently to other people. It happens all the time in meetings with colleagues. I see everyone and everything in terms of black or white, they're either good or bad.. nothing in between.

What i've described above is normal for me. I guess it's just the way my i'm built. Nothing can change that fact. I don't even know who the real me is anyway... i don't have any identity except to be the person who's 'different' to everyone else.

[xredshoesx]

welcome to the group.  you have endured so much and it takes a lot of courage to put pen to paper and try to sort it out.  we did have to edit some prohibited content from your post and we do thank you for putting the initial trigger warning.

it sounds like you are dealing with a your own PD diagnosis as well as coming to the realization that your father may have a personality disorder as well.

it is important to understand that while folks with a PD or uPD are welcome to post here, the posts must be focused on the relationship with other possible PD folks or PD folks in their lives, and not their own diagnosis and healing work.   if you want to continue posting about what is going on with your and your father currently in your relationship, this is a good place to start working through the pain. however  if you are seeking help and support for your own recovery this is not the forum for you. 

be well and be kind to yourself on the journey as you learn who you really are-