Emotionally detached but sometimes feel guilty

[SJ]

Hi All,

I want to preface this by making it clear that I love my mom very much and have forgiven her and actually have a great relationship with both of my parents (most of the time) despite all this. I have gotten skilled at conflict avoidance (which I'll describe later) and so rarely fight with either of them anymore even though I see them frequently. Anyway, here's my story:

I'm a man in my late 20s and have long suspected that my mom has/had undiagnosed BPD. While she was never physically abusive of me, she had an anger problem I remember when I was as young as 5-6 years old she would grind her teeth in anger while talking to me. When I was 7 and we had just gotten a new puppy that I loved, I remember when the dog frustrated her she angrily said that she wanted to "strangle" him. At a similar age, I remember her also telling me that she was so viciously angry at the neighbors for making noise doing yardwork that she truly hated them for it and was so mad that she could literally "kill them." It was all talk though, but still had a bigger impact on me than I realize I think. She also used to have uncontrollable fits of crying in front of me and would say that she wished she was dead, and directed her anger at my father often, and would yell and scream and threaten him frequently and say things like "God damn you to hell" and she would talk about other people she didn't like and say things like "I hope they rot in hell" and things like that. My dad also would complain about my mom and how angry/moody she was when I was as young as 5-10 years old and basically whine about it and turn me into his therapist when I was just a little kid. I also remember when I was 15 she kicked/kneed him in the balls in front of me really hard and he was in a lot of pain for like 5 minutes or more. Most of the time he would sit there and just take it, and say that he didn't want her to leave him and that every time she brought up divorce it made him want to cry. Sometimes he would yell and curse back at her though, and sometimes when she wasn't around he would rant and say things like "fuck you bitch" pretending he was talking to her when she wasn't there.

She was also really controlling and had/has a huge fear of abandonment and used to obsessively worry about things going wrong, and would basically try to impose her OCD/obsessive anxiety onto everyone else but that's another story.

Another incident I remember is when I was 21, she tried to suffocate the same dog that she said she wanted to strangle back when I was 7 (even though most of the time she loved him and she cried a lot when he died a couple years later). I remember she had her hand wrapped around his nose and was yelling "DIE! DIE! DIE!" in a vicious tone of voice. I don't think she actually would have gone through with it, but I grabbed her hand (as gently as I could) and pulled it off of the dog, and she instantly flipped it around on me and claimed that I had hurt her, accused me of being violent and started crying and saying that she would need shoulder surgery now because of what I did to her even though she wasn't actually hurt at all and I was as gentle as I could be when moving her arm.

She also used to make concerning comments, say she wished she wasn't alive and threaten to "drive into the river" and things like that and would talk about taking her own life but never acted on it.

What I have noticed after all of this, but never really realized until recently is that I have become emotionally detached, likely as a defense mechanism. I subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) try to manipulate every situation I'm in to make sure that I'm avoiding any feeling any kind of deep emotions, and typically now, anytime I see someone get angry I find it amusing and have to suppress laughter at their immaturity, and anytime I see someone crying I feel sympathy for them but feel extremely uncomfortable and usually just leave the room. I almost feel like an alien when I'm around people expressing their emotions because I am usually detached and disociatted the entire time and, recently, sometimes briefly feel like I'm just a character in a movie in these situations if that makes sense. I have also lost quite a few loved ones over the last few years and even though I did cry a little bit when each one of them died, my reaction has become more and more apathetic and jaded each time, to the point where I feel guilty and almost feel like I'm becoming an emotionless sociopath, and most recently when my grandpa died a few years ago (who I used to talk to every day and was very close to), I shrugged it off and went to work and went about my life like nothing happened, although I did get emotional about it several months later.

Fast forward to now and I've become almost completely emotionally unavailable and avoidant. Any time someone cries or expresses intense emotion about anything I either try to cheer them up by changing the subject completely or leave. I found out my other grandpa is about to die and both of my parents are struggling with it and crying. I teared up briefly thinking about it the other night, but other than that, I feel almost nothing and am just enjoying distracting myself with work, TV, reading, drinking, sexual activities, or anything at all to avoid feeling emotional pain, and all I can think about is that I want to skip the funeral for selfish reasons because I don't want to be around anyone expressing any kind of intense emotion, and don't want to spend days travelling with my parents, which makes me feel like I've become a selfish and insensitive asshole.

I see no point in "facing" negative emotions and would be perfectly content to live in constant denial and distraction until the day I die, but at the same time this makes me feel like I'm turning into an almost sociopathic hedonist. I'm in a weird, sort of "friends with benefits" but in many ways transactional relationship with a woman who is just as fucked up mentally as I am and have been for the last almost two years. We care about each other a lot but it's not exactly "love" either.

I also recently started lying if I think it will protect others' emotions or avoid conflict, and basically use my intellect to try to manipulate every situation I'm in to be as smooth and free of negative emotion as possible. I never used to do this but have been doing it more frequently in years and recent months.

It's been years since I've full-on cried or even gotten intensely angry and, as I mentioned before, others' emotions make me extremely uncomfortable. When I see people at work, such as my manager or coworkers, get angry or frustrated about a situation, I usually am just quiet but often find myself either suppressing laughter at their immaturity and failure to put things in perspective, or else just sit there stone-faced not knowing what I'm supposed to do or say. The only emotions I actually feel deeply anymore are anxiety, irritation, lust, and to some extent love for my family and people I care about, but most deep, intense emotions are gone and I'd be fine with avoiding them for the rest of my life. At the same time, I feel guilt over this and feel like people are going to think I'm a shallow, hedonistic sociopath.

[Rebel13]

Hi SJ, thank you for sharing some of your story. It sounds like emotions were pretty loaded in your family when you were growing up, and it makes sense you would have discomfort about them and maybe be unsure about how to express them.

You didn't mention any questions or what you're looking for specifically from this forum, but there are really great people here who have lots of experience and insight to share. So there's support here if and when you need it.

[bloomie]

SJ - thank you for sharing your story with us. The relationships with your parents, given the shockingly disturbing behaviors you were exposed to, has to be complex. It makes perfect sense to me that you would disconnect from your own emotional experiences and those of others in an effort to find safety.

[mary_poppins]

Hi SJ.

Welcome to the forum.
It makes sense for you to be avoiding emotions or people who are emotional because you witnessed violent, emotional outbursts growing up. Your mind does not want to harm you but to protect you. So you shutting down is a defense mechanism. You have good defense mechanisms.
Also, growing up with pets and them being abused is tough. I had to go through similar instances, in my case my pets were intentionally killed by being given foods they were not allowed to eat. It was long time ago and it still hurts. Your mom has BPD-which means it is treatable. Has she ever considered psychological help?

[TimetoHeal]

Welcome, SJ.

You're really brave to share your story and some of the abuse you endured as a child.  I definitely don't think you are a hedonistic sociopath.  It sounds like you are bearing the emotional wounds of growing up with a deeply disturbed parent.  I think you hit the nail on the head when you said it is a defense mechanism.  I wonder if it may not also be a symptom of PTSD?  I am not an expert on the disorder nor a therapist, so I am not the one to say.  Have you had any therapy for yourself?  It may help you to process everything and get in touch with your emotions in a healthy way.  It sounds like you are not completely happy with being "numb" or detached.  It is "working" for you, sort of, but not really, if you are feeling a lot of anxiety and irritation.  You've done the best you could with what you have been given so far.  I think a good therapist could help you move past survival into healthy thriving. 

[SJ]

Hi SJ.

Welcome to the forum.
It makes sense for you to be avoiding emotions or people who are emotional because you witnessed violent, emotional outbursts growing up. Your mind does not want to harm you but to protect you. So you shutting down is a defense mechanism. You have good defense mechanisms.
Also, growing up with pets and them being abused is tough. I had to go through similar instances, in my case my pets were intentionally killed by being given foods they were not allowed to eat. It was long time ago and it still hurts. Your mom has BPD-which means it is treatable. Has she ever considered psychological help?

Wow that is really tough, I am sorry to hear that. And good idea - she has never actually been diagnosed with it but I suspect she has it. She won't get psychological help because she thinks there is "nothing wrong with her" and she "likes the way she is."

[SJ]

Welcome, SJ.

You're really brave to share your story and some of the abuse you endured as a child.  I definitely don't think you are a hedonistic sociopath.  It sounds like you are bearing the emotional wounds of growing up with a deeply disturbed parent.  I think you hit the nail on the head when you said it is a defense mechanism.  I wonder if it may not also be a symptom of PTSD?  I am not an expert on the disorder nor a therapist, so I am not the one to say.  Have you had any therapy for yourself?  It may help you to process everything and get in touch with your emotions in a healthy way.  It sounds like you are not completely happy with being "numb" or detached.  It is "working" for you, sort of, but not really, if you are feeling a lot of anxiety and irritation.  You've done the best you could with what you have been given so far.  I think a good therapist could help you move past survival into healthy thriving.

Thank you for the reply. I think you are right in that I am not completely happy with being numb and detached. I said in my initial post that I would be content to avoid deep emotions for the rest of my life, but that doesn't necessarily mean completely satisfied or self-actualized. I have thought about taking the opposite approach and just letting myself say and do what I feel like without censoring myself and consciously doing things that make me uncomfortable but that would most likely lead to an end to my relationship with family members and getting fired from my job since I don't regulate myself well once I actually do allow myself to get emotional--I'm pretty skilled at conflict avoidance but not so skilled at managing conflict in a mature way once it actually occurs because I really have no reference point or role model for this I guess. It might be worth the risk though, I'm really not sure. I guess life is too short to just play it safe all the time though.

[walking on broken glass]

Hi SJ,
I wonder if you have ever tried therapy, if this an option available to you? It will definitely help you with regaining a full range of emotions and learning how to bear the unpleasant emotions without completely blocking all emotions out. This was a mechanism that served you well but that you don't need any more.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Hi and welcome! I think it's a common experience to avoid showing the emotions in part because once they are starting to come out, it's very hard to regulate the fire hydrant of suppressed feelings! At least, I share that experience. Sounds like you are in good company here. Letting them out in a safe place, such as therapy, is so important to healing. This forum is another such place.

Mary Poppins, did you mean to say BPD is generally *not* treatable? Because the stated and persistent belief that they are just fine and nothing is wrong with them is pretty standard with that disorder. But we survivors can certainly learn and grow and create healthier lives!

[princeandreis]

Hey SJ,

Thanks for sharing your story with us. This is a great place to turn with your questions and worries. I can definitely relate to some of your experiences; when you grow up in a household where any strong emotion equals "something bad is going to happen," you learn pretty quickly to try and avoid those situations. Turns out it's something we don't easily grow out of as adults, as I'm still figuring out myself. I'm also very conflict-avoidant with my parents, but still learning not to let their nonsense get to me.

I can definitely understand your fears about people perceiving you as shallow or messed up since you aren't accessing all your emotions right now. The thing is, you still have the ability to feel deeply; you're just really shut down. I don't know if there's an easy solution. The truth is, if you shut out all your strong negative emotions, your strong positive emotions get shut out at the same time. We can't enjoy life fully without sometimes feeling anger and disappointment, anxiety and fear, regret and confusion, too. I'm still learning how to feel things deeply and not run away. If I could offer any advice to you on this journey, I would say that it's better to feel it all -- joy, rage, fear, grief, anticipation -- rather than nothing. So trust yourself -- if you feel a twinge of annoyance, you can allow it to be anger. If you're disappointed, name that feeling as sad. Letting your emotions come and go, which they will do (I promise), means you have access to the full range of experiences life has to offer.

You are not alone, and you are always welcome here on your journey. Best of luck to you. <3