Whats wrong with you?

[SadakoMoose]

Hmmm, yes, well I don't see "spooking" people is an "social interaction." That sounds more like asocial behavior.

And no harm meant, but regardless if you are good at it or not, I dont think it will serv you with anything of what you came here asking advice for, making friends. A social interacton is two-partner project. You must reveal yourself to others and let them build an opinion about you. Not just you trying to figure out other people.

Well, alright then.
How would you introduce yourself to someone?

[Slinker]

I usally say "hi".

It's thing that comes with practise. Just do it. If you are friendly most people will forgive you inexperiance. If they are not, well screw those guys then. Point to you for trying.

[SadakoMoose]

I usally say "hi".

It's thing that comes with practise. Just do it. If you are friendly most people will forgive you inexperiance. If they are not, well screw those guys then. Point to you for trying.

I think my first big mistake was throwing that party.
Let me back up:
1997:
I'm around 6 years old, and every Saturday morning I wake up and watch the DIC saturday morning block.
What's my favorite show? Sailor Moon. It had girls, that's why.
I'm having trouble making friends in school, since I'm trying to model myself after freaking Doug (it was my other fave show at that time) and was trying to fit the people around me into archetypes.
So what does young Sada do? He gets himself imaginary friends.
Specifically, the Sailor Scouts.
So this continues, for about 5 years or so. I move 2 more times due to Dad's work, and am still having trouble making friends.

One night, I'm feeling really lonely. So I decided to expand my group of imaginary friends from 5+ to EVERYONE.
It was like every animated character I ever liked was in my room, chatting and rubbing elbows.
It was so great, that it never stopped.
Now I had imaginary friends in every room (except the bathroom), everywhere I went, and always talking and doing whatever it is they would normally do.
Even on road trips, they followed me in a huge imaginary bus.

I never thought it was real, but it was so much nicer than being alone.
When nobody's in the house, I pretend to talk to them at a normal voice.

Over the years I've boiled it down to only characters from a few series.
Resident Evil, Hellsing, DC Universe, and Serenity Rose to be specific.
And so far it's been just lovely having V in the house.
She may be imaginary, but she's a good influence.

Sometimes, it worries me, but I know none of it's real so I don't think it's going to hurt my head.
But sometimes when I get really sad or discouraged, the fact that I still have them makes it feel worse.
Because sometimes I feel like, at times in my life, I've been maybe only a few steps away from being like that Chris Chan guy. Which both scares and disgusts me.

So, answering the title of this thread, that is what I think is wrong with me.

[Slinker]

Okay, Sada. If what you say is true. Then I really suggest talking to a profensional about it, or someone "grown up" around you that you trust. Perhaps a school counsuler or something in that direction? Not saying that cause to stop you writte stuff here. But I kinda notice that we stumble upon a lot layers of diffrent issues here for you and how you sort of insolate yourself. And I don't really think you can solve all that here yourself on the internet. You probably need a real person advice that can speak directly at you in private.

In any case, thats pretty much all I can say. Hope you find anything I writte useful.

[Scissorhands]

My teeth are what's wrong with me now - I have an evil sideways wisdom tooth that's pushing the teeth in front of it out of place

[Slinker]

Let's talk about me. I feel like to spill some beans now.


I've just moved to yet another apartment in stockholm. This time I have a roomate. This is a new experance for me cause I'm used to have a place of my own. (Well it's never been mine since I usally just rent some apartment.) I think it's a good experiance for me. Despite it's also going to drive me nuts. I like people, but I also dare to admit that I enjoy being by myself when I come home after a busy day. And it's gonna get busy... Big time.


So I'm done studing 3D animation that whent so-so. I enjoyed doing stuff but the actuall school wasen't really good so I mostly focus on my own project and ideas during the time. And I probably could have learned more. But at least I have a good idea how to work with 3D animation. So after this, whats next?

I need a job. After working at my hometown the whole summer I managed to save up some money to live here in stockholm. But I do need to get work here soon. And as you all known. We live in a very economical unstable world. And I may live in a country that actually has managed, but in Stockholm, it's hard cause it's here every young stupid kid from nowhere wanna live. So getting a part-time job might become tricky if things go bad. And I really want a "PART TIME" job, cause I really don't want to lose focus on animation or comics for that matter. I feel that I improve on every angle on every image i draw, and I could have done my animated short film a lot faster and better looking today. It would be awesome to manage to get work in some studio, and I hope I am not far from that. But it's though world.

And also, in the middle of the summer an long relationship I had with a girl that wasen't really a relationship cause nothing happen, ended. Which feels.... Mixed, it was something I really put a lot of effort in to work. Or at least a lot of effort HOPING it would work. And we hanged out quite a lot even if we lived in diffrent cities. In one way I feel relief that it is over cause now I can focus on something else and someone else. At the same time it's a big add to a list of failures in a subject I'm getting sick of failing with.

The whole thing makes me feel like I'm in some sort of limbo, uncertainty in every corner not really sure what is gonna happen the next few weeks. If I could choose I would really like to start a new project of my own. But I know I can't focus only on that anymore. And if I want to continue I need to get some sort of result. I'm scaried that I may not be fitted for doing what I really wanna do. That I'm just fooling myself believeing I may have a chance. But heck, I will give it a try anyway.

Infact, if I fail I can at least sign:

[evilmidget]

Brace yourselves, because its about to get randomly depressing.

Normally, I'd express something like this on facebook, but I didn't want to instigate a major shitstorm of questions and accusations. But this is that dark and personal. I haven't expressed this with the rest of my family outside of my mother and a few of my closest friends (and girlfriend; yes I have a girlfriend now).

My father has a problem with drinking. When he was unemployed, he would drown himself in alcohol at least three to four times a week. It caused my mom a ton of grief seeing as how she would have to babysit him and neglect her own job in the process doing so. He never once ever drank just to relax. He drank to escape. He drank to forget. He drank just to get drunk. He works now, but these past two months haven't been very happy for my family. On the week of halloween, my mom took some time off and went to the slots in WV. Dad wasn't happy with this and hid all of her money and refused to talk to her the rest of the week. That is, until thursday.

That day, he had off and I did as well. My parents decided to go out which I was happy with. That day, I worked on the house while they were gone. I checked up on them periodically just to see how the day was going. Then, mom told me dad was at a strip club. There were a number of things that ran through my head. ONE: why would she willingly do something like this. TWO: what strip club is open during the day? And THREE: mom is starting to loose it. I stressed all day about it. It was painful. I felt like throwing up out of anxiety. But still, I got the house clean and actually started to wind down right around six thirty, ready to go to sleep. But then they came in.

The first thing I heard was the door slamming. Twice. In a row. Next, I heard angry yelling. I opened my bedroom door to see mom in tears, yelling at me to stay in my room. I do. The next thing I hear, is my dad violently yelling at my mom. He has NEVER been abusive to her like this. He lets into her about everything that that she does that apparently pisses him off to no end. I didn't hear the whole conversation, but what little I did hear of it were the words, "gun", "if you call the cops, i'll shoot the fucking cops","no, Matthew don't do it!". This was the first time I ever feared for my life in my own home. In panic, I first called my friends before hearing the yelling to let them know I was going to be heading over to their house. After the yelling, I called 911. I was still in hysterics when they picked up. As soon as mom realized what I was doing, she snatched the phone away from me and started acting like nothing happened. I start yelling at her for trying to brush this whole thing off. Then dad came out.

Originally, he had headed to bed when I called 911. But he heard my yelling and came down the hall into the kitchen. As soon as I saw him, i punched him in the face and broke his nose in the process. The fight ended with him physically throwing me out of the house and clocking me on the side of the head almost fracturing my jaw. I immediately ran to the next door neighbor's house until the cops came. As soon as he was in bed, I packed up my things for a three day stay and set off to my friends' house.

I was a wreck. I had four ugly streaks on my neck and a stiff jaw. Worse, I was living with the guilt of punching my own father in the face. My girlfriend was horrified to hear of this. She told me that if she ever saw a beer in my dad's hand, she wasn't going to be in the same house as him (she's had a history of dealing with drunkards). My friends, as usual, were there for me. This wasn't the first time I came over to get away from my dad being stupid with alcohol. Luckily, things were ok enough for me to go back home the next day.

After this, I was never the same. I didn't have a single drink after this (not that I was downing them that much to begin with) and still haven't since. It greatly bothered me when I checked out guys that had just turned 21, seeing them buying three cases at a time (but my guess was that it was for a group). Still, its little things like this that are unsettling for me now. I can't watch shows where characters are drunk any more. I can barely play any sort of violent video game. Then, dad approached me.

He gave me a ride home after work and finally talked to me about what had happened. He expressed his deepest apologies over what had happened. I didn't even have to say a word to him before he started. I expressed my feelings over the incident and he looked me in the eye and told me he was never going to drink again. I told him about what my girlfriend said and he didn't blame her. To say that I was elated is an understatement. I had been waiting to hear him say that for YEARS. His words: "what you saw that night was not me. I couldn't remember a single thing the next day; do you know how scary that is? I don't ever want to put you and mom through that ever again".

About a week later, he was back on the bottle, but he wasn't drunk. I couldn't believe it. My girlfriend never wanted to go to my house again. I was in tears for hours. I just couldn't believe that this man would go back on his word after an incident like that. The worst part? We had a family trip planned and my girlfriend was going to come with us. She almost didn't come. We quickly forgot the incident and moved on; business as usual. The trip to KY went really well. But after that, my relationship with the man would never be the same.

This time, he did get drunk; once again, causing my mom grief. He was completely wasted; going through an entire 24 pack in two hours and chasing it with half of a bottle of Boone's Farm. I expressed my outrage with my mom and she approached him about it. He practically told her that he was never going to stop drinking. I didn't say a single word to him all day. It almost completely threw off my work day. I was worried about my mom that whole time I was gone. He was still drunk when I got home and wrecked one of the bathrooms. I didn't get to sleep until four in the morning that night and didn't sleep well for the rest of the week for that matter.

This was just last sunday. I haven't hardly spoken to him since then. I know he's my father and I do love him, but I'm just sick of this. For that matter, I'm sick of both of my parents. They have been doing nothing but stressing me out. I know we live completely separate lives at this point, but its hard for me not to pick up on what's going on with them (i've done so since I was three). I want to move out, but I can't afford it. I have confined myself to my room every day since last sunday. I haven't hardly wanted to be in the same room as my father and mother. I'm sick of being stressed and I'm sick of my dad's bullshit. I don't want to talk to him because I don't think it will do any good. This will make for the twelfth time I've done this. Really, what would the point be? He will just go back to the bottle because he doesn't want to talk to us about his problems.

I promised myself after this that I would never touch alcohol ever again for the exact reason I got so pissed off at people asking me if I was going to drink on my 21st: I didn't want to be like my dad. I had confidence I would be more responsible (and I have been), but its the principal of the thing. For one thing, I don't like the taste of alcohol. Two, I used to hate hearing kids talking about the latest run in with the law they had in high school. And three, I didn't ever want to use it to escape, let alone relax. Most people may laugh at me for it, but oh well. Sorry if I didn't want to indulge in being an idiot. A couple of my friends drink every now and again, but they don't judge me for my reasons. But I just don't know what to do at this point. I hate not knowing and this place has always come through for me since high school. Whoever reads this, thanks for reading my depressing wall of text.

[Slinker]

Urgh, that sucks big time midget. I know sort of how it is to live with a drunk even though he acted somewhat diffrent, still hurtful. I can only tell you that a lot of this gets so much easier once you move out which obviously is at age to do whenever you can.

[williamthebloody]

wow, midget, i really don't know what to say.

if moving out is your goal, and really it seems it ought to be in my insignificant opinion, then you need to start saving your money NOW. most places will want either first AND last month's rent up front AND possibly a cleaning deposit. check your local paper/classifieds for places to rent if nothing else just to see what the going rates for apartments in your area are. many places will charge less is if you are not on the ground floor and there is no elevator (where i live let's say a three story building has a rent on each floor: first floor will be around $800, second floor $700, third floor $600 or similar). consider what amenities you will need and which ones you don't. the fewer, the cheaper. if some place offers off-street parking they will probably charge more per month, but if you have no car, why bother with that place? if you can get to a laundry mat easy, then you don't need a place with washer/dryer hook up, etc. look for places that will include heat & hot water in the price (if you have to pay for that yourself, you will get REAMED if you are low income). some places will offer a stove and refrigerator included with the apartment. this can be good because it saves you having to buy those yourself, but will probably charge more in rent for them.

you may want to start stocking up on essential items while still with your parents. check wal-mart and other department stores for sales. if you have a friend who works at one, see if you can sneak their employee discount. get things like dishes, pots and pans, etc etc, but like one at a time when they go on sale. buy one item per week or so. this way you can still save money towards the apartment weekly as well. take stock of what you already have and what your parents will allow you to take with you when you go. (when i moved out i had my bed, my bedside table, my book case, an easy chair and my trunk. that was it for furniture but it was enough) you dont need to have everything all at once. once youre out you can get what you need a little at a time, too. yard sales and estate sales are great for getting used furniture, but you have to get there early to get the GOOD stuff. (i bought my dining room set at an estate sale 12 years ago and i still use it to this day) also, if anyone you know has anything they are replacing etc, try hitting them up for their old, used stuff.

when i first moved out, i had no phone or cable tv or internet for over a year. i was poor and i decided i was going to live without them until i could definitely afford to make the regular payments. NO PHONE. my tv had an antenna so i could watch 1 and a half channels (damn mountains blocking the signal). living without internet was fine coz this was 1998.

and of course, if you can (and youve probably already considered this) see if you can get someone to move in with you as a roommate. i would definitely recommend someone you know so that you know for sure they will be reliable with paying their share of the bills, but you cant always have that luxury. also, sometimes living with a friend can strain a previously good friendship. you could always start by looking for people are already in an apartment but looking for a roommate which may be much easier for you as it is likely that they already have many of the apartment living accoutrements and just need a body to pay half the rent/bills. just be smart about it and be wary for, you know, psychopaths.

oh and be sure to look at a place before you agree to live there. thoroughly. make sure water runs properly, no electrical issues, etc. you never know what a landlord my try to claim you did when it was already like that when you moved in. be sure you know what is expected to be your responsibility and what is the landlord's. you may think it's their responsibility to, say, shovel snow off the steps, but the landlord may think it is yours. check these things up front, before you agree to anything. and if you have to sign a lease, BE SURE TO READ IT COMPLETELY.

um. yeah.

sorry, but i couldnt really relate or pass on advice to the alcoholic dad issues, so i'm trying to help with what i know: getting an apartment as a poor teenager. if you have any questions about this stuff, i can try to help

[alphatroll]

I don't know if you're aware of this, but a tendency toward alcoholism runs pretty strongly in families. In other words, if your dad has a drinking problem, then chances are it would be far easier for you to lose control than for most people. That right there is probably the best possible justification for you to avoid the stuff. And quite a lot of people are aware of that, so any time someone asks that's almost always enough to answer the question to everyone's satisfaction. Just something to keep in mind.

Other than that, I'll just have to wish you good luck. Have you looked into Al-Anon? I don't have any experience to share, but from what I've heard it's a pretty good support group for people with alcoholic family members, might be worth a try.

[Slinker]

Hmm, I disagree the first thing what alphy say, I don't think midget should stop drink out of fear, but he should stop out of dispite if thats how he feel. The whole thing that "alcoholism runs in the family" is a pretty weak excuse, there can be genetics invovled with it, but never it can never be the whole case. It's more often based on the social aspect with the family that makes a lot people within one alcohlics. Heres what little wikipedia says about it for example:

Genetic predisposition testing

Psychiatric geneticists John I. Nurnberger, Jr., and Laura Jean Bierut suggest that alcoholism does not have a single cause—including genetic—but that genes do play an important role "by affecting processes in the body and brain that interact with one another and with an individual's life experiences to produce protection or susceptibility". They also report that fewer than a dozen alcoholism-related genes have been identified, but that more likely await discovery.[98]

At least one genetic test exists for an allele that is correlated to alcoholism and opiate addiction.[99] Human dopamine receptor genes have a detectable variation referred to as the DRD2 TaqI polymorphism. Those who possess the A1 allele (variation) of this polymorphism have a small but significant tendency towards addiction to opiates and endorphin-releasing drugs like alcohol.[100] Although this allele is slightly more common in alcoholics and opiate addicts, it is not by itself an adequate predictor of alcoholism, and some researchers argue that evidence for DRD2 is contradictory.[98]

And I know alphy means well, but I'm saying cause I reacted on the whole "you dad drank, so you shouldn't". People who have lived with an real big alcoholic knows it's a diffrence between that and drink on some weekend. And for a lot it becomes pretty darn discouraging to drink when you have lived with one. I myself can drink, I kinda like wine and beer, but I'm pretty disgusted by the whole "drink to get drunk"-thinking some people can have.

[alphatroll]

Sorry 'bout the misunderstanding, Slinker; what I mean is that if you don't want to drink anyway, it's a good, widely accepted excuse to use if people hassle you for a reason, and in Midget's case has the added advantage of being true. How strong the tendency really is is pretty debatable of course, but (at least in this country) there can be a lot of pressure on people, particularly around Midget's age, and the "family predilection theory" is a handy way of defusing that.

Of course, a far BETTER excuse is simply that there is no such thing as a "healthy drinking culture" in the US, and just staying out of it entirely is very sensible and reasonable. We've never really recovered from the whole prohibition thing. (But that one doesn't often fly very well!)

[Ban]

Honestly, I could type in here all day and night, and just be scratching the surface of what's wrong / right with me. I don't know where to begin, and I'll never know where it ends...

Sometimes I feel so... hollow, completely empty of emotion. I observe people around me, people on tv and movies, people in stories, I break down the scenarios they're in, analyze everything, and build what I believe to be a plausible set of pseudo emotions. I dig deeper into people's lives, figure out what drives them to react and think they way they do in different situations, and I use that knowledge to fine-tune my own 'responses'.

On the other hand, there is a side of me that is raw, unfiltered emotion. They come so quickly, and so strongly, that they can easily confuse and disorient me. The intensity of emotion I feel in this state... it is painful, yet intoxicating. The slightest provocation can trigger absurdly powerful emotional responses. When I'm like this, it's so difficult to think clearly, to observe and analyze... all my mind wants to do is bask in the sensation... I feel more primal like this... my senses are normally quite sharp, but when I feel this way, everything increases, and I start to feel like... well,for lack of a better term, a predator.

I suppose the oddest part of this (for me, at least), is that when I'm in one of these two phases, I know the other exists for me, but I can't... understand? Feel it? It's knowing without knowing, I suppose.

What next? So many beautiful things we can find in here to show you... let's see...

I have multiple personalities. I suppose that's the best way to describe him. When I was a child, I had an 'imaginary ' ...brother, we shall say. He was almost always around where I could see him, hear him, smell him... well, honestly, feel and taste as well, but those are less important fr the topic at hand. I realized very early that I was the only one who could see and interact with him. I kept him to myself. As time progressed, it was not always me interacting with him, sometimes HE was in this body, and I was the one being seen, but non-existent to others. We have co-existed for... well, as far back as I can recall, which is somewhere between 12 and 18 months of age. We get along quite well. The main issue we have, is that to us, we are TWO SEPERATE PEOPLE, but we are stuck in the same body... it makes life amazingly entertaining sometimes, and horrendously complicated at others. How can two people live their own lives when they have to share the same conduit? We're still trying to work that one out.

Another note for that, he wasn't the only thing that came through that part of life with me. What started out as an "over-active imagination", evolved into a lifetime of hallucinations. When I was younger I had some...issues... figuring out what was real, and what was in my mind. But I worked through it, learned to use logic and deductive reasoning to tell the difference in most of 'em, and observation of other creatures in my immediate area for the rest (if a pet or a person aren't reacting to it, it's PROBABLY not there ;P). My hallucinations affect any/ all of my senses, and wildly vary in their sophistication and duration.

Tune in later when we cover these exciting topics:
Morality
Sexuality
Spirituality
Social Manipulation

[alphatroll]

I hear ya Ban... the first half there at least sounds very familiar to me. Still haven't figured out a way to deal with it; far as I can tell there just isn't a place for someone like me in this world. & to make it worse I can't even seem to express it in a way that makes sense outside my own head.

These days I spend more time in some kind of foggy haze out of touch with everything, but it seems to be either that or some extreme like you've described. I'm not even sure whether that's a good or bad thing any more.

[williamthebloody]

Sometimes I feel so... hollow, completely empty of emotion. I observe people around me, people on tv and movies, people in stories, I break down the scenarios they're in, analyze everything, and build what I believe to be a plausible set of pseudo emotions. I dig deeper into people's lives, figure out what drives them to react and think they way they do in different situations, and I use that knowledge to fine-tune my own 'responses'.

yes. this. i can relate to this very much.

i wish people and emotions and things could be more like math and science where there are more often than not "correct" answers. 2+2=4 and that's how it is to everyone forever and always. but people have different emotional responses to things and it's so difficult to understand why, for me anyway. as a simple example, a picture of clown. some people may look at at it and think "oh a clown! clowns are funny!" and smile. someone else may look at it and think " a clown! clowns are scary!" and be frightened. and others may look at it and think "a clown? he must be a sexual pervert." why is there no "one answer" to the same stimuli? and why do i always feel like my own reaction to certain things is not what general society would deem a "correct" response. like something is "wrong" with me for my emotional response even though nearly everyone has their own unique responses to things. it's because of this that i often find myself observing others when watching films or television or somesuch; in order gauge what a "proper" response ought to be. and it's very frustrating and mildly internally upsetting.
did any of that make any sense?