[recurs]

I need to somehow become re-acclimated to being normal. When I was a kid I was ostracized for reading too much, in the third grade. I also got a lot of unwanted attention and trouble from the school administration all the way through middle school, when I never did any of the things I was accused of (they were all completely outrageous and unreasonable accusations, I don't know what the deal was, I have really bad luck, for real) and I was just quiet and kept to myself... I had like one friend...

Then in 8th grade I switched schools and made some friends but the school was really small, so it was like a family environment, everyone was friends with each other, and then I got DPD one day on the way back from a school field trip in the spring... but that's really irrelevant, except for that I then started doing drugs, you know, not giving a ****, thought I was crazy, needed to try whatever I could to deal with that... except the thing is, I was never really that bad. So I was like starting to be normal all that time, I mean people loved and feared me (or were intimidated by me), but the love was still there, because they'd realize that I mean no harm, unless it was deserved, and most people didn't deserve it so they would just love me, it was great I don't know. Like I had a sort of identity, and I was satisfied enough with it.

But my mom is crazy (really, I can't stress it enough, OTHERS can't stress it enough, it's so blatant and extreme) and during what would have been my high school years, she decided to make it her goal in life to make a point to exercise her lawfully designated authority over me/external locus of control, and send me away -- over and over again. for anything. Just believe me when I say I was NOT THAT BAD. AT ALL. Nobody believed I deserved, much less NEEDED, all that. Everybody knows it just ****ed me. I missed out on high school, I lost all my friends, along with any skills to interact with others in a NORMAL SETTING -- i.e., not rehab or some ****. That's obviously not healthy. And obviously the only people who thought it was any good were the people running the programs and the people that she just constantly talked **** about me to and expressed how worried she was to, and how dire my situation is, all the time, when it wasn't, it just wasn't, but I don't count, and believe me it drove me insane it completely ****ed with me I tried EVERYTHING to get out of those places, and in the end it remained impossible, totally and completely. It traumatized me completely, I had nightmares related to my instances of "incarceration" (as my dad calls it, as opposed to 'treatment' -- but he's got his own problems, he's crazy too, but he's always you know more understanding -- but then he thinks I have more issues than I do sort of because he likes to think we're exactly alike, but then he wants to sympathize with me, that sort of thing) -- anyway I had those nightmares consistently every single night without fail, for YEARS after the last time. I still get them now from time to time, but they finally stopped being every single night like last year.

So then I was so caught up with getting ahead and making up for lost time and regaining total control over my life that I wanted to just be like an overachiever, I started college a year early at community college so I could get my high school diploma simultaneously while just doing my first year like normal, it's a state issued diploma through this program called Ability To Benefit... you don't have to do anything extra, haha I wish I had just been able to get myself emancipated and done that years before, but my mom had spyware on my computer, she'd print out my chats, she's kept records of everything I've said and done at all like the most insignificant minute details for years comprehensive NOTES and LOGS on ME it's so SICK I don't know WHY it's SO ****ING CREEPY EVERYBODY AGREES THERE'S NOTHING NOT CREEPY ABOUT THAT. The thought of it sickens me, it's terrifying. She's sneaky, she's a snake, she's two-faced, she always talks about how it's always best to suck up and that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, that sort of ****... that you gotta sweet talk everybody... and she does, it's sick... She wanted me to go to this boarding school once. They were supposed to have an "alternative" approach, which she's always into just based on that term, because she's a mindless idiot who loves referring to herself as "out-of-the-box" (most untrue thing, her box is so ******* tight). The deal was (not that I you know had any say obviously, deal or no deal) that we were going to this place for an interview, and if I didn't get in, I was going to another wilderness program straight from there, so I'd better get in. Awesome, doesn't give me much of a choice. Their "alternative approach" was supposed to consist of some like "tough love" but it's real and they're all close some ******** I don't know. So the head of the school said I had to get on my knees and kiss his feet to show that I wanted to be accepted. Now of course he knew I didn't want to be there. Not only that, but that's clearly degrading, and I was not having that. My mom though, she was there, she was pushing me to do it, she said I should just do it, come on, blah blah blah, jesus ****ing christ. I ended up just going outside and hitching a three hour ride to Boston with some college kid. I had no choice though, you see. I wouldn't have just done that for no reason. I had to. It was that or kiss this freak's feet with my mom in total agreeance because she's a ****ing idiot and a *****, or go to wilderness because I didn't want to. Wow.

Anyway long story short (sort of, excuse me): I started college, got straight A's, was all about it, wanted to do big things, transferred to CUNY, and through that I was in an abusive relationship for two years with this bum who was one of those like wannabe-romantics where everything has so much more meaning than necessary, who claimed that we "had to be together", I didn't even want a ****ing relationship... but he pushed it, and ****ed me, like everybody else, then I finally said he wasn't moving in with me in the city the day he was going to, and now he's in Hawaii thank god slept his way there with some Italian installation artist... while still trying to **** with me and give me **** like I was still his girlfriend... I went to work for my uncle in Europe for a few months taking last semester off because I didn't know what to do anymore, I was too stressed, too lonely, felt like I was going insane (plus I hadn't been able to find work since I moved to the city). But I ended up having to come back because it just turned out to be a way too busy time for him work-wise so he had no time to train me like he was going to, and I was just spending all my time there archiving his 20+ years' worth of work scattered on all these 4TB hard drives all over the place.

So now I'm back and I'm in the same position. I'm back in school, I can't take it anymore, I'm straight up quitting, I haven't touched my schoolwork really in days, I can't take it anymore. It's too stressful. School is ALL I DO. I don't know how to GET A LIFE. I HAVE NONE. It's hard to start from that point and build up, it really is, it's all like a giant catch 22, because for one thing when you have no friends, it's not so easy to just make them, because everyone else DOES have friends, and it's a little weird when they begin to realize you don't have any, and essentially any other person is like your "first friend" -- then you don't get close enough to anybody to keep them around, or something, I don't know, something like that. It's awkward. I don't have hobbies, I don't know what to do with myself, I don't know what I like, I don't know how to relax. I really don't, I can't. I hate being alone though, I hate it, I hate being by myself. I like company. But then nobody's company feels natural anymore and it's so ****ing painful really like jesus why can't I just be normal I COULD HAVE BEEN NORMAL. I don't WANT TO NOT BE NORMAL. Being treated that way growing up PROMOTES and FOSTERS ABNORMALITY. You know because it's projecting it. I could have been just fine. Then they ****ed me up telling me I was ****ed up. and I really just mean situationally, environmentally. My schooling is ****ed, I've never had a normal experience in my life basically, and I sure as hell don't know how to forge them now. I'm in my third year of college, but because I transferred I lost out on a good amount of my credits... I don't know I would still have a good year or two left I think.

I can't even finish this semester. I can't stand it. All of my professors suck this semester, none of them are even half-decent at teaching, all the tutors on campus are ****ing idiots or Asian girls who speak unintelligible English, so they can't help me. I try, like I said, school is ALL I DO, from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep -- which isn't healthy, but I don't know what to do, and I'm STILL behind, in ALL my classes, have been the whole semester, never caught up, so why keep trying. I give up. I got my calculus textbook like a month late because the first one I ordered the dude never SHIPPED IT the whole month and wasn't responding to me asking to just ****ing cancel it finally either and the **** was over $100, so finally I just had to order another one (WITH EXPRESS SHIPPING, ha ha! more expensive). Despite that, and that I'm still so behind, I'm doing the best in the class -- I got a 31% on the first exam. The second one I got a 19/40 I think because thank god that time he gave us 60 free points. So but if nobody in the class can even get halfway to passing, how should that be my problem? He won't curve it, he said. He's fine with this. He says this is how it is. (Most of the students dropped his course the first week, so there are only about a handful of students in the class anyway.)

So right, okay, **** school. I need to get a life, more importantly. I thought it was the other way around but no. I can't do this. It all muddles together when you're always just doing the same thing, and then that cancels it out, it's self-contradictory. But I don't know how to reacclimate, I don't know how to regain any sense or condition of normalcy. I'm so miserable, I wake up and cry sometimes. I take Adderall because I have ADD (who doesn't) and for the DPD, it helps focus my attention outwardly, you know... but obviously that **** stops working like it's supposed to once you're dependent on it, and that happens quickly, and I've been taking it for over a year, so it's already pretty much futile, I just have to take it to wake up, and just get really edgy every afternoon when it wears off. I'm going to try to get on some antidepressants next week... I don't know what though, I don't trust any of that ****, only Adderall because it's straightforward, and it's not like I wanted to take that forever anyway. I just need some medication to help me through this I guess, like to help placate me until things get better, because right now this depression is pretty much entirely circumstantial. There's nothing for me to be excited or happy about. I want to figure this **** out but in the meantime I have no energy, I have no motivation to do so, really, I'm too depressed as it is... I'm too DISCOURAGED. I need encouragement, and to enable that as even a possibility I think I need some ****ing chemicals to placate/chill my brain out or something. Also been thinking about building a brain machine but that's later... I don't want to feel like a freak alone with my brain machine...

Also I need to completely cut all remaining ties with/to my mom. That's a whole 'nother thing though, and this post is already long enough. But I can't talk to her. Not ever. It's not okay. It's not right. It's sick, it makes me sick. She's the only person I talk to. She's all lovey towards me and it's disgusting and I don't appreciate it because she's obviously sick and obviously I don't matter so it's only because she wants to keep me within her grasp because now I'm over 18. Up until I turned 18, like when I was almost 18 I was still very much afraid, like paranoid and anxious that she would pull some **** to extend her custody over me like based on some ******** like claim I have a disability or something and get some ****ing asshole of a lawyer who's immoral enough to go with her ******** despite the consequences and how crazy she is and fight til the death and ultimately succeed in gaining extended custody over me. It was totally not an unreasonable fear, she's that nuts, she would take it that far. Thankfully she didn't, but so it's now the time for me to stop ****ing associating with her at all. Not to keep pretending like I love her because she's my mother, even though I rarely have to see her or speak to her... I just can't at all.

Anyway any tips on becoming normal. at this point. any ideas...? What can I do

[unaluna]

you are FINE. you are very intelligent, self-aware - are you isolating? somehow you are not letting the people who do love what you have to offer, find you. hiding your light under a bushel, as you needed to do around your horrible mother. absolutely do free yourself of her, whatever it takes (i don't mean violence or anything like that). You DO have an excellent mind - I am so sorry you were subjected to THAT. Her. Anyway. Read what other artists have done.