Read about my lack of emotional control!

I don’t know where else to put this because it covers way too much. Please be gentle with me, I’ve been kind of unstable all day lol. Mess of a bunch of paragraphs ahead.

My life seems to go in waves of when I'm doing okay, to when I'm doing absolutely ****.

Ladies, gents, and gender non-conforming friends, we're at that **** stage now.

I can distinctly remember a few points in my life when I've broke down in tears because of stress or verbal abuse (just happened again) and one of my parents yells at me to stop crying in front of everyone and to go upstairs and close the room door. If I don't move, they just go about their daily activities and ignore me. Really surreal to be sobbing as your mom says that you're doing wonderfully on the phone with her mother. I’m typing this now about an hour later.
For context, I’m not an emotional person at all, and when I do cry, I don’t broadcast it. I’ve only broken down in front of people a few times before. This isn’t a daily, weekly, or monthly thing. But the majority of these times have been within the past year.

I think that starting out with college has been the cause of a lot of them. As a commuter with an 8 AM and a 1-2 hour drive/train ride coupled with a bad work ethic, difficult classes, and self destructive behavior, it hasn’t been faring well for me.

I shouldn’t be complaining; and I’m complaining a lot. My parents are paying for my education. I’m in an extremely privileged position. And yet I find myself incredibly angry at my situation because I’ve been wanting to leave my house for as long as I can remember as my mother exerts a lot of control over me (the reason I’m commuting in the first place; we could easily afford to send me to a res hall).
But at the same time I feel like **** for being so upset at my situation. Even if my mom is controlling, she’s still my mother and she’s financially supporting me. I think I’m more wounded by the fact she’s never trusted me, or rather, has always been super paranoid and overprotective. She forbade me from leaving the house without an adult for years past what one would consider normal, prevented me from socializing with other kids when I was younger, punished me when I tried to get involved in extracurricular activities in high school, etc. etc.

I’ve also had OCD-like tendencies since a very young age, and over the past several years I’ve tried to bring it up to her she’s just asked “you’re still not over that yet?”.

I’m a lot better now regarding that, most of the time. My tendencies used to be very, very bad. I used to start crying if I had to sleep in an unfamiliar environment and I’d think something would come hurt me or my family if I flicked on the light an even number of times. I’d curl up on the couch for hours and pray that nothing bad would happen because I messed up x thing during the day, or would wash my hands till they cracked and bled because I accidentally touched something dirty. It was debilitating.

I don’t experience these things any more unless I’m stressed, but when I do get stressed, they flare up really badly, and they’ve changed in the past couple of years, and I’m starting to get worried. Some examples I can think of off the top of my head:

• My junior year of high school after not making the audition for a group I’d been trying to get into since middle school I “lost” the ability to speak in front of groups (I used to have a natural talent for it). I’d start shaking very visibly from head to toe the moment I stepped up to speak. This lasted throughout the year and while I can speak in front of groups again (after forcing myself to get on stage/in front of people and embarrassing myself...a lot…), albeit not to my original ability, if I spend too long in front of them I start getting tremors again. I’m scared it’s flaring up again, though! Today in my classes whenever I spoke I would forget what I was saying and take long pauses before speaking and I responded very erratically and awkwardly to questions (people laughed...I’m still embarrassed). People tried making conversation with me today too, and I would respond in weird, awkward ways. I’m normally perfectly normal socializing, often cheerful and talkative, I don’t know what was so different in particular about today. I don’t have exams for another week and just returned from a retreat I had a great time in. I should be in a good mood.
  
  Now, instead of traditional OCD compulsions, I just start feeling really paranoid. I.e., a few weeks ago I said to myself “I should throw away this necklace my friend gave me because she’s been talking behind my back non-stop. It has a bad energy now and it’s what’s causing my bad luck”. So I did.
  
  The week my great uncle died, in March of this year, I was crying nonstop for no apparent reason. I didn’t have any particular big stressors in my life (besides the stress of applying to college and finishing high school), so it was really weird to be experiencing. I actually told my brother that I was “grieving something that hadn’t happened yet”. He died that Friday, and since then I’ve had the feeling that I can predict people’s deaths and have been terrified of death and have been constantly thinking of one of my family members, friends, or myself possibly dying ever since. Whenever I board trains I walk way out of the way of anyone in case they push me onto the tracks, and I always stand near a solid object on the middle of the platform.
  
  I’ve started mumbling to myself. It used to just be when I’m alone, but now I’m doing it in public, and I don’t realize I’m doing it until I catch myself in the act. I’m kind of verbalizing my negative thoughts out loud. I also start shaking my head or tapping incessantly randomly, but people haven’t been pointing it out to me so maybe I’m just paranoid or catastrophizing normal behavior.
  
  I get lost in thought a lot and don’t realize I’ve zoned out till some time later. This happens to everyone, and I didn’t really pay attention to it until I actually ended up in the middle of a busy intersection in my city the other day because I didn’t realize I didn’t have enough time to cross the road.

I don’t know what’s going on, but I know this isn’t normal (it’s not normal, right? This isn’t just growing up stuff?) and this doesn’t feel like OCD, or whatever it was I had before (if I even had anything). I feel like I'm overblowing the situation and it's just stress related. I don't think I've ever had a mental illness at all.

My mother yelled at me before I went up to my room just now to just drop out of college. I’m not mature enough to handle real life yet. She’s almost definitely right, but I don’t want to stay stuck here and not progress. I feel like I need distance from my family to start sorting myself out and figuring out what I want to do, because I KNOW I fall into a victim complex way too easily and I won’t get out of it unless I take the reins on my life. But I also don't want to overreact and ruin relationships because of this incredibly temporary stress I'm feeling. I feel bad, she's stressed out as well, and in her eyes, I look like an ungrateful, whiny daughter.

Just to note as I haven’t mentioned him yet, this whole stressful situation has actually made my relationship with my father a lot, lot better. He’s probably the person I talk to the most right now, because he expects me to actually take responsibility for my actions, treats me like another adult, and doesn’t coddle or punish me like my mom.

When I was younger (think sub-11 years old) he used to be the antagonizer and blamed me for all the household problems. My mom would then put an enormous amount of stress on me and tell me I’m the only thing that’s keeping the family from breaking apart (despite my three younger brothers). She’d scream at me if I did something to anger my father because that would cause them to have arguments and so on and so forth.
I never really spoke to him about these issues and how I feel about them but I don’t think he even remembers them now, but it still makes me a little uncomfortable around him. He’s been nothing but thoughtful and supportive now, but I know I can’t just dismiss the way I was unfairly treated in my past. But that’s a completely separate story I’ll spare you from now.

Sorry about the incoherent mess of childhood issues, stress, and problems in general. If you managed to get through all of this I commend you. Sorry if I sound like a whiny brat, I swear this is out of the norm for me. I know my experiences are nothing compared to some people but I’ve been storing these thoughts in my head for months and I needed to vent to someone. I've been sitting here for an hour debating whether or not to delete the whole thing or post. Thanks again for reading, much love

Hello leefi: I see this is your first post here on PC. So... welcome to PsychCentral… from the Skeezyks! I hope you find the time you spend here to be of benefit. By the way, you don't sound like a whiny brat. We all need somewhere to unload our feelings from time-to-time. And PC can be a supportive place to do that. Many of us, if not most, are here because we lack other people or places to do just that.

PsychCentral is a great place to get information as well as support for mental health issues. There are many knowledgeable & caring members here. The more you post, & reply to other members’ posts, the more a part of the community you will become. Plus there are social groups you can join & chat rooms where you’ll be able to connect with other PC members in real time (once your first 5 posts have been reviewed & approved.) Lots of great stuff! So please keep posting!