I am so very cold and distant. Almost isolated from the rest of society in some way. In many ways, this helps me succeed, but I never truly succeed.
How can one enjoy success if he doesn't allow himself to feel joy?
Don't get me wrong, I am not some empty human being who does not experience life and does not have fun or feel happiness. I have had some incredible highs thus far in my 19 years of life. The thing is, my general distance from others does not allow me to fully enjoy myself.
The times that I am having the time of my life are always finite and are always followed by times of extreme sadness, emptiness, lack of passion. It's almost like I live so hard that I must go through a period of borderline depression in order to rejuvenate my emotions.
I know the present cause of all of this. I am not allowing myself to feel all that I feel objectively. I am either repressing my emotions, or I am letting my past contaminate my present emotions. It is immobilizing and undoubtedly holding me back. I just don't know why things can be going so great and then just come crashing down. I've talked about this before, but it's like I make 5 steps forward, and then before I know it I'm right back to where I started.
Demons that I thought I had understood and accepted will suddenly come back to haunt me, mercilessly. In every instance, there has been a trigger. I can't put my finger on it, but I know all it takes is one event to pull me into this state. Conversely, there is always some sort of trigger that takes me out of that slump (usually this website).
If I had to make a hypothesis, I would say the trigger is some over exaggeration of an event with a woman or group of friends. This event is probably a misconstrued perception of rejection that triggers my early subconscious memories of my dismissive mother. My mom was a drunk and raised my brother and I by herself, no doubt I am going to suffer lash back from my somewhat traumatic childhood.
I've been reading up on it and I am fairly certain I have exhibit avoidant attachment behaviors. Another term for this is the "lost child" role of dysfunctional family dynamics. I am not ashamed of this at all, yet I do want to make it better. I am doing myself a disservice as well as others because I am emotionally sick.
These types of problems are multigenerational. My mother was most likely dismissive towards baby-me because she was treated similarly as a child. Obviously there is a cause for her alcoholism and insecurity, despite the fact that she is a very beautiful woman - she should have all the confidence in the world.
That being said, I can spend all the time in the world feeling sorry for my mother and myself, but I don't want to do that. I want to break the cycle. I want to lead a fulfilling life across the board. I don't want to run from my problems and turn to coping mechanisms that I formed as a pre-pubescent child.
I just don't know how, nor am I in the right environment. I'm in college, it is tougher than usual to find people to become intimate with. However, I am not saying I want a relationship or someone else to fill this "void" inside of me. What I really want is more practice getting intimate, being vulnerable. I choose to be cold and distant because that is my comfort zone. That is what I am used to. It is weird because I am not always like this; I have shown the capability for intimacy and vulnerability, but for whatever reason, I sink into my shell when the going gets tough.
I think one part of it is pushups. Literally, physical pushups. My life has been so devoid of physical activity, I'm lucky that I'm young and can still retain some muscle mass or else I'd be a frail boy. I think I'll figure it out, I mean I have in the past so I am not worried. I just want to do it better this time, and better yet every subsequent time until I get to the point where the lows are not so low anymore.
So what do you guys say, any of you ever feel like cold motherfuckers? And when I say cold, I am talking more of the aloof-cold vs. the indifferent-cold. When people say you are cold when you are indifferent, they are just trying to get your attention, trying to test to see if you're the real deal. When you're aloof-cold, people will look at you and intuitively know there is something deep down that is troubling you.
If so, how did you break through the demons of dysfunctional childhood? How do you get those demons fully on you're team? How do you become comfortable with all that is you, present and past?
I feel like past me is always checking present me when things are getting good.
![Neutral :|](./images/smilies/icon_neutral.gif)