Childhood

anagram wrote:Overall, I can't say I relate much to anybody else's narrative so far [in the schizoid forum]. Most notably, for the longest time I thought I was perfectly normal (which I most definitely was not), and I thought I would naturally grow up to be like a normal adult, whatever that entailed. I always had a sense that I was different, but only in the sense that "everybody else was stupid" (unsurprisingly, kindergarten teachers complained to my parents that I was arrogant and unsociable).

It's hard for me to come up with an account of my childhood that includes in any way what other children thought or supposedly thought of me. This wasn't at all a concern. Not because I specifically didn't care about it, but because the thought of others thinking anything of me simply never occurred to me. Or if it did, it never occurred to me to give it any credit (after all, "everybody else was stupid"). I only thought of other people in terms of immediate situations ("out of sight, out of mind"). From my perspective there were only three kinds of people: those who could give me what I wanted at the moment, those who seemed (or had previously seemed) to be a threat, and everyone else.

If I was "busy" with a toy or a thought, or maybe looking at something interesting, then the rest of the world ceased to exist as far as I was concerned. If was bored or amused, I would often just blurt out a contextless comment to the nearest human, or start reciting my train of thought. I noticed very early that this type of behavior was aggressively shunned by boys, but not by girls. My impression was (and still is) that girls received it with amusement, although I suppose it's not unlikely that much of the time they were more confused than anything else. The thought doesn't bother me, though, and probably wouldn't have bothered me back then.

I had very little imagination beyond conjectures over whatever I happened to be observing, and any activities requiring regular, fantastic imagination bored me to death (most every situation bored me to death, actually). Boredom was a constant and major problem at home, where, incidentally, I was pretty much the opposite of how I was in school, in terms of unruliness. I didn't recognize or accept any kind of authority other than my own, but since I was the "little genius", who for the most part stayed out of trouble, I didn't have the need or the urge to be confrontational in school nearly as often as I did at home, where rage was an everyday thing for me.

I don't feel like writing much about my adolescence, since it's boring and confusing. But in short I think I can say that by the time it started, as if by an instant switch, I had become extremely self-conscious, specifically because of my arguably strong attraction to the opposite sex, which was utterly irreconcilable with my behavior and my worldview. But I never tried to be normal. The very idea repelled me. Mostly, I tried (and failed) again and again to forge a social identity by trying to incorporate things that I liked at the moment, but no one else around (or only a few people) seemed to like. For a while, for example, I liked heavy metal, so I wore brazen heavy metal shirts every day. Then for a while I liked punk rock, so I (unsuccessfully) tried to make my hair pointy and dye it bright red. And so on.

anagram wrote:Someone posted a thread the other day on the schizoid forum asking about people's childhoods. I ended up writing down a longer post than I expected. My story was very different from most everyone else's. I'm curious to know how it would compare to other people's childhoods here. Can you relate to anything from my post? Or not at all? (Also, of course, please feel free to post as much as you wish about your own childhood. I'd be very interested to read about it.)

shock_the_monkey wrote:consequently, after many failed attemps at being sociable i eventually retreated into my own world of interests. something i wish i'd been able to maintain.

chlov wrote:My mother says I've always shown some "peculiarities" ever since I was a little child, and she says I did very weird things as a child.

That's not the same as gifted, since gifted people are supposed to be true geniuses.

anagram wrote:

shock_the_monkey wrote:consequently, after many failed attemps at being sociable i eventually retreated into my own world of interests. something i wish i'd been able to maintain.

I believe this (active interests) is something that can always be recovered. It's just hard when you have your focus on people, or when you're feeling down (or both at the same time — which is very easy to happen). I work on the premise that if I can adjust my "mental landscape" according to this principle (which I believe I can), then I can be able to enjoy my interests again.

shock_the_monkey wrote:sadly, the realisation that these were self-fulfilling kinda fulfilled them!!!