I'm 19 years old and for my entire life I've been having troubles feeling anything at all. I always thought there was some logical and simple explanation to why I wasn't like everyone else, and I assumed it would heal with time, but it didn't. It just keeps getting worse. First let me begin with that I'm completely unable to open up to other people. I have never opened up. To anyone. If I'm even close to doing it I feel disgusted by myself, I get nausea and an urge to flee. I've also never cared like others. I can't really feel empathy. Or I mean, I can, for like animals and my family, but no one else. I'm literally serious when I say my best friend could die tomorrow and I wouldn't be able to feel a thing. Obviously I'd think it's sad, but it wouldn't effect me on an emotional level.

I hide this part of me, and I certainly don't talk about it with anyone. I want to be normal but I just can't. I have tried to involve myself in other people, in relationships, and even - in my sillier moments - in love. But it doesn't work. Something in me is broken or missing. I love my immediate family, but that's about it. I can lie without feeling any kind of remorse, I manipulate people very easily, and when someone really gets on my bad side, I just attack their weaknesses and break them down with words. It's terrible, I know, but I can't stop. Even as I write it, I know I say it's terrible, but I don't feel terrible. I just know that it's not how a person should act. I could never physically hurt another person, but not because it would make me feel bad but more because I know it's wrong.

My condition is just getting worse, I've started to distance myself from everybody because I feel so tired of wearing a mask and constantly faking to like what they like or play their stupid games. I don't love others. I'm incapable of feeling on a deeper level, there are no strong emotions in me. I feel narcisstic but at the same time I hate myself. I can get furious very easily but it goes away as quickly as it comes. I haven't had such a bad childhood but I mean my mother was going through her hardest part of life when I was a kid, and she took it out on me a lot. Sometimes physically but mostly mentally, such as I constantly heard that I was a bad kid, and bad news, and she blamed me for a lot of stuff that wasn't really my fault. She changed and got so much better when I was like 13 or something and now she's the best mom ever and apologized 200 times but I can't seem to let go. It's stuck with me.. I'm seriously worried that my condition will become worse and something bad will happen... What's wrong with me?

Angry, too, need the rules. If you would like to express their outrage, we must carefully choose the words and expressions that you are going to use it. Words can inflict a very strong emotional wound. Always remember that. And even in anger. Even if you are very angry, you should try to remain calm. Then you will be easier to formulate their claims. Do not focus on the process itself. Do not forget in the heat of anger, what you're angry, why are you angry, what goals you want to achieve, expressing their outrage.
You must also show that you are not satisfied with the personality of man, and his specific act or situation, in which he has put you. You should not insult the man. No need to remember all his faults, which are not relevant to the subject of your anger. Moreover, it is impossible to point to some external features of the man.
It is not advisable to show anger towards his boss. You do not reach the wrath of their goals. But you can lose a job.
If you are the boss, then you can afford to be angry at his negligent subordinates. But it is necessary to comply with all regulations. We must not go beyond appearances.
Anger can have different degrees. But the highest degree of your anger should be used very rarely.

Usually people who struggle with drug and alcohol abuse or other forms of addictive behaviors come from a background of abuse or neglect or have experienced some kind of trauma when they were younger. Being in these situations, a child and/or a young person can experience various painful feelings such as fear, helplessness, shame, guilt, sadness and eventually hopelessness. Becoming overwhelmed by these emotions and not having anybody to help them and validate their feelings may lead to them learning to run away and avoid such feelings to protect against pain or become consumed by those feelings and act upon them impulsively. Later in life, they may use substances or engage in addictive and destructive activities to numb those painful feelings. Despite their effort in avoiding these emotions, they are stored implicitly in a deeper level of the brain and will be triggered more often than they may have expected.

These emotions that have been stored in a less conscious part of the brain may not be accessible verbally, but can be found symbolically in images that the person creates. Therefore, the goal of art therapy is to access these hidden and avoided emotions that once had the purpose of protecting the individual, but either have been denied or exaggerated and lost its purpose to rediscover their adaptive qualities.

Images in an art therapy session can simply be composed of a few lines, colors or pictures from a magazine to more elaborate drawings, clay sculptures and other forms of creativity. These images will give an expert art therapist the opportunity to help the recovering person uncover meanings behind the symbolic images, discover more information about oneself than just talking and open many deep thoughts and emotions. Participants in art therapy don’t need to have any skills in art.

Talking about feelings can be very frightening and painful for a person who has been avoiding them for a long time. This person may not even be able to verbally express him/herself, but may be able to express thoughts and feelings about past and present events and situations non=verbally through lines, shapes and pictures. Creating them can become a new form of communication which is less threatening and safer for the recovering person.

Individuals struggling with addiction are usually very judgmental of themselves and are flooded with shame and guilt. Creating art can give them a tangible, concrete perception of their feelings and thoughts and give them the opportunity to observe themselves from a distance which can help them gain a new, less judgmental and more compassionate understanding of self.

Recovering individuals may engage in a simple art project whenever they feel overwhelmed or have an urge to take drugs/alcohol or engage in an addictive activity to distract and sooth themselves. Creating can give them a sense of control over the situation and a tool to accept and manage overwhelming feelings. Using their hands while using art materials such as colored pencils, markers, crayons, clay, paper and scissors can help them release some of their avoided feelings such as anger and lower its intensity, and to sooth and calm themselves when they are anxious.

In general, in art therapy sessions, the recovering person will be given permission and opportunity to experience and express those feelings that he/she has been running away from and avoiding for a long time in a safe and supporting atmosphere, with the presence of an empathic professional psychotherapist /art therapist who will help him/her understand and make sense of those painful feelings, acknowledge and accept them with compassion, reduce their intensity and tolerate them, and finally use them effectively to fulfill their needs and goals.

Hello dear reader, I've recently discovered my disorders and wrote something a while ago in a blog. Sorry if it's too long but I can't really divide it into part, you may find it very boring but I want to thank you to whoever read the whole thing or even just looked at!

Introduction, burning iceberg/frozen flame
I’m not very good at writing; in fact I suck pretty much at everything.

I think of myself as a walking bag of issues. I’m a highly sensitive person, I have borderline personality disorder, social anxiety, I have little bit of OCD and ADD and I often think that I’m bipolar.

I understand that everybody goes through some kind of stress in their lives and that other people might have bigger problems than me…honestly I don’t give a ###$, ###$ those people! ###$ people who judge ( I do that sometimes too but then I get punished at night by my over thinking habit), ###$ people who pretend to be nice, ###$ overconfident people, ###$ people who are shy, ###$ people that like politics, ###$ people that are into religion now that I think of it, ###$ everybody! Myself included!!

I’m sorry I didn’t meant to offend anyone (maybe I did), so I have extreme mood swings(as you’ve already noticed), sometimes I wanna meet people but most of the times I hate people. It’s probably because of my social anxiety, every time I’m in public I feel like everybody’s staring at me, I always thought it was some teenage stuff and that it would eventually subside but it never truly did, in fact sometimes I feel like it’s gotten worse. Each pair of eyes feels like a burn and I start sweating and panicking and I keep telling myself “oh god why are people staring at me? Is it because I’m overweight? (at a time I was but even after I lost weight I felt the same way) is my hair messed up?” Sometimes I do feel ok when I’m in public, most of the time it’s when I’m drunk or in an extremely good mood, unfortunately both don’t last very long and don’t happen very often and sometimes are mutually exclusive.

I feel like I’m the ugliest person in the world, the most weird too but at the same time I realize that I’m just an ordinary guy, nothing special at all. Other times I label myself very special because I’m pathetic and I want that pity but there’s just no one in my world that would ######6 understand me so I only have myself, which is just not enough but sometimes can be overwhelming. My biggest fear and my biggest enemy are both- myself. I tend to over think stuff, stuff that other healthy normal people don’t even care about, don’t notice. I like to analyze my day right before going to sleep, every ######6 time. Every time before going to sleep my brain’s like “Oh you wanna rest? ###$ that! Let’s go through all the ###$ up $#%^ that happened today. The mean stuff people said to you or you said to them. The stupid awkward situations you put yourself or others to, about how it’s gonna haunt you for a couple of years until you do something more ###$ up, which is gonna happen pretty soon by the way.

I always feel lonely and sometimes I just wish I had a girlfriend, actually every guy wants that…but then I remember what it’s like for me to be in a relationship with someone. It’s ######6 hell, both for me and for the unluckiest girl in the world who agreed to be in a relationship with me. Whenever I’m in a relationship (which is SUPER rare now) I tend to idealize (or even idolize) my partner and I cling very tightly to that person. Thinking she can understand me, support me and just always be there (which is literally ALWAYS) and of course eventually I get disappointed, always. Because I’m a selfish bastard, the very kind of people that I hate. It is part of the curse of having the borderline personality disorder, no one will ever be good enough for you and you’re never gonna be good enough for anyone as well. When people I’m really attached to stop messaging me or talking to me for whatever reasons (busy, not in the mood) I instantly take it the wrong wa...

[ Continued ]

My friend absolutely terrifies me. He has never done anything violent or harmful to me and is the most gentle and peaceful person I know (Though he is quite distant). He is also the most dangerous person I know. He usually has a calming air about him. It's calming to the point where he picked a bee off a flower and held it in his open palm for who knows how long before he sent it back on the flower without it stinging him. However, his air about him changes to absolute dread when he gets aggressive. This dread caused a dog to whimper and hide just by being near him. A moment to feel this dread is to ask him about his past.

My friend has a rather dark past. He had drug addict, alcoholic, and sick parents for the first three years of his life who were constantly fighting. He also was being watched by his legally crazy grandparents who were also drug addict alcoholics. He saw his mother brutally die in front of him from a car accident he was in. His father legally died then came back into a coma. He was physically, emotionally, and psychologically abused. He was raped. He was constantly being bullied at school and at home by his cousins. He hasn't seen his sister for ten years. He almost died countless times. He was also taken away from his father by the CPS. I was his first friend ever, and that was in the 5th grade (He was held back one year). I am still one of his only friends. The bullying never really stopped, it's just that everyone was to scared to.

As I said before, he is the best person I have ever met. However, he becomes a monster when aggressive. During these moments, he is not angry in any way. He is actually very happy when he is aggressive. I have seen him do some monster like things when he is like that. Ranging from will his way through a sleep hold to overpowering four football players. A note to take is how he is a 5' 5" 135 lbs slender-athletic build guy who isn't very bulky despite his martial art training, but he is stronger than he looks and is very resilient. When he becomes aggressive, his entire being changes. His eyes become empty and have a death stare, his body language becomes feral and relaxed, He gets a joker like smile and tries to keep himself from giggling and almost growls, the air around him becomes full of dread, and his already efficient and dangerous fighting style becomes even more efficient and dangerous. When he is in a fight, killing an insect, or gutting a hunted animal he laughs harder and smiles harder. He clearly enjoys being hit or hurting things when he is in that state. He also doesn't feel any physical pain in that state. After he snaps back to normal, he bursts into a crying mess, and will often vanish when we all check to see if the guy he was fighting is okay.

When he is normal, he has noble body language, a gentle look on his face, and love in his eyes. He will try to never harm anything and will resolve anything peacefully. He also genuinely cares about his few friends and gives amazing advise and can console anyone.

My friend has gone to therapy, but the fact he couldn't remember what he did in the aggressive moment, the therapy didn't help him know what was wrong with him. He also went to anger management, but he apparently has an outstanding control over his anger. We both wonder what is wrong with him, and I am absolutely terrified of him even when he isn't in his aggressive state.