...

This is going to be a long one, bear with me. And yes, I am inclined to share my life story here, deal with it.


At 6, my teachers decided that I was too hyper and disruptive, so I was referred to a mental health professional. My IQ was tested, and I was found to have an IQ of around 140, but I was also diagnosed with ADHD, and so it began. I was prescribed several different medications, one after the other, but none of them seemed to work. It was driving my parents crazy, and when I was 8, they got divorced. My mother says they turned me into a "zombie". Then, at 10, when the last medicine, which was a non-stimulant medication, made me rather belligerent, my mother had apparently had enough. I went to a developmental center, and the doctor there decided that I didn't actually have ADHD, and I was taken off the medication. Around this time, my mother got remarried. The man she married was a narcissistic abuser of the worse kind, and was even physically violent at times. The next five years were unpleasant, to say the least. My ADHD was VERY severe, and I could not relate on an intellectual level to any of my peers. I became a very angry and lonely person, and was constantly in trouble at school, for a variety of reasons. As intelligent as I was, I still failed the seventh grade, because I simply couldn't focus enough to do the homework, or remember to take it to school with me (though I aced every test I took). At 15, I assaulted my brother, and was subsequently diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and started taking mood stabilizers. Now, those medications will make you gain weight, and I already had body dysmorphia issues. I gained about 90 lbs. in six months, and my self-esteem (already fragile) plummeted. I became somewhat of a pariah. At the age of 17, I got into some trouble for shoplifting, and spent seven days in jail. I assaulted a girl who asked me about it when I got back to school (she was with me when I shoplifted), and was given the option to drop out, or be expelled. I chose to drop out, and got my G.E.D. within two months, receiving the highest score on record for my state, and qualifying for a good scholarship to the top college in my state. That fall, when I went to college, I was living on my own for the first time (I didn't even have a driver's license yet, and no experience in the real world). I got off my meds, and things got pretty bad. One month in, I had to drop out of college, and lived with my sister for a month or so. My stepfather (the narcissistic abuser) was able to convince me that I was having hallucinations (I was in a very suggestible state of mind at the time), and encouraged me to tell a psychiatrist about them. So I did. I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and started taking anti-psychotics. Three months after that, I was experiencing severe anxiety every time I was alone, and having panic attacks multiple times a day. I started services at a day-treatment center in my town, and went there for three years. Two years into treatment, I tried to go to the same college once again. I lasted about a month and a half before my inability to concentrate made me break down again, and I dropped out. Near the end of my time in treatment, my therapist (probably the only competent health care professional I've ever been treated by) was able to deduce that I had never had schizophrenia, and the diagnosis was rescinded. Unfortunately, this also meant that I could no longer be treated by her, and I had to leave treatment. At my new therapist, I was diagnosed (once again) with ADHD. I decided that I needed to get away from home, and moved to another town to live with my brother (he doesn't care for me, I pay the majority of the bills in my house). This was about a month ago.

I have no ability, whatsoever, to trust another person, though I crave a bond. I don't remember most of my childhood or adolescence. I cannot focus on anything, and I'm EXTREMELY forgetful. I'm impulsive. I have almost no sense of self. I become extremely paranoid if I think someone is ignoring me, and I become extremely paranoid that I am annoying other people. I have almost no sense of self. When I go to bed, I don't feel like I'm the same person I was when I woke up. I react emotionally to tiny little things. I can't relate to others at all. I feel stifled in every possible way.

I've become so hopeless, and I don't know how to deal with it. I'm certain that I've become completely insane.

This is self pity, yes.