Is There Any Hope?

Is there any hope for people with this disorder? I've been diagnosed with SPD, Asperger's (most doctors seem to think I have SPD but I am unsure of this [I have read that different countries tend to diagnose one more than the other]), I (probably) have clinical depression (though it may just be the schizophrenia-spectrum traits), OCD intrusive thoughts, and I believe regular bing drinking of alcohol since the age of 19 has worsened everything even further (can't stop, don't really want to stop, don't feel enough energy or have enough will to stop, being drunk is the only time I feel any good anyway), and I probably have borderline narcissistic personality disorder, not helped by an emotionally abusive, angry mother who possibly has sub-clinical NPD too.

I am writing this because I feel so hopeless and sad, as I'm sure many others here do. It seems there is no treatment for this disorder. I seem to be a strange creature and even on the darkest corners of the internet, I am odd and strange, and I end up pissing people off and pushing them away when drunk especially. My life is a living hell, I'm exhausted, sad and drained. I have many talents that I hoped to put to good use (I'm 30 now) but nothing has materialised. I feel like I don't have a "central identity", I'm lost and adrift, and nothing is real. It seems that I'm in a continual state of being traumatised, and tortured by upsetting, painful, embarrassing memories that play over and over in my head. Dealing with people, especially psychiatrists, seems to be literally traumatic to me, based on how they treated me in the past (and yes, I mean psychiatrists specifically in particular, not psychologists). If this seems like a rambling post because, it's because I'm just so...out of things to tell myself every day to make everything tolerable (don't worry I'm not suicidal). I've never felt so hopeless. I'm a reactive, angry, cantankerous, misanthropic kind of person, who seems to hate everyone. I don't even feel anything for my parents, except maybe the though of losing my dad. But even then it seems to be the concept of a person dying, and never existing again that gets to me so much. I think about my mortality all of the time, how I've achieved nothing, how poor my prognosis is now at this point in my life. I don't seem to respond to any treatments because, it's like, there's a lack of a human core in there, inside myself. There's sort of human activity in there, for sure. But there's something else, something more that 99.99% of people seem to have that's just lost, that's gone, that started fading noticeably when I was 12, on the cusp of adolescence, and now it feels like even less is left inside me. I also have some really bad antisocial tendencies. Am I a psychopath too? I'm so fractured, I don't even know anymore. Actually, I never really knew.

Are you able to even cope, and if so, how? Have any of you actually "overcome" this disorder?

tommen87 wrote:Dealing with people, especially psychiatrists, seems to be literally traumatic to me, based on how they treated me in the past (and yes, I mean psychiatrists specifically in particular, not psychologists).

(Dubious advice disclaimer) I could never, in good conscience, recommend that someone see a psychiatrist. Utterly incurious profession.

But even then it seems to be the concept of a person dying, and never existing again that gets to me so much. I think about my mortality all of the time, how I've achieved nothing, how poor my prognosis is now at this point in my life.

I think about my own death every day. The idea of being dead is not comprehensible to me. It's hard to let go of something like that.

Am I a psychopath too? I'm so fractured, I don't even know anymore. Actually, I never really knew.

I don't know much on this subject, but I doubt psychopaths are existentially tormented. I could be wrong.

Start with a psychologist rather than a psychiatrist. Psychiatrists can be useful, but from personal experience and what I've heard from others, they're more about meds than anything.

I have a cognitive behavioral psychologist I visit regularly. She's helped me a ton. Cognitive psychologists tend to lean more towards listening, finding the root of the issue and helping to figure out a better means of dealing with the bad behavior.

I'm not cured by a long stretch, but the fact that I'm typing here rather than lurking, barely eating, sleeping too much, barely working, not talking, and basically wanted everything to either get off my back (yet go along with it anyway) at least make me feel anything pleasant when doing things I once enjoyed.

I still am working on the last one, but everything else is gone/close enough to gone.

This sounds like you've gone through quite a lot and depression could be causing the lack of emotion. Depression does that in extreme cases. Still I think it's a good idea to talk out and work through your past.

I don't believe you're a psychopath, but rather have intrusive thoughts about it. OCD can make one turn into quite a hypochondriac if they don't watch out. Psychopaths don't get concerned about being what they are.

The bad news: from what I found out about brain developement (ontologically and phylologically) there is no cure for any complex PTSD. We are not ill, we are disabled and we will never live a "normal" life. Institutionalized help like any kind of psychotherapist, psychologist, mental health clinic, whatever is no help for us, because being treated like a number is just the wrong way to "help" us.
The good news: it's not our fault. we did nothing wrong. we are not responsible for being traumatized. In many cases even our parents are not guilty, for doing wrong to us. Often they acted with the best intensions, not knowing which harm they did to us. We are only responsible for how we treat ourselves knowing to be psycho-disabled. And society is responsible how they treat us.
To find and experience one single person, in which we trust, can change you whole life to the positive side. The disablity, not to be able to autoregulate our emotions, especially the negative ones, won't go away with that, but it gives us what everyone needs and what we need most. It's called a supportive relationship. It's quite unlikely to find a person like that, but the more we are fair and kind to other people and give everyone a chance to be our friend, the more we will find that special someone. Some say "love is the answer". I say "love is sometimes not enough". We need more than just "love".
For background information and self education I recommend the videos of Shelley Uram and Bryan Post, as well as Bruce D. Perry on youtube.
Yes, it's a bitter awareness nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change.
All the best.

Thank you everyone for your comments. I wrote this post while very distressed last night, I'm glad no one told me to "stop whining", as I sometimes get on Facebook. I do believe that I have PTSD to a good degree. I've had too many instances in my life in which I've been shaken to my core so thoroughly that it felt like my whole emotional internals just collapsed. I think this is why I am angry and reactive and full of these upsetting thoughts.

As for CBT, I am reading a book called Overcoming Depression which might be a good start (I am not even taking care of myself, let along my surroundings), or more than a good start, even. I will look up the references you have mentioned.

As for SPD, I feel this is where the "shattered" sense of self, lack of central identity and lack of purpose comes into play. I hope CBT for depression would help but I feel like it may be something deeper, in the guise of a schizo-spectrum disorder. Thanks.

tommen87 wrote:Thank you everyone for your comments. I wrote this post while very distressed last night, I'm glad no one told me to "stop whining", as I sometimes get on Facebook.

Normally I merely think social accounts are dumb. This may be SPD cynicism, but I promise you that Facebook is cancer. People who aren't near SPD believe this. This is one time where I suggest being the least amount of social you can. Heck choose to be negative social, and simply close the account.

As for CBT, I am reading a book called Overcoming Depression which might be a good start (I am not even taking care of myself, let along my surroundings), or more than a good start, even. I will look up the references you have mentioned.

Depression is a good part of it. Same thing with bad habits. Thing is depression isn't simply a bad habit. It's brain chemicals. The book may help with getting passed some bad habits due to angry feels and such, but won't fix either. CBT helps a person change the way they think over a long period of time, however isn't going to do much for depression alone. Not saying it's worthless, but you're gonna need outside perspective, for SPD (the habit problem). You built this up for many years. You can't expect to change it in a year, especially without help from the outside.

As for SPD, I feel this is where the "shattered" sense of self, lack of central identity and lack of purpose comes into play.

I have a DID NOS dx due to this. Basically I went a lil too far with schizoid fantasy to deal with things, and though I know who I am... I can't easily mesh together who I am. Having a mood disorder doesn't exactly help that either when one day I'm over confident and the next I can't do anything, and I'm terrified of my own thoughts.

Slowly piecing things over time helps. Figure out how you want to do things, what you like and dislike etc. That's you. Journaling can help with this too.

I hope there's hope.

I'm 24 now and lately, everything feels contradictory. See my thread about love. Things can't feel genuine; at times I long for a large social network, an awesome romantic relationship (or two at the same time!) but then I'm faced with the contradictory disinterest and realization that it's all in my head. Then I get another contradiction which makes me feel sad those things aren't real, despite my disinterest.

I've tried doing things like opening up to people and taking greater social risks that I would otherwise avoid, but none of them feel like it's really me there. I can tell it's my own body, my actions, my voice, or whatever but none of those things feel like the real me. I'm feeling like I'm stuck in my own shell.

At times I'm questioning if I'm actually schizoid or not. I can do a lot of things that aren't quite "schizoid". But the more I read about other people's experience (especially diagnosed ones) I feel like I have so much in common with them.

Confusion and contradictions seem to be recurring themes in SPD.

SkeletonWarDraftee wrote:Confusion and contradictions seem to be recurring themes in SPD.

It's a bit better now, I was possibly on a high from caffeine when I typed that.

I'm curious if I might be bipolar rather than SPD, or maybe both. I've been getting some up and downs lately, especially mornings. Also, weirdly enough, I occasionally get the hunger instinct fire up and a push of adrenaline at the same time as my down turns to an up. Usually happens around 9 AM.

Granted, I never had them before. I've been quite stable my whole life, well, as stable as SPD permits anyway.

Might be, but I find it interesting you do things roughly at the same time every day. Makes me think it's more environmental or dietary. If I drink too much caffeine, I go into a high then irritability sets in. Usually sleeping a lil after helps that, but it can make me wake up irritable as well.