Emotionless Child

034/365

I think the way I do because when I was a child it was a way of survival.

Having a parent that takes their anger out on whoever is present is quite confusing for a child that doesn’t know this is what’s going on. Especially a child that lacks emotional development because of a parent that already understands love to be a material gifting process.

In my instance it was my mother. Emotionally unstable and likely an undiagnosed bipolar or manic depressive, she would at random moments decide things previously okay were not. She’d unload random frustrations of her adult life through physically assaulting three young boys. Sometimes on a daily basis.

Being the calculated individual I knew I was, meticulous notes would be taken of the events. Like studying for a big school exam, I’d desperately look through the notes for answers. For an explanation. For a clue as to what any of us did wrong to trigger it.

It simply doesn’t occur to a child that it has nothing to do with them. From a child’s perspective the world does in fact revolve around them.

Nevertheless, I’d sift through infinity pages searching for the answers that didn’t exist. But in doing so I was forced to process the recorded information. Unintentional self-reflection revealed traits I deemed personality flaws. Behavioral patterns that were passed down from my broken parent. And I opted out of having them by disciplining myself to not.

Overtime I learned what things would set my mother off, whether rational or not. I learned what things would make her happy, whether rational or not. And as a result I learned how to manipulate first my mother, and then everyone else around me by applying the same method over and over, only improving on it with repeated use. Allowing me to do it with more ease and efficiency.

In doing so, I broke something else and inadvertently became a different person. A sort of dissociative identity disorder took place. I managed to turn all my emotions and thought patters into switches I could turn on and off at will, keeping me cold and controlled to the world while every second of everyday the madness is processed in the background.

Eventually it became habit to flick each switch at any given moment. Little by little pushing my emotions further away and improving rational processes. To the point that now I barely feel a thing. My moment to moment thoughts are number sequences of likely possibilities as well as their pros and cons on a bronze scale. I find it difficult to turn on the right switches when emotions are involved because survival dictated thinking would help in the past, not emotion.

 Now, it’s the only way I know how to function. Yes, I succeed at nearly anything. Yes, I am much more rational than the average person. But I feel nothing.

Thanks mom.