Abandonment Issues

Abandonment issues. I have them. It's not surprising. A large number of people do. They come in varying degrees with their own fun bundle of effects and spin off neuroses. It's not shocking that my parents are divorced and my dad is a verbally abusive drunk. He never spent much time with me at all. He always preferred my older brother, and even then that's not saying much. He wasn't the parent type and enjoyed sleeping around under the mask that the Navy provided. He'd sleep around when he was out to sea and he'd stay on the ship and pretend to work when he came back to port. He was never around, so I shouldn't have cared when he left.

In theory.

But he did leave, and I did care. I withdrew even more than my introverted self normally did. I internalized and made myself very sick. My brother became angry and lashed out, my mother grew bitter and depressed, and I was left to solve it on my own. I reasoned that everything bad that happened - the attitudes of my brother and mother, the coldness and hatred of my grandparents, the physical and emotional pain I felt, and the poverty - stemmed from his leaving. The more I observed and felt, the more I was assured of this.

As I grew older, people came into my life and left - usually after drenching me in hateful words, leaving me in a low and dark place. Every time someone left me, they did so in a dramatic and cruel way. It didn't help that when I was alone, I internalized and brooded over things. It didn't help that I distrusted people and mostly hated them, nor that wearing masks of who they expected me to be was exhausting. I hated people, and I hated them leaving me behind.

Now, I am alone again for the first time in... years. My fiance has a new job that's mostly travel. The house is empty and too quiet. It started again.

First, the gloom. The thick cloud settled over me and held me down. I spent most of Sunday in bed, asleep. Then came the stress. I'm not very domestic (I loathe it) and only clean/organize when I'm stressed. I scrubbed the bathroom in detail with a small brush, getting every single nook and cranny. Just like clockwork, the shaking followed. I'm jittery and my hands are shaking terribly. It makes it hard to write or do a lot of other things. I know what is to follow: more depression, eventually cleaning the entire house obsessively, bathing obsessively, sleeping a lot, refusing to eat, and then not sleeping at all.

I'll have to learn to cope. For the next two years, I'm on my own. I'll only see him for one weekend every two months. I've accepted that I can't make friends in person; my misanthropy keeps that from happening. I plan on getting another job - one outside of my home with a boss and with coworkers that I see in person; most physical labor is out of the question due to my broken body from a very reckless youth. I wonder if having a job that makes me interact with people will keep me busy or will make things worse.

I guess we'll see.