“I’m twenty-seven. But I’m starting to feel like a grumpy old...

“I’m twenty-seven.  But I’m starting to feel like a grumpy old man.  I’m negative and cynical and pessimistic.  I feel detached from people.  I even feel detached from myself.  I sometimes view myself from the outside, like I’m dealing with things in the third person.  It’s been like that since childhood.  I’ve always come across as cold.  People tell me that I was a little shit as a kid.   My family called me ‘King’ because I’d have anger fits and always get what I want.  But even with these difficulties I did well in school.  I was able to graduate college.  And now things are going well.  I have a good job.  I have no housing issues or major stresses.  But still I feel so negative all the time.   And I don’t want to be this person.  I’m not actually cold.  I’m just stuck in a mindset.  I’m not focused on being kind because of unaddressed issues.  My mom was in and out of my life as a kid.  She had bipolar and maybe schizophrenia.  She’d whisper to herself.  She’d scream in public.  She’d disappear for months a time.  Last week I went to her funeral.  Everyone was crying but I’m so detached from things that it barely affected me.  I didn’t even tell my close friends.  All of us hung out after she died, and I didn’t say a thing.  Because people tend to back away when you share.  It’s not a criticism against them.  I’d do the same thing.”
(Montreal, Canada)