I might be the real American Psycho

So I’m just going to leave my life’s story here for everyone. I might need serious help, I’m not sure.

Lately I’ve been having something happen that concerns me where I mutter stuff out of nowhere, like I say things I didn’t mean to say. It never happens when I’m around people, only when I’m alone and I can stop if I catch myself. The stuff I say is usually weird and bad. Some specific stuff: “N-word” (And I’m not racist or anything), “Stupid, idiot. I could kill him.” “I hate him/I hate it.”,”I love you”, “I could I would. I could and I will.“, and (this is actually real) I say stuff like “slice, dice, chop, tear” a lot. There are no conscious streams of thought connecting to these words. I don’t know why I say them.

Another thing that’s been more recent is some particularly violent dreams. One where I basically kept tearing someone’s head off, it regrowing so I could do it again, and screaming at them because they had been trying to push me around. Another time I just kind of shot down a bunch of people who were ninjas or something, but I remember specifically in the dream they were supposed to be “good guys” and I just wanted to kill them. The most disturbing one, which I woke up from immediately because it was so disgusting, was where my youngest brother (Who I love and am proud of to put it out there) slipped on the sidewalk, and when I went to pick him up I asked if he was alright he said “No.” in a very vivid about-to-cry way and I was horrified to see that his entire face was embedded deeply with staples. The dream was so realistic and gory. I immediately started to freak out and tried to help him pull the staples out but then I woke up with one of those really scared “What the fuck was that” feelings. This is a recent thing that is pretty infrequent. And at first it was crazy to me because my first thought was: I’m not violent. I don’t fight people. I don’t want to fight anyone. I don’t want to kill anybody. But I started analyzing myself a bit more and I realized I may have been putting off, basically my whole life, some pretty fucked up stuff that’s happened to me and that I’ve done to other people.

So I guess I’ll start with where I am now and then go backward. Currently I consider myself well-adjusted. I just graduated college with a degree in Finance, I have IT experience in the reserves, and I’m staying with some family in the city (I grew up in a small town) working part time stocking shelves while I look for something full time in finance/IT. I have some good friends, but none who live near me right now and none who I would open up to about this sort of thing. I’ve had one girlfriend a year ago (More on that later.) But other than that I don’t do very good with girls, I don’t have a girlfriend right now. I spend a LOT of time by myself. In college I was the same way. I used to get very lonely, every once in awhile I still do, but for the most part I’m fine with it. I spend a lot of time learning, at least recently. Now that I’m older suddenly I found out I have more ability to concentrate on things and absorb info. Since I’m out of college I have more time to learn whatever I enjoy, so for the first time I feel like I’m some sort of superhuman hopping across Wikipedia pages and tutorials. I like computer science, finance/economics, history, current events, anatomy and physiology, and whatever other subjects I stumble across. Now the unnormal stuff: Up until now I’ve liked to pretend this stuff just isn’t a part of me. I completely ignore it. So I work out a lot, which is something that I feel like really helps my emotional health over all. I work out roughly 2 hours a day 6 days a week, and I’m very proud of how I look and feel now. I started working out in high school because I got picked on and was rejected by girls, so at first it was really hate and envy that motivated me. I don’t necessarily feel that way now, but everytime I workout its still the same: I fantasize about a bonfire, or a party where there is a group of people from high school or college (Never the army, because I actually like people in the reserves and feel like I belong there.) And I take on and fight the biggest douchebag or multiple douchebags from whichever place and I just like stand there in my awesomeness. Sometimes It’s just that, sometimes I’m also rich and I have a “posse” or bodyguards who I don’t need. Sometimes I monologue basically about how I got to where I was and how the things I had overcome. Narcissistic and ridiculous I know. Like I said before, even though this scenario runs through my head at least 2 hours a day six days a week I just pretend like that’s normal. And if I don’t run that sort of fantasy through my head I can’t work out as effectively.

The other thing is sexual. WARNING - NSFW ….. So when I had a girlfriend for a few months I’d have sex and it was fine. Normal sex, the weirdest we’d ever do is tie each other’s hands. She liked being spanked. So that was normal, and for the most part the relationship was normal. But for as long as a I can remember, even in high school, the only way I can orgasm when masturbating is through BDSM porn. Usually pretty intense stuff. I don’t like blood or cuts, but I like seeing physical pain. Usually a woman dominating a man. Over time it’s gotten darker. When I stop I just go about my life and I act normal, but now that I think about it it’s pretty odd to orgasm to the sounds of people screaming in pain. This has become normal for me. So when I at first thought “I don’t want to hurt anybody, what’s going on?” I started to analyze and realize “Oh, yeah. That stuff.”

So how did it get this way? I guess I’ll go back to childhood. I was homeschooled until sixth grade. 5th/6th grade are I think when problems started at home. My dad was a serious alcoholic. He still is but he’s at least mellow. Back then he wasn’t. Some examples: 8th grade summer: This is the only time he ever hit me when I was being kind of shitty because I didn’t want to go dig a fucking ditch to find a leaking pipe. For context: We had all been digging that stupid ditch for days and couldn’t find anything. I knew he didn’t know what he was doing and the pipe probably wasn’t even on that side of the house. We never found that pipe but I wound up digging that ditch again. He was drunk midday, smacked me across the face. I cried and tried to kind of get at him and yelled “I’ll kill you. I hate you” and he just kind of forced me back in the chair and I think he realized he went too far, but he just said “You’re not big enough or strong enough yet.” …fuck that kind of explains a lot. I’m kind of starting to cry while I write this.

Another time he showed up to one of my cross country meets, I think 9th grade, totally drunk out of his mind. Another time he hit my mom and she being an idiot made him drive us to church on a Wednesday night so she could have “couple’s therapy” and her jaw hurt so she claimed she couldn’t drive. He was drunk Mom. He was drunk. We were swerving all over across the road there were cars beeping at us going the wrong way, they were screaming at each other, my little brothers were in front of me crying and I just was in the very back seat trying to meditate or something. I just tried to stay calm. I feel like I was the only one in the car that realized what mortal peril we were in and I guess I was getting ready to die or something. The next morning, like every time something like that happened, we all pretended like it didn’t. Last one: One time he was wasted in the middle of the day. I was just in the bathroom on the toilet. He tried the knob and saw it was locked and a split second later he kicked the door in so hard it flew against the opposite wall so I was just sitting on the toilet freaked out. He just muttered “Oh thought it was locked.” I was shaking. Like what the fuck. I actually did keep a knife under my mattress at one point, to prepare for something crazy like that. Now my relationship with my dad now is pretty mellow, but we never really came to terms with any of that stuff. We act like it never happened. He won’t even admit he did most of it. In my family we do very poorly with emotions. My brothers and I are very close for instance but we can’t say I love you to one another. I have a hard time saying it to anyone but my Mom.

So I went into public school in 6th grade because my dad was first starting to get worse and my mom and him would fight all the time, very loudly, and divorce was on the table (But it never happened…they’ve just slept in a separate room all this time) and my mom felt like she didn’t have the energy to homeschool anymore. So I went into school with absolutely no social skills at all. I was a stand out weirdo and I remember for stuff like gym class I would literally just stand there. I had no confidence. I couldn’t muster whatever it took to try to catch the ball, and I always felt like there was so much pressure to try to impressed the other kids and be good. So they weren’t very impressed by me. I walked around with my arms folded behind my back for some reason. I didn’t really understand the social suicide I was committing. I’d say the next six years were just a really slow stumbling through trying to understand other humans and particularly the kids my age.

In 7th grade my Mom started to just “check out.” Because her mom died who she had had serious unresolved issues with. So she went into a really depressed state for a couple years, and I think that made things harder. In 9th grade there was a girl I became obsessed with. We had been friends awhile, so I let her know I had feelings for her. She had a boyfriend who was VERY important to her at the time. So that whole cliché played out, except for the part where I mercilessly ripped into her via SMS, calling her every name in the book and taunting her, then asked for forgiveness, then did it again, eventually admitted my BDSM fantasies to her even though she really didn’t want to hear it, stalked her, grabbed her butt without her permission, came to her house uninvited only not to be let in, etc.

And I had an unrequited psychotic obsession with her pretty much through all of high school. But for the last two years of high school she had stopped responding to me at all. So I look back on that and I feel pretty terrible. And I know if she wanted to report me to the police she could have ruined my life entirely, but for some reason she never did, so that makes me feel double shitty.

But that didn’t stop me from about eight other counts of butt/boob grabbing, verbal assault, and uncomfortable pressuring of other girls that wanted nothing to do with me. One was a teacher. For whatever reason nobody ever reported me. By tenth grade I had gotten good enough at pretending to be a good kid that everyone seemed to think I was. I guess.

So I never really though anything of any of that until my National Guard active training, where we had SHARP briefings on sexual harassment and stuff. And everyone makes fun of those briefings because we see them so often but they really played on something in the pit of my stomach that told me: “You’ve actually put girls into those positions. You’ve done awful stuff.”

So yeah. After that I went to college. I didn’t really like college anymore than high school. I thought the other people were stupid. I came to study finance because I was passionate about it, I watched college lectures on Corporate Finance in 9th grade ffs, so the other kids there who didn’t seem to know why they were there just didn’t impress me. So I spent a lot of time in my dorm room alone. There were entire weeks where I didn’t speak to anyone. At one point I met a cute girl, we’ll call her Karen. Karen was very sweet, Karen was a passionate libertarian, thinker, and studied economics. I met her at at an economics association meeting. She basically at one point obliterated an argument I was making so I immediately thought “I want here number.” I got it and we hit it off. It was the first time I had a very wholesome reciprocated friendship with a girl. Karen was smart but a little naïve, and came from a good home. I think the song “Uptown Girl” could be her theme song. Unfortunately, a friendship was all it was, because Karen had a boyfriend in her hometown in another state. And he was VERY important to her at the time. But she didn’t have any other friends same as me, so we hung out a lot. Like a lot, a lot. We went on walks, lunch dates, dinner dates, whatever. We really clicked. But then my feelings kept growing for her and it felt like a repeat of high school. She reciprocated some of those feelings, but it was still all about the boy back home. I knew how to control myself better by then but it was rough. I didn’t want to lose this valuable friend but I was also extremely attracted to her, and she kept putting me in that position because she was lonely too.

Eventually the bad thing happened. I decided I was being played for a bitch. I couldn’t accept this insult to my pride. So I figured I’d take what I wanted the way I always had, but this time it wouldn’t be just a cheap thrill. We were in her dorm room and we were talking and I forced myself on her. It started with an attempt at a kiss, she resisted, so I basically just started to force her against me. She resisted lightly but didn’t say anything. But that was it, I couldn’t go through with what I was planning to do. So I let go and we had a really long awkward silence staring at each other across the room. It was weird because this was the first time a girl I tried to do something like this to actually liked me in some way so I could tell it was scary and confusing for her, and it actually was for me too. I think she knew what I almost did. I can’t remember how I left, but later we texted, made up, and pretty shortly after became friends again, and I just went along with it and didn’t try anything again after that. So that was also weird. I still had feelings for her, and I don’t know how it would have turned out but at some point she dropped out of school to go home. She hadn’t told me until the day she was leaving, which was a shock to me. I guess she was embarrassed. So I offered one more long walk and we did, and it was a really good time. I felt like I was being mature, doing everything right for once. And we hugged before she left and she said “I’ll see you” and I just said “You won’t. You’re leaving.” And she had this kind of weird look and so far I’ve never seen her again. I tried texting her once asking if she would want to meet up again sometime, but she cited her boyfriend and said she couldn’t do that. I didn’t reply, just deleted the number immediately and never found her again.

When I had my first real girlfriend it lasted four months, and was a relatively normal relationship, I mean any actual relationship would seem normal relative to my sexually-tense friend zone. I met her in my national guard unit, but she was also a 29 year old stripper with 2 kids. I had frequented strip clubs and wasn’t afraid to date a stripper. Started casual then got more serious. But she turned out to be batshit insane. Compulsive liar…the lies aren’t even worth getting into they were just pointless. Stuff she made up to get attention, and I believed most of them. So she played me like a fiddle and I dumped her when she went on a trip to San Diego without me. Later she tried to claim she was pregnant and just made the whole thing uglier and stupider than it needed to be, but the whole relationship experience was pretty meh in general.

So now I am where I am. I think I covered a lot of the important points. I’m not sure if I should be concerned or not. I think I’ve just been repressing everything for a very long time, at least since I stopped venting my anger by harassing women. I don’t express emotions usually, everything just rolls off my shoulders for the most part. A few times I just get randomly sad, especially when I’m drunk but it does happen when I’m sober: I’ll just go through fits of crying. Not for any reason. Like, it could be a perfectly normal day and then at night I’ll cry until I fall asleep. It doesn’t happen often, and when it does I just wake up the next morning like it didn’t happen at all. When people reach out to me for empathy I don’t have a response. When my Mom is crying to me about something I feel bad because I want to offer more support but I just feel incapable of it. I wouldn’t call myself “dead inside” because I have plenty of interest in the world around me and I’m not that bad with people anymore, but when it comes to genuine connections I’m pretty lost. I am very alone with my thoughts and feelings most of the time. I have some reddit forums I go to where I like the communities and I feel like a have a strong voice there, but not anywhere in real life. Really all I look forward to though is someday being extremely affluent and powerful, and just kind of rubbing in everyone’s face how great I am. Like some grand revenge on all the people who thought I was just some loser they could push around. If I let go of that fantasy I wouldn’t have much in life to be proud of, or much reason to get up in the morning. I try to learn and grow every day and keep myself focused which sounds really nice, but really it’s just because I have delusions of dominating people with power attained through knowledge. I always think it would be nice to live a modest life with a family, and sometimes I think about meeting a girl I actually like and respect like Karen but I haven’t met another one yet, and I feel pretty inhuman most of the time. Like I’ll have to put on a mask and pretend to be someone else to meet a Karen again, and maybe I’m too far gone to be happy that way. So I don’t think about relationships as much as I used too. I’ve partly given up. I feel completely fine each day, and feel like I’m building towards something, getting better all the time, but for all the wrong reasons. The only period in my life where I started to wake up to the idea that I needed a better philosophy was pretty recently at the tail end of college. So my whole life through the military and different internships I would save roughly 75% of the money I made (I also made a small profit going to college off full merit scholarship + military aid.) So I had, I think about $17,000 after a couple of years of playing the stock market and doing pretty well. I started looking into cryptocurrency and didn’t think too much of Bitcoin but got super into learning about Ethereum which uses the blockchain concept for a decentralized virtual machine, which turns out is kind of a really powerful thing. So in mid 2017 I shifted everything I had into Ethereum plus a couple other crypto platforms I thought had potential. I wound up making over $75,000 in the big crypto bubble. But I only ever cashed out $6000 to reward myself because I genuinely believed (and still do) that what I had invested in has a long way to go still. So, the market crashed and I now have lost all profits with some extra money to boot. My portfolio is only about $10,000 altogether now, not including my IRA which I never count because I wouldn’t touch it. So a few months ago I had gotten very depressed about that whole ordeal, and wasn’t sure what to do. I started meditating and just getting out of my own head more, going for walks without the fantasies. I kind of accepted my own mortality, the fact I might not ever achieve the things I want to, and humbled myself. It worked for a while but it didn’t stick. Now I feel fine about the whole thing, I’ve accepted the volatility of the market and I love keeping up on the new things happening in the field every day. But whether I someday have a really well paying career or start an amazing business or get rich on investments, which are all things I feel are totally possible it doesn’t really answer the question of what the hell I’m supposed to do with my funked up emotional well being. When I came here to write this I felt like I might be in danger of being the next big school shooter, but now I think I might be ok. I just wish I could connect with people IRL and I think maybe all the hate and anger would start to go away.

This brain dump was really therapeutic though.