u/Antique_Bandicoot627

It’s actually a morbid feeling. I’ve always felt delayed. My twin sister and I had this ongoing phrase that we were at least “2 years delayed” growing up. We were actually the ahead a grade in school due to when we were enrolled, but we still fell behind in terms of our development. I realized that maybe if I make autistic friends, this can solve this horrible feeling of feeling like a child in the world. It’s definitely important to have likeminded people in your life. Maybe life won’t feel so odd to me, when I share it with others who experience it the same way?

I got triggered today when my mother implied that I am childish and not maturing, but rather regressing (because I am getting back into a love for plushies that I had when I was a child). Carrying around plushies and taking pictures of them (I did that when I was younger). But plushies are so cute, can you blame me? And you can be mature and love plushies at the same time. It just kind of upset me. I’m learning to embrace myself and my interests, but now I have to worry about regressing instead of maturing.

Not to mention, arrested development, age regression as a trauma response, and identity fragmentation due to trauma -likened to OSDD (where I have dissociated self child states) … it’s crazy. I feel so dysmorphic. Not to mention that I am very petite. I went to the hospital once and my nurse was around my age, and the entire time she’s going on about how she can’t believe I’m 24 … it made me feel soooo horrible in my skin, I started dissociating … I just felt sooo dysmorphic! And morbid in my skin … like a child trapped in my body. And because I am so petite I also felt that my body barely physically grew. I do not have a mature body at all, no curves, nothing. I literally look like a teenager / I get mistaken for 12 so often 🥴.

I despise societal standards.

I believe I have Dependent Personality Disorder (DPD) which developed as a result of enmeshment.

What exactly is enmeshment? I’m trying to organize my thoughts about what happened to me as a child.
What’s the difference between enmeshment and being over-protective / helicopter parent (I call it co-dependency) which in my description is when someone *forces* you to need them / depend on them. Like, **control** … they won’t let you do your own things or even move on your own! Like, you can’t take a step or move an inch without them hovering over your shouter criticizing everything that you do! You can’t think for yourself! They won’t let you have a single thought that is your own!

-Control is 100% a big dynamic of this.
-It fueled by criticism and fear.
-an inability for the caregiver to see *individuality*; instead you have to be exactly know *they* want you to be, and if you don’t fit that, you’re wrong! (Control, right?)

I literally could not think on my own as a child. I could not govern myself. Not even for the most basic things. It’s like I couldn’t even breathe or move on my own … every step was wrong, or horribly corrected. I literally felt my brain was (almost literally) connected to my mom’s, and how was I supposed to think for my own?? 🔌 I had to think through her brain … she was my brain … she did not *allow* me to have **free thought**! does anybody understand what that is like?? … and people around me really wonder why I am the way I am now 😭 if only they knew …

It’s like, she broke my legs and expects me to walk …
People expect me to walk on broken legs …
No one understands how this stuff messes you up … fundamentally.

I understood that my mother found her identity and wellbeing in “caring” for me. It was almost an *escape* for her. And not just for me, but people in general. She had that “care taker” thing going … people had to need her, or she had to *do* for others, to feel needed or important or have a sense of self. She was also projecting a lot of her childhood trauma onto me. She parented out of fear and control. It as never true care, though it was painted that way. It sure didn’t feel that way, or manifest that way. Only to her, and maybe to blind people. (Well, no one was there to witness it anyway …)

Anyway, I just want to fit these things into a category, so I can have more clarity and understanding of my experiences, and also how to express them. There’s so much lingo for all of these interesting childhood experiences, it’s hard to find the words for it all. Can you help me out?

[reddit suggested a TW, but I’m not really sure for what. So, has discretion:)] I have struggled with binge eating disorder since my teens, and it has died down in many ways, but it also still rages on. Now, as time goes on, I find myself starting to develop a repulsion towards food. And I realized it’s also an underlying *guilt*. I feel guilty when I eat. And like food is “bad”, subconsciously. I think all the binging has taken a toll on how I perceive food, and really messed up my mind towards food. I know food isn’t the enemy, but it seems deeper than just head knowledge. I’ve also realized there’s an underlying *fear*! When I am starting to recover from periods of binge behavior, I find myself falling into the opposite extreme I guess, where now I feel super hesitant to eat, and I noticed there seems to be a fear of the binge, underneath. Like, I’m soo scared to fall back into the binge habits, or eat food in the wrong way again, so it makes me go to the hard left, where I don’t want to eat at all. Binging is so destructive and scary. But I can’t stop, so … it makes me scared to even interact with food. I also noticed it might be some other issues (idk if this would be autism? ADHD?) but it seems like a executive dysfunction towards food, where sometimes it’s just hard to even think about food, and even if I know I need to eat, it is difficult to get myself to actually take the action to eat. Whether procrastination while I’m doing something, or just a lack of getting myself up, or even like a freeze response at times … sometimes food isn’t overwhelming. Especially with the history of binging, I’d rather just not think about it. Though, it’s not just the binging history I don’t believe, because sometimes I am okay with eating, I just can’t get myself to, I freeze. It’s takes a lot of energy. And it’s interesting to go between the two … wanting to eat the entire house, and then not even being able to eat ever … sigh

I don’t know what to do about all of this …

Not to mention, I have had to involuntarily fast for extended periods of time due to gastric issues … that, I think, is when it really started. Because I started to become familiar with not eating. And I started to lose weight, which also started to get to me (I seem to have body dysmorphia). Others started to put it on me too, suggesting that I am anorexic, when I was not. Something about people saying that, losing weight, feeling better about that, and the underlying fears and issues with binding has seem to bring me to this place where it’s sort of getting worse and growing. :( and I just don’t know how to handle it all in a what manner … and how to simply have a healthy relationship with food!!! Ugh 😣😞

And I’m not gonna lie … I want to say this too, and just be transparent because I just feel I need to get it off my chest. A part of me really - really likes that people seem to care, and feel concern for me. I have a history of deep emotional neglect and being invisible and uncared for etc. others seeming to think I am anorexic has seem to bring a great influx of care, that I can actually feel, hear, sense, and see. That’s has reallyyy pricked me. 🥺 I love people caring. No one ever cares! So a part of me *really* wants to adopt it, just so others would/could care. 🥺😞 I don’t want to lose that! So, I can feel it making me want to conform with that, and grow it … so that I can maintain others care. Seriously .. no one cares about me .. this is the only time I’ve felt such a genuine care .. like wth. 🤷‍♀️ I don’t want to lose that.