u/LoiterPandaLoiter

I am in such student loans debt that I’m basically paying a mortgage or a 1 BR apartment with the amount that I pay a month. I’ve been consistent with my payments, and I’ve been lucky to have a SO to handle the rent. Well now our relationship is over and I need a place to live. I cannot afford more than $400-$600 a month…and that’s just living paycheck to paycheck.
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Is there a way I can consolidate all of my student loan debt into one bank account and file for bankruptcy? I know they don’t typically do student loans, but is there a trick I could do to get that approved? Has anyone done this before? If so, how?

Today, I was asked to provide a childhood photo. I was looking through my childhood photos and it was hard to find one where I looked happy. It made me sad. I had this hollow, lifeless gaze with my smile seemed shut. I looked like a shell of a human. It looks like I started to have more expressions when I was a bit older like 8 or 9 but from those young photos from 3-7, I looked apathetic and unfeeling. I wish I could go back in time and give me a hug.

I was looking at old photos / videos of myself and I noticed I was slower to reacting emotionally to different stimuli. Just seemed like I was slower to processing language and reactions and the environment around me. I had trouble reading and took speech lessons in elementary school. My expression had a dead, unfeeling, hollow stare and seemed lips in almost all of my childhood photos. It seemed like I didn’t experience any emotions at all. I was socially pretty manipulative and lacked empathy for others and I often ruined a lot of my friendships in early development and still now.

When I was in middle school was when I started to experience depression and started to have very intense emotional reactions to stimuli. This was both an uncomfortable and unusual experience because I never experienced emotions really before and then all of the sudden, my emotions became unbearably intense. However, that lack of empathy was still there. I pretended to care about things and others but I never cared about anyone other than myself.

Now I’m older, I have my Master’s and I feel I’m more equipped with tools and skills to socialize and empathize (as much as I can) with others. I’ve always struggled socially because I know I do NOT care about other people. People have often referred to me as dumb or ditsy and I feel like I’m not super equipped with the knowledge for social norms. I can read people’s emotions very well and pattern my approach to them, but sometimes I don’t understand other’s reactions to my reactions.

I’m always curious as to how tenured therapists can detect a lack of empathy, neurological or emotionally development issues, sociopathy, cluster B personality traits, abuse, etc. in childhood development.

What common patterns have you identified in young patients who exhibit these types of traits? What are some indicators that something is “wrong” emotionally, socially, or developmentally?