Lately, I feel like a tennis ball being bopped back and forth by two players with arms like steel pipes. They are technically the poles of my mood but honestly, right now, it all seems the same to me.

I have come to realize that I don’t think I have felt in full possession of myself for a very long time, maybe never. There’s always been this chaotic whirlpool of mood inside me, one half the result of my extreme sensitivity filling me with so much conflicting input, one half the thick and disgusting slurry that is all my unexpressed emotions, deep trauma, and freezer burn from my icy isolation.

Even as a child, I was unstable. I remember many days when I was almost entirely taken by a strange, often dark mood of some sort and if anyone had bothered to ask what was wrong with me (or even notice), I would not have been able to explain what the hell was wrong with me.

I just felt very strange. Sometimes it would be a deep sadness without apparent cause that made me feel like I was wandering naked through a dark and rainy night. Other times it would be this profound sense of silence that rendered me practically mute and strangely fearful of completely normal sounds. Still other times I would feel this terrible sense of urgency that convinced me there was something I was supposed to be doing, but I couldn’t remember what it was or how I would find out.

And sometimes I would feel profoundly unreal, like I was just a ghost drifting through the real world, there but not there at the same time. Everything I touched felt like it had a microscopically thin layer of ice on it that kept me from truly feeling it. Other people seemed like they were just shadows of things that had happened long ago. Nothing was real, least of all myself.

Now I should make it clear that this was not how I saw the world. I didn’t hallucinate, thank goodness. But it is how I felt, emotionally speaking, at the time, and the moods could be quite profound.

So basically, I was a pretty messed up kid. There was this violent screaming storm inside me all the time, like a hurricane wrapped into a tornado, and I never knew how I would feel, or how reality would feel, from minute to minute.

I think that informs a lot of my insecurity even to today. When you don’t know how you will feel ten minutes from now, you tend to become preoccupied with just dealing with all that inner chaos and that makes it extremely hard to deal with the outer world of objective reality.

Cant’t you see I’m busy, world? It takes all my energy just to hold on to what tiny bits of my sanity remain. It’s hard to hear you over the roaring wind and slashing rain inside. And don’t expect me to deal with anything too scary or complicated when I am stuck dealing with all this.

But it’s really hard to convey that to people, even when you are as articulate as I.

I know how this storm got started. A big mind with lots of power but very little dry land makes an excellent Pacific Ocean to brew up the biggest storms in the world. If I had not been so isolated, I might have been able to grow stronger inside and better able to hold my ground when Mr. Hurricane comes howling.

Damn I love that song.

But I got very little emotional nourishment as a child. I was all alone, either literally or emotionally, nearly all the time. Sometimes I would try to reach out to others but it always ended in embarrassment and humiliation for me as the person just stared at my like I was an alien and that can be worse than outright rejection, because even rejection is a connection of sorts, however brief.

But that incomprehension is the worst kind of rejection. The person has rejected even the thin and trembling thread of contact you sent out to attempt to connect with someone on any level.

They have rejected you without even knowing what or who they were rejecting.

And why? Because things grow strange in the dark. Any social animal raised in isolation develops numerous neuroses and quite likely a crippling social fear without hope of recovery.

The vital window was missed and any stimulation to the social center of the brain now causes such pain and confusion that it can only end in a terrible, soul-deep fear.

On some level, the animal still wants social connection, but the fear has taken over to such an extent that it dominates any attempt at social interaction, making you even more confused and in pain, and even stranger to the others of your kind.

The isolation becomes total, and the true mutation of spirit and soul begins.

So I was a crazy kid with serious issues. But I didn’t know any better, and I learned the very basic skills of deflecting the occasional interest my elders would show in me very early (because what is the use of explaining anything to them when they won’t understand?)

And they didn’t really want to know anyway. They made that abundantly clear. Any attempt to get help would just end up in pain, humiliation, confusion, and fear anyhow. So why try?

So I was the youngest of four kids who went to school, came home, entertained himself, ate supper, went back to entertaining himself, and that was his life.

I was surrounded by people and yet I lived in a world all my own. And not some sunshine fantasy realm full of unicorns and adventure either.

A cold and lonely world with only me in it, and all I knew how to do was distract myself with reading, watching television, and playing video games.

Not a lot had changed.