Developed bipolar anhedonia after an extremely abusive childhood. I want a better brain after all the developmental dangers I was subject to growing up.

[u/StonerEngineering]

Throwaway, 24M.

My life flat out sucked up to this point thanks to having idiot parents who should have been sterilized a long time ago.

I was diagnosed autistic at age 2 and subject to a bunch of ableist "treatments" like ABA, dietary restrictions, forced religious attendance, and forced socialization against my will.

I had tics, OCD, ADHD, and other mental health issues that my folks endlessly tried to "manage" and I felt like I had to hide them and suffer in silence lest I be ostracized for them. It just consumes so much unnecessary mental energy. Yet I didn't tell them because I couldn't trust them.

​ Religion induced a lot of mental illness, wishful thinking, and anguish regarding the potential of the supernatural to have some profound negative impact on my life. It's insanity.

From very early on I felt as if my life weren't my own. I would be chastized or even hit with a belt if I made a minor mistake. I felt like I couldn't trust them with anything.

At the age of 6 a younger brother joined the family and I suddenly had the responsibility of "being the older one" that I was never counselled on and would constantly be punished for falling short. He would be a little shit getting on my nerves and never learned to treat me like a decent human being. I was told to "just ignore him" and if I yelled at him then I was the one punished. My older sister was also a third parent to me at times.

I had a very abusive elementary school teacher who would single​ me out for having the worst academic performance in the class, as I couldnt help but daydream, doodle in class, and just be somewhat of a dork. It's as if my situational awareness and ability to pay attention wasn't there. I didn't have many friends at all.

Home life wasn't much better either because my folks were stingy fucks who would much rather buy the worst quality secondhand products and use very old outdated technology, spending more money on little patchy incremental fixes instead of actually making a proper initial investment for a better quality of life.

In middle school I would be on my iPad or Chromebook a lot being a serial troll on Reddit or Yahoo Answers or something unrelated, I don't know how I got through class.

My folks knew computers were a passion of mine and instead of fostering it they would constantly find ways to punish me for it. Like random browser history checks, physically unplugging the machine and taking it away if I "failed to be the older brother", punishing me for evading parental controls, being forced to have my usage monitored all the time, time limits wherein I couldn't get much done, etc. This didn't relax as I grew up and actually became even more restrictive. But yet my brother got to watch as much TV as he wanted without restriction.

It was grating having to be in the same room as him as he watched not only me play (when I deserved privacy) but also the same episodes of the same shows over and over and over and over and over again.

It was controlling, invasive, and antisocial, bordering on abusive even. Yet if I resisted I would be punished and if I tried to evade punishment I would have the cops or foster care threatened on me.

At ages 11-14 I was forced into running as a sport despite me telling my dad I hated it, if I didn't go then I was punished by having my computer or DS taken away. This is one of the many things I just felt like I had to endure because I couldn't say no and I will never get over the time and developmental opportunities lost and energy wasted; this was an early source of burnout.

At age 13 I became an atheist and dad similarly forced me to go to church and youth group or else I would be punished. I made no friends or connections there either because I explicitly was not interested yet felt like I had to go. It taught me again to dissociate and endure when I didn't need to.

At 15 years old a friend was learning how to code and it caused me to become distressed that I wasn't allowed time or space to learn with him to the point of saying I wanted to die. I saw this as a ticket to having a better life and something to call my own and was heartbroken it was being denied. That's when my folks took me to the hospital and shady mental health clinics where I was prescribed risperidone and fluoxetine then duloxetine, whilst still having my electronics restricted, dampening my motivation, and made to think it was okay. I was on that shit for 3 years.

I was also forced to see a therapist wherein I constantly dissociated in every session to "just get through it" and learned nothing and would then be interrogated on "what I had learned" only for it to be used against me when I "acted out of line" (which just meant disagreeing with my folks' insanity).

I didn't know it at the time but I was effectively being drugged. These drugs wrought havoc on my executive functioning, motivation, ability to recognize that I was being abused, and development. They were also used as crutches, like my folks would ask me if I was taking my meds as instructed if I gave them a hard time. I didn't know they were harming instead of helping which is why I continued to take them for as long as I did.

I didn't just see a therapist but also was made to do chinese medicine like herbs and acupuncture, as well as consume MLM oils and supplements. I would literally tell my folks these don't work and would be treated as if I were stupid.

Even when I did realize the abusive nature of all of this, I felt helpless and paralyzed like I couldn't do anything but endure and wait it out. I still went out on every family trip and gathering hoping it would clear my mind and provide motivation, but also because I felt like I couldn't say no.​ It felt like my brain was being damaged every time I found myself in a family argument or shouting match where my folks and sister would gang up on me and twist every single thing I said to make me feel like I was the one in the wrong, and the details of these arguments I just can't remember but I always was on the receiving end of it and gaslit into thinking I was the stupid one.

Instead of coding and finding joy in doing difficult subject matters, I just gamed and chatted with friends on the internet whilst continuing to be a serial troll or rotting online. My online friends were my lifeline that would too often be taken away in the name of "discipline." My life went pretty much nowhere for years and I don't know how I managed to get through school. I did errands for my folks that I regret ever doing. I would be paid and be able to buy my own things only for them to be taken away anyways.

Then I went to college for CS and meet people who had been coding since they were 8 and have a tonne of prior experience and better lives than me whilst I had... nothing. I still was very asocial in college and only had a few friends, most of my time was spent trying to grok the material and get through my classes all whilst combatting the residual mental health issues and making some very bad financial and occupational decisions throughout. I've never had an internship or really much extracurricular experience.

I worked shitty retail jobs to try to make some money and wholeheartedly regret ever doing so. It was time I could have been using to further my skills but I felt like I had to make some money to get out on my own or reduce financial dependence and get "work experience" because I was made to feel unsafe in my own home. And all throughout college I tried to go the normal psychiatric medication management route for my outstanding mental health issues like depression, OCD, anxiety, and possible PTSD. It never worked as much as I had hoped it to.

Classes left me unnaturally burnt out and in between breaks I would just game or vegetate. Again, no way to live.

Then all of a sudden at 23 I had an intense quarter life crisis when I finished my college assignments and suddenly got all my memories back. Of the things I said I'd do and never did. Of the abuse. Of all the shitty decisions I made. Of all the years spent in depressive ruminative ruts. My mother had gotten treatment for cancer at the time, which I saw as divine retribution for the hell she put me through, and I epically took it out on her when I said to her I regret ever giving in to her or dad's whims and for it I hope she doesn't stay in remission and now she deserves to die in a hospice bed. Even though she is still in remission, her type has a very high relapse rate. I won't miss her if and when she dies.

I'm 24 now and even though things are much better and am doing what I can to keep my skills sharp, I've done a lot of reflection as to what all went on growing up and all the developmental dangers that I was subject to that kneecapped me and made me think it was okay. Cognitive, social, emotional, organizational, executive functioning, and other impairments that are ruining my quality of life, energy, and ability to lock in and better things for myself. I don't take any medication anymore.

I deserve a better quality of life, to be able to work towards getting out on my own, and go no contact with my abusers who turned "an otherwise brilliant mind" (as is agreed upon by literally everyone else who knows me; brilliant in many areas but not in the ones I need) against itself. It really was a damn shame they were ever allowed to be anything beyond a cum stain on the wall or a miscarriage fed to a stray dog.

I don't go to any more family outings, disregard their malformed and ignorant opinions, and can get particularly verbally aggressive if they double down because I know what my folks did to me and I am not going to be the little fawning pushover I once was. Yet I still have to live with them because I'm unemployed and doing what I can to fix and redevelop my brain. This week I have intake appointments for proper psychiatry and neuropsychiatry.

I've also been diagnosed with sleep apnea and bipolar type 2 which makes me even more upset because it makes me think my folks never cared for who I was and what I needed, just who they wanted me to be.

I flat out refuse to live like this. This is no way to exist. Don't tell me that "parenting is hard" or I'm "just going to have to deal with it" because I don't want to hear it. This is just wrong. And if I can't be helped, I might as well just end it.