Why Aren’t I Like Everyone Else?

All I want to know is why I can’t be like everyone else.  It’s not like I want to be the same as someone in particular or even conform to some kind of code; I just want to be able to relate, but I simply can’t.

Almost the entire time I was in high school my parents forced me to see therapists at least once, usually more, each week and numerous different psychologists from time to time.  None of these professionals were ever really able to say what might be wrong with me or help me make it better.  A lot of the time I really honestly worked with them and tried to help them understand what was wrong, but all that ever did was make things worse.

Now I’m near the end of my third year at the university, ahead of schedule on my bachelor’s, independent and responsible, just like my parents raised me to be.  The problem is, I still don’t care; each day I still wake up in the morning frustrated that I didn’t die in my sleep.  Externally, I know I appear normal and healthy, even successful and exemplary, but this is just a facade to keep away the attention, to prevent the questions, and to avoid the professionals and hospitals.  Inside, I remain empty, nothing but a pit of apathy, frustration, and fatigue.

All the people I make myself interact with think I’m like them; I have them all fooled.  It’s so easy to do–and necessary.  If I didn’t do it, they’d start asking questions and eventually I’d be stuck with visiting those professionals every other day again, probably locked up in a hospital once in a while too.  My emotional world is so small, ranging from a high of restless, irritated frustration to a low of transfixed, melancholy absence of thought or action.  The range of what I feel is probably roughly 1% of the range of what I portray to others through my behavior.  I’ve thought about what it would be like to not have to pretend, to be honest with everyone without worrying about being bothered or confined, and I concluded that it wouldn’t even be worth it if there were no consequences.  Because of this, I have no choice, really.

I’ve spent well over a thousand hours working with or being studied by those professionals.  I still have no answers as to why I cannot remember anything but a handful of events prior to age eight.  (The memory gap really bugs me because I have had such a mercilessly thorough memory since.  I can read something once and recall it nearly verbatim a year later or recognize the face of a stranger I’ve seen only once before.)  None about why even at eight and nine I felt so empty, none about why I don’t feel things like the others, none about why some things just don’t make sense to me.  How do other people motivate themselves?  I just don’t understand ‘wanting’ something.  There has to be a step to achieving desire that I am not being told.  The only thing I can relate to the motivation of the others is my desire to seem like them.  That makes sense to me in my head, but something like wanting a friend just for the sake of it?  I don’t understand.  Though logically I can perceive the connection in theory, I can’t feel it in my head.  Something’s missing.

Sometimes I get paranoid.  Sometimes I think maybe I’m just stupid and/or crazy and everyone is like me and we’re all just pretending for each other but the others forgot to tell me.  If that were true though, there would be too many defectors and we’d realize it, allowing each other to end our misery and cause our race’s extinction.  Foolish dreams.  I should have been born a man, maybe a son of a military officer.  By now I could have fought ‘bravely’ to my own death, taken out at least a dozen others with me, been regarded by my family and society as a hero, and been done dealing with this stupid mess.  More absurd dreams.

I used to think, toward the end of my high school therapy days and for a while afterward, that if I pretended long enough and forced myself to be just like the others, I might become one on some level eventually.  I’ve lost faith in that now.  I’m going to take some personal time, and damn the others if they start asking questions again, to figure out why I am like this.  If there is a reason why I am like this, why another human may be similar, perhaps I can find a real solution to make me like everyone else.

I think the answer must have to do with my differences, if they even are differences (oh boy, I’m being paranoid again).  How can I have such a keen memory, but remember practically nothing from birth to age eight?  How can I logically understand human behavior so well without being able to begin to emotionally comprehend it?  How can I desire to be left alone, but not desire anything else?  How can I feel I am so close to understanding all this when I have no clue what is missing?

Someone please tell me WTF is missing?