>something to the effect of that I didn't get to enjoy having friends, I just got to miss them.

>I am typically watchful and quiet, on the periphery of any group.

>I have faked it and been unable to make it

I know other people who moved several times as kids, and these are very common sentiments among them (and many other people as well, who didn't move).

I don't have much else to say, other than you're not alone and I hope you find peace with this.

> I don't have much else to say, other than you're not alone and I hope you find peace with this.

Thank you for saying it. The frequency with which I see positive expressions of humanity on HN is a big part of what makes this place special.

Why would you find peace with being stunted and missing out on major parts of life? To be blunt, it doesn't sound like something to be enthusiastic about.

Because the alternative is living your life in misery due to your past, constantly dwelling on something you can't change. People can overcome things to the best of their abilities, and it's normally good advice to at least try.

I think it would be interesting to note how many of you find this an objectionable mindset because of its self-destructiveness, compared to how many of you find it objectionable because you simply cannot stand to be reminded of the wretchedness this world is capable of.

It's the difference between volunteering at a soup kitchen, and recommending the installation of those anti-homeless spikes at your building entrance.

Some of us are stubborn enough that this is the answer. Curse the universe that afflicted me with this, and if I must suffer it, let others know, viscerally, how debilitating it is. Maybe I can be the horrible warning that sparks change.

I may be miserable, but it's misery with purpose.

Would being angry about it make anything better? Could it restore the missing parts, or go back in time and un-stunt a person?

Being at peace with something is not the same thing as being happy about it.

Part of life is shit. Don’t spend the the good parts of life bathing in it.

So what's the best response? Endless rage? Suicide?

life has a lot of parts, major is in the eye of the beholder

That idea of a critical period we're unaware even exists scares me. We know of several critical periods, like an infant with their eyes covered for the first two months of their life will never master binocular vision, a child born deaf can be given normal hearing with a cochlear implant if placed before or around age 2 with effectiveness falling off the later it is implanted, etc. What if there IS a critical period for learning how to develop deep and meaningful personal relationships? Everything about modern child life is designed to pervert and destroy any ability for a child to form such relationships. I have similar concerns about autonomy. Autonomy is a very strong need in all animals, so it would only make sense for this to be true of humans as well and we see plenty of indication of it throughout history and into modern times... but we continue to subject young people to almost total suspension of their autonomy during all of their formative years. What impact should we expect that to have on the kids later in life? The disturbing thing about critical periods is that even knowing you've missed one doesn't help, you just missed it and the most you can do is compensate.

Similar experience: a different elementary school for each grade. It's hard to exactly describe the impact it's had on me, but let's just say I have no problem letting go of friendships. I was an introvert all throughout school, making only a handful of friends.

Things finally changed for me in college, joining a campus youth group which functioned more like a spiritual fraternity. I was able to finally create life-long bonds with people. Weirdest of all was I actually became an extrovert!

Now I have very little problems making friends. Generally I can chat up strangers. I do have to work very hard to maintain friendships, but it's something I work very hard at.

Schooled in 6 different schools before 18. I’m functioning (easy to talk to people) but I lack trust. I always suppose they’ll let me down, and I accelerate the events because I’m tired of even arguing and I know it’s coming (I know I just don’t « belong » in any place, so I know in case my needs collide with someone else, they’ll choose someone else).

Coming back to Facebook, I can’t quit Fb or Youtube because they are my only friends. I have some, but they have girlfriends and kids. I just wanted to highlight that addiction usually come because there is a void, and getting rid of the addiction is not so simple. Same for those addicted to alcohol: Stopping alcohol is actually the easy part; Finding friend who don’t revolve around consumption is the harder step. I insist, I’m a functioning adult, actually founder with 2 employees, but I really don’t spin round.

I believe I have similar issues despite never moving at all. My parents are both depressed/anxious/distant.

That’s interesting. I switched ~4 times in the first 5 grades. I’ve never really considered whether it affected me much, but have been highly self aware that I don’t really care about letting go of people. I have a vivid memory of yearbook signing in high school, and just getting tired of it, and when people wanted me to write a personalized message, I just said... eh, and declined to do so.

I wouldn’t have thought this was disruptive, but I also recall manually learning how social behaviors work in 11-12th grade and had always assumed I was just a bit of an aspie

I went to 9 schools in 7 different states thousands of miles apart by the time I went to college, and I didn’t really value some of the things other kids did such as school “spirit” which I thought was stupid. Or rooting for “your” team, nor things like prom (parents were poor and still building themselves up so wasn’t about to ask them for funds to rent or buy clothes for a party) or yearbooks or graduation (didn’t even tell my parents about it, didn’t see why it was even worth celebrating since US high school is so easy). I know zero people from high school still.

I am fine conversing with people and making friends, I actually like to, and I think moving around a lot helped me learn the skills to size people up, but I am also evaluating how useful /enjoyable someone is to me so that I invest my time with the greatest return.

I also don’t care much for personal photos on work desk or other memorabilia and generally dwelling on the past. Just another data point. This is not to say that I don’t care about people, and I do like helping, but I don’t need to get all deep and emotional with anyone. Who knows if it has anything to do with me moving around as a kid.

I moved eight times before turning 18 and relate to most of what you describe. The lack of family pictures or memorabilia in your cubicle sticks out for some reason I can't articulate. I've never done that either and I don't understand why people do, like a pathologically tone deaf person who doesn't understand why people listen to music.

> I don’t really care about letting go of people.

This really does seem like a common thread among us who were uprooted and move around during elementary and middle school.

Having had the same rootless upbringing and these same kinds of feelings, I think the word that comes closest to describing what happened to us is dehumanization. Yes I can sever relationships very easily, and I will never truly miss them. I might think about them, but I will never make an effort to reach out or reestablish the relationship under any circumstance. Normal people suffer through these things and never sever. They also miss individuals who have left their life. Those are normal human feelings. We don’t have them. We can’t fake them. It’s tragic.

I’m curious if any non movers would like to chime in here, because tempting as it is, I wouldn’t be surprised if this mentality was common among HN readers regardless of childhood stability.

Moving sucked, but i hadn’t until now considered it traumatic. I’ve always chalked up these feelings to being smarter than average and more self monitoring. Alternatively, being comfortable with losing relationships because I’m sure I can make new ones

I would suggest looking into Pesso-Boyden Therapy, which deals with such "holes in roles" - the missing experiences at the right age with the right person - by creating synthetic memories. It's quite an intense thing when a person suddenly gets exactly the experience they were missing for years, just by giving people, in a therapeutic setting, roles to act out.

That sounds extremely icky, to say the least. "Synthetic memories"?

It does sound weird, and it was a thing I was cautious about when first reading about Pesso therapy. But the "synthetic memories" in no way replace your true memories just as someone who you ask to - in the therapeutic setting - take on the role of an "ideal parent" or "ideal partner" does not replace your real parent or partner. Instead, what you get is a real world experience of how the things could have played out differently, and this experience releases some tension that continued to influence your later interactions..

As an example - if a person was bullied in school, and has subsequently built up impenetrable walls in relationships, it could be helpful to re-enact an act of bullying in a safe setting. Only this time, the person is fully in control and can create an alternative ending - e.g. by letting an 'ideal friend' or an 'ideal parent' join in and stop the bullying. Now a synthetic memory is created - sure, it does not replace the old memory. But now you've got to experience that there are different outcomes possible, now you feel more protected.

The power of this method lies exactly in the experiencing. Before being exposed to this approach I thought my problems would go away, if only I could really really understand them. Now I see that experiences can be quite a bit more powerful than words and concepts. I can also see where all the rituals in human cultures are coming from.

Yeah but still - that is not a thing which actually happened. It is just systematic self-delusion, and an altogether pitiful approach. "I am not happy with the way things turned out so I will pretend they did in fact not turn out that way."

No no no, at no point does anyone claim that this is in any way a real memory. Your actual memories are part of you and need to be respected. They should not be repressed.

What is created is the knowledge that a different experience is possible. Not just textual knowledge, but lived knowledge. Examples of the correct behaviours that you may see in movies or read in books or even witness in your friends are still not your lived experiences. This approach changes it.

I feel like a lot of my therapy experience has been focused on replaying the hard parts of my childhood to help understand the decisions I made then as a largely powerless child and help recognize that those decisions aren't as true as a full grown adult.

This being standard talk therapy and not what grandparent poster was talking about, so the approach he talks about doesn't sound pitiful. Your emotional system (which drives a lot of cognitive behavior) responds to things differently than your logical self.

Also your post seems pretty harsh and judgey for someone that hasn't tried what they've tried, and potentially hasn't had the same life experience.

Thank you for writing this. I was the outsider kid who didn’t move on when all of his friends did. My friends were all military brats. Years later I reconnected with one and he didn’t even remember the two years between 8-10 we were inseparable. If there is a flip side, I have family members that can make friends with a brick wall and they are an open book to everyone they meet - charlatans included and they constantly wonder why they are being taken advantage of.

I only moved once, after my parents got divorced. I changed schools in 4th grade and didn't end up having any "best" (they weren't actually good to me) friends again until 8th grade. I remember almost nothing about middle school, especially 7th grade. This week in therapy I was asked if my parents ever played with me or took an interest in anything I was doing...I realized they didn't. I'm so used to be being alone that I never considered this and I think it sucks more than the lack of friends. My parents were so emotionally unavailable they didn't notice any problems, not even when I became severely depressed in high school. It took more than 8 years for me to finally have a breakdown, 8 years for my mom to finally realize I needed help.

I've been diagnosed with Schizoid Personality Disorder. It's uncomfortable knowing I fit in so well I'm basically invisible and when I'm not, it's more often that I'm being judged for having flat affect which I think is only exacerbated by being female. I don't know what emotions I'm not showing, I don't know any other way.

Had to make an account just to comment on this:

When I read your post it felt like you were describing me! You're certainly not alone in this. I've long thought that instability of this sort in your early years makes it more difficult to form lasting bonds with people, but on the flipside it also makes you so much more independent. So great to see someone mirror that thought! The psychopath thing has bothered me as long as I can remember - obviously I can't be one, as I do have compassion for others, but the outward behavior still feels like I'm "playing a role".

This resonates a lot with me. Were you bullied as well?

Perhaps the worst part of constantly being uprooted was that as the new kid in class you are a natural soft target for bullies.

It lead to the vicious cycle of: I'm new and afraid of my new peers, so I'm on my own most of the time, so I'm an easy target for bullies, so they go after me, so I become more withdrawn.

It was relentless and it has made me very anxious of social settings with new people. You eventually learn to fake it, but the emotional scarring remains.