My kid is 21 years old. Her mother and I know absolutely nothing about her life, her thoughts, her emotions, nothing, and we never have; she has never wanted to tell us any such things. She has never even said "I love you" to either one of us, not even when she was little. She won't let us talk to her about anything serious, and certainly nothing personal about herself, and she never has, even when she was little. On the other hand, she has a boyfriend, to whom she says "I love you" regularly, and with whom she shares her inner life extensively. I learned about these things accidentally, when Boyfriend blabbed to me some months ago, and my kid stopped talking to me that day. I haven't heard from her since, despite two attempts to text her, one saying "Hey" and the other saying "<name>, please respond".
I've always thought, that's just her personality, and as long as she's happy, I'm fine, even if I'm a little sad about the limits on my relationship with her.
But I've recently been working in one of these "citizen therapy" sites, where people take their chances unloading their problems to a stranger. I've met two people with very similar traits to my kid, in some ways even more severe. They could hardly even make themselves talk to me, a complete stranger. It would take them over a minute to complete a very short sentence, and they felt very uncomfortable talking about themselves. I was able to make progress with them by having them talk about an imaginary person who is very much like themselves.
These two people also don't talk to their parents, and I asked one of them for any advice on how to have a relationship with my kid. She said, keep it casual, never talk about anything personal or deep. She said, "I don't do personal with family members." In other words, this woman is never going to have a heart-to-heart with her dad. And it seems that my kid never will either.
I can live with it. If she's happy, I can live with it. But it would help me cope a lot better if I could give a name to this thing. Is it "just personality", or is it a nameable condition? Even if it's not pathology, it would help a lot if I could give it a name.
Anyone have thoughts? I'm not looking for consolation or advice, thanks, just wondering if there's a condition or trait or something I could read about. Cheers