Sometimes I feel weird writing about my good moods. I am, generally speaking, such a whiny bitch that talking about the up days seems… misleading? Confusing? Inconsistent? Whatever. It’s a good day.
The camping trip continues to give a rosy glow. I’m really grateful that it went so well. I am feeling much more confident about my plans with the kids.
Today was an EPIC park day. We took the yearbook picture so families who hardly ever come out were there. We stayed for four hours and I had to drag the kids bodily out of the park.
I talked to the mom I have been having the feelings about. The one who implied I wouldn’t be missed. She was horrified that I took it the way I did. She said (roughly–of course), “I meant that it is not unusual for you to stay home for periods of time. It is ALWAYS obvious when you aren’t there and you are missed quite a bit. I’m so sorry it sounded that way. If I ever sound that way again–ask about it immediately. I don’t want you to stew in feeling bad about something like this.”
So that went about as well as it possibly could have gone. For which I am extremely grateful.
It is very hard to know how much of my hand wringing self-hatred is just my brain hamsters and how much is that people genuinely have problems with me.
People have problems with me. That’s not in dispute. I am difficult and complicated and lots of other challenging stuff. That’s just a fact.
But as time goes on it seems that people are having fewer problems and my perception isn’t changing. Maybe people always had fewer problems with me than I worried about, but I had a lot of people react with great hostility so I don’t think it is all in my head. Parts of it, sure. Not all of it.
Things are changing as I get older, too. I am so glad I found this home school group. In general I feel like I am fitting in well. By that I mean: people seem to actively appreciate things I have to offer. Many women sigh with relief when I gather the children together for the group stuff. I have no problems screaming across the whole park to round people up. Other people really don’t want to do it. Yay for synchronicity.
In general today was really good. Multiple women extended “Hey we want to get together and do ____ when is good for you?” I feel so overwhelmed with gratitude it is kind of pathetic. Wait… you want to spend time with me? Really? You aren’t putting up with me because you have no choice?
Oh. That does change things.
Some days there is this feeling of, not exactly relief but a lower level of difficulty. I feel less like every body hates me and I should die in a fire.
This weekend at the camping trip one of the dads was being a dad about the topic of fire. I kind of tried to deflect it and said, “I don’t feel real comfortable with fire” and he kept on going. Eventually when he was still making jokes like four minutes later I blurted, “My brother went out behind the local grocery store and doused himself before lighting a match. I don’t really like fire.”
His eyes went wide and he stopped poking at me. He said something to the effect of “Wow. I’m sorry.”
I know I am over sensitive on a wide range of topics. I know I am a whiny baby. I know. I know.
I want other people to know too. And to know why. And to care. And for people to not have to walk on egg shells but not poke me on sensitive subjects either.
It takes time. It just takes time. And I’ve been part of this group for over three years. Things are a lot better. In general my life is so much better than it was.
Most of my recent flares of “OHMYGOD” drama that I go through have been resolved with calm conversations. I clear up my misunderstandings and someone apologizes for not being more clear and we move on.
This is still new to me. I’m still learning. I wish I were better at this already, but I’m not. I’m just where I am. I’m trying. Things are improving.
Sometimes I feel shocked that things continue to improve. When will I hit a big nosedive and do super shitty all of a sudden again? I did spend a lot of May crying and feeling really depressed.
The last four days have been good. If I add up all the minutes under an hour of crying. That’s really good.
I’m grateful that people keep giving me chances. I don’t think I deserve them but I understand that these chances are not all about me. Mostly they are about the fact that I have enough to offer and people have enough need that we match up. I’m really not as bad as I think.
We are all just trying.
I’m glad to hear this.
I expect that the early loud and harsh negative messages get a hell of a lot more space in your mind, because… they were survival warnings, and avoiding the loud and harsh negative messages is more important than being able to parse out and hear the positive messages.
A negative can kill you. You gotta avoid them 100%.
Lack of positives will not kill you but sure will stunt your growth and development if you don’t get it, but you can survive with damn near 0%, I am proof.
Anyway, it’s like the rules for surviving and living are very different, and I want to keep respect for the rules for surviving without still living by them, but yeah… how do I know it’s safe enough to do that?
And I am proud of you. Damn, you keep on coming out swinging and that is huge.
> I feel so overwhelmed with gratitude it is kind of pathetic…. etc
Your saying this made me think of my first year on the ship. I’m grateful to the ship for a number of reasons, but I know that I have them to thank for my confidence. Before ship, I had leftover feelings of un-popularity and minor ostracism from high school and also my college department. I had my circle of friends, high school theatre group and my close college core group, but there was definitely popular kids and I was not part of them, and I felt that.
Actually, now that I’m thinking back, I think part of the feeling is that I get to choose my own friends now, rather than having school thrust me in the middle of it. Wait, no… because since the ship, I haven’t had a problem with any work group or school group anywhere.
Anyway. It took about a year on the ship, people liked me, I re-invented myself a bit, taking on my friend’s overconfident persona, and I was doing a valued skill and I was good at it. People appreciated me for my job. It really took until my first birthday on the ship (almost exactly 12 months later) when I had a birthday party and invited people and PEOPLE SHOWED UP (including the “popular” people) that I realized I could relax, really, people did like me. (I had a horrible experience h.s. soph year where I invited maybe 30-60 people to my bday and three girls showed up.)
Maybe I’m shallow for wanting to be popular, but I really felt the lack of it growing up, and it gave me a big push for being confident. The male attention was also a confidence booster, it certainly didn’t hurt. Since then, I’ve never worried that I’d lack for male attention when I wanted it.
Sorry for the essay. So this was just to say, maybe it takes a couple of great, supportive validations, and hopefully your confidence in social interactions can replace some of the social anxiety on some level? Of course my hang-up about “unpopularity” scored way lower on the scale of anxiety than your social coping and training from childhood on. But I am keeping my fingers crossed for you, because I was fortunate and it worked like magic for me.
Hm, and writing this down makes me wonder if I’ve spent enough time with the weird unpopular kids to pay it forward. (I’d forgotten until I said this that there was a time I was the weird kid.) I think I should reach out to someone I did the fadeaway from. :-/