I have spent a lot of time thinking about the nature of people. About personalities, about how we are people interact and relate to people who are different than us. About how society expects a person to be. See I am not the societal norm, I guess. I am an introvert, I am terrified of people I don’t know well, I am a person with terrible social anxiety who shuts down in social interacts unless I am comfortable or working very hard. I am a person with crappy social skills, no ability to have small talk – I literally don’t know how. I am terrified that I am going to say or do the wrong thing, that I am going to piss someone off, that I am going to hurt their feelings, that I am going to find out that they don’t like me or worse that they are going to think I don’t like them because I do this interacting thing wrong. God forbid I hurt someone with my words or actions.
I am a person who feels too much and I feel everything. It is so hard to explain to people who don’t know what a true empath is but I am one. I literally feel what others around me are feeling, especially those big powerful overwhelming emotions. Because it scared me so much as a child I never learned to deal or process it, and more often than not if I don’t know where the emotions are coming from I struggle to pull apart what I am feeling and what another is feeling. It overloads and overwhelms me and I don’t handle it well sometimes. I am working on this, I am working so hard but that doesn’t mean I’m proficient or skilled at it, but I am trying so very hard. And as much as I hate this aspect of being me I also love it…it gives me a connection, a way of helping others that I wouldn’t trade for anything. It is also part of why I care as much as I do.
I am also a person with anxiety and depression, my mind lies to me constantly, telling me that I am worthless, that I am a waste of space, that the world does not need, want or especially like me.
My mind tells me that I am difficult…and I am because of all these things, I am a difficult person. I think to much, I worry, I stress, I become overwhelmed, and all that leads to me becoming frustrated with myself and it boils over to others, with my own ineptitude at this thing called life and I snip and I snap, and people hate me (or get very very frustrated) and I hate me for it.
I have spent the last fifteen years of my life working, struggling, and striving to do this thing called life and interacting better … and you know what if you knew me fifteen years ago you know that I do do it better. I have fought, I have stretched, I have grown…and I still am growing and I am working to do it better. Please know that I am trying, trying so hard and when I say that I am sorry I mean it, I am doing my best to do better, to not repeat but I am human and I am about as far from perfect as possible.
If I mess up, if I hurt you, if I fail at this thing called life and people with you tell me, tell me what I did, help me to do it better. Just like a child sometimes I need help growing and knowing where my mistakes and flaws are.
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