I almost cried. Hopefully most of anyone who keeps up with my Facebook page will remember the Understanding Extroverts thing I drew a short while back. This is far more in-depth, and I think more...open. What I made was more cute than informative. It told the story, but it didnt tell the whole thing: the anxiety, the crippling need to belong, and the depression that sets in when we dont get the human contact we need. Some of you will probably also remember the series of increasingly negative status updates a week and half ago, or so. While there were a number of factors that caused it, one of the biggest ones was simply a lack of real human interaction - especially as my parents went out of town that weekend, leaving me alone at the house. One of the biggest problems I struggle with as an extroverted person is the very potent self-awareness that I am what kind people describe as intense and most others describe as obnoxious. Because of that, I feel like I burden my friends and family with my personality. I know intellectually that this might not be true, but the anxiety is there anyways. I always /always/ want to talk to someone, but Im always afraid Ill come across as needy, whiny, shallow...all the things Rowan Badger describes in this blog. Its not necessarily that I need to talk about something important, I just value the proximity of someone else. The result is a vicious cycle of anxiety: I desperately need to talk to someone, about anything; but to do so means - at least, in my head - that I will be dumping my emotions unwanted onto someone else. Its not normally so bad, but last weekend I had some pretty bad anxiety attacks. The attacks started because I needed company, but I couldnt bring myself to unload my emotions on my friends. The thought, that I would be /that guy/, or that maybe someone would decide that Im a bad friend and turn me away, that idea caused as much anxiety as needing a friend in the first place. Its hard for me to get my tone correct right now. Text sanitizes a lot, and even sharing this is difficult for me because I feel that same anxiety that I talked about before, so I choose my vocabulary meticulously to sterilize any emotion leaking out through my word choices. Its hard to really describe it accurately, but the reality is that I felt then, and still often feel trapped or powerless. Often that means feeling literally claustrophobic. Usually I feel lost and frustrated. I joke that Im bad at word thing but the truth is that language means everything to me. As the blog suggests, I /obsess/ over every single syllable that I speak or type, or else I end up blurting out something nonsensical, inane, or obnoxious. Sometimes I cant sleep because I cant stop reviewing a conversation - I used the wrong connotation, I wasnt understood correctly, /this/ word would have been the better thing to say. Or else I invent new conversations, going over the dialogue over and over and over and over again trying to think of the right thing to say. Sometimes I do it for hours at a time. My most flustered, awkward moments happen after I do that over several days and the conversation never happens or goes entirely differently. In a thousand lifetimes I could not thank enough the friends that helped me get through it last weekend. It was a terrifying time for me, and I dont expect it will ever get quite that bad again (at least, I really /really/ hope it doesnt). I wish I could say that this isnt a cry for help, that Im not posting this long, introspective status-with-link for attention. But I cant say that. I cant pretend that its not a problem. I dont need someone to coddle me, to spoon-feed me patronizing platitudes, but I do need understanding, and patience. And if Im wearing on you, just let me know.
Posted on: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 01:12:40 +0000
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