One of the photos comes from the band Yellowcard, from their song Gifts and Curses. (Side note - they played this song live for their farewell tour, and it was amazing!!). The lyric reads "And my worst pains are words I cannot say." In the context of the song, the line refers to Peter Parker not being able to tell Mary Jane that he's Spider Man, and that he loves her. But as I drove home the other day with this song blasting through my car stereo, I thought how that line means a lot to me. Mostly, that I have been feeling a lot lately that I've been experiencing a lot of mental and emotional "pain" - more like exhaustion and frustration - from all the things that I don't say.
[I'm just going to put this here. Never saw the last two Spider Man reboot and re-reboot movies, but Spiderman 3 sucked, and Andrew Garfield is hella fine!]
Last week I read a book about Emotional Agility. In a very tiny nut shell, the book is about acknowledging and feeling our feelings, especially the bad ones, and being able to take a step back to think about our emotions before we act on them. This way we can learn to be more agile with our emotions and make it through tough stuff better. One of the things I read in that book is that studies have found that people who write about their highly emotional stuff are better able to move past stuff and be more emotionally healthy. (I also learned I may be a brooder, but that's a whole other thing). So, as I had been thinking over this post for awhile, I figured it's about time to just sit and write it out. I'm not about to crazy open up and gush, but I've definitely ready to turn some thinking into typing.
Cue the orchestra of tiny violins, because I'm about to throw a self-righteous, pompous pity-party for myself. See, the difficulty with being very self aware, with high IQ and EQ, plus being a general self-improver, is that sometimes dealing with other people can be maddening! So many people are so clearly lacking in certain skills that it's painfully obvious to me, but I still have to be the beneficiary of their shortcomings. It gets exhausting sometimes when I play therapist/translator/babysitter to people. Like when you have to sit and listen to someone demonstrate their complete lack of EQ on all or most fronts (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management), while simultaneously steeling yourself for them to say something about your shit in such a way that demonstrates their lack empathy and emotional complexity, as well as a reductionist view of things that are complex and quite painful when thrust upon you in such a thoughtless way. Or people who can wax eloquent at length about all their ideals and views on making things better, but in a moment of crisis they are the first to freak the fuck out and take advantage of my willingness to help. Pair this kind of b.s. with a head full of books and an unstoppable intuition about people, it becomes exhausting to be constantly aware and analytical of just how frustrating people are!
That is not to say that I am perfect. I have mirrors, and a painfully acute sense of self-awareness. But really, having keen self-awareness is a LOT more than other people have! At least I understand that sometimes I have a need to be the hero or the martyr in rough times. And I know that I am way too nice, with a heavy dose of conflict avoidance. But at least I know this, and work hard to call myself out on this shit and not do it as much. A lot of this thinking has lead me down the path of thinking about my exacting standards related to trusting people. I don't like to say that I have "trust issues" because I think denotes someone who has had bad experiences with trust and have psychological problems related to trust that can possibly be fix. In my case, it's just a part of my personality. It's not something that can be "fixed" but rather something I recognize about myself and do my best to work with effectively. I find a healthy dose of unfairness in the fact that I am very intuitive with high EQ, and therefore can really understand people, which only makes me less likely to trust a lot of them. Or maybe I am being really cranky and bitter because I've been felling really drained lately.
I think this should be the point where I take a moment to say how thankful I am for the people in my life that makes things less mentally exhausting. I've taken to worrying that I'll lose people in my life faster than I will gain them, and before too long be mostly alone. So I took a few moments to appreciate those I know - people that only a few short years ago I didn't know, and people a few short years before that too - and how I am lucky enough to continue to meet and have awesome people that I can open up to and feel supported by. Plus, there are those people that no matter the time and distance, are still important to me and are out there when needed. I'm still a work in progress, so it's important to me to look how far I've come with opening up to people and not being afraid to share stuff.
There are plenty of reasons why I personally make it more difficult when dealing with other people. I think the biggest being having that trust to open up to someone, whether about myself or about issues I may have with that person (or suggestions for their improvement that don't affect me). I tend to keep my own counsel. While I know that other people have valid opinions and experiences that can be helpful, I know more about myself than anyone so I know the particulars that provide distinctions from other's information. I'm an unusual person, eccentric in my ways, so I do worry about being too open too often. That means when something is bothering me, I tend to think about it myself before discussing with anyone else. And a lot of the times, I come to an understanding of my feelings and what I want to do about it, and it's not anything worth mentioning. The problem being that with repetitive things, you can only shrug off something so many times before it becomes a recognizable pattern that starts to cause problems. In those situations, it takes some coaxing sometimes, or some precipitating event, to get me to discuss things with supportive people. It takes even more willpower to address something causing distress with the appropriate person. Frankly, that's something I do in far fewer instances than I should.
But to the reverse of that, it is very difficult to have critical conversations with people that don't have the maturity to cope with those conversations. I know the people I can have those conversations with, and those I can't - some through experience and some with having ears. Some people are too sensitive to take criticism, even when I'm the kind of people to do so from a very supportive, caring place. Some people refuse to except other people's opinions. And being super people intuitive can feel kind of invasive for the people that I understand their behavior better than they do. At other times I don't want to hurt people's feelings. I can find someone completely likable with also having pretty negative logical opinions of other aspects of their skills or personality. Sometimes I just don't really what to know what more their is. I already sometimes pick up on so much just be observation, that I get afraid I am going to disrupt things by being overly intrusive. I value my privacy, and I give the same respect to others, although sometimes I think the subtext of certain situations are begging me to invade privacy for the sake of vulnerability building.
When it comes to my approach to trusting people enough to be open, it's very particular and time intensive. And it's about quality as well as quantity. It's easier for my to build trust with someone I can read easier. People that are more similar to me are easier to trust because there's quicker understanding. I find it easier to trust people other people I trust have trust in. I have a great friend who I learned to trust much faster than normal because she already had the friendship with two people I really trusted and cared for. The reverse is a lot harder to predict. I've had people I trust distrust others, with sometimes it's warranted and sometimes it's due to some lack of understanding with the person I know. Just as it takes time to build the trust, time can also erode it. Sometimes the time gaps are too long between interactions to build the kind of situation where time and distance don't matter. Or more often people can do things that betray trust. And I don't think people realize that a betrayal of trust doesn't have to be some major violation. It could simply just be not being there at the important times, or using information given in trust in a way that's hurtful or inconsiderate.
Champagne break! Woot woot! Okay, so it's more accurately sparkling wine, but champagne sounds so much fancier! I drink my wine related beverages in a coffee mug, because coffee mugs are studier, and I have many more coffee mugs in an easier to reach place than my wine glasses.
Anyway, back to the current train of thought. For me, trust is situational and can be parsed into bits. Like I can trust people in a professional context but not with personal information. Or I trust people to a certain level of privacy, but there are further levels that they cannot access. I'm like an artichoke! I'd say a parfait, but that's not right because you can see all of the layers of a parfait at once, which is the wrong metaphor. And I'm not an onion, because - eww. So an artichoke makes more sense. The outer layers are studier and more prickly, but as you pull them back the inner layers are more delicate, and then at the center is a lovely heart that's bountiful and fuzzy. (Although, for the record, I don't really like artichoke hearts, which makes me a great artichoke eating partner because I'll eat the leaves, and then you can have my heart.) Some people I trust with all the layers. Others with only the outer, or the left hemisphere? Some people I can trust a lot, only there are a few subjects I hold back. There are others that I want to trust more, or could trust more, but I sense unrevealed layers and hold back to match. I want to say "I'd trust you with anything if you'd do the same for me" but maybe some people just don't want to trust me (which is surprisingly unusual since people sometimes trust me way sooner than I am comfortable), and I wonder what it is that I've done to seem untrustworthy. Or maybe it's just someone, who like me, has a hard time opening up.
Some days I think I would much less mentally and emotionally drained if I would just say what's on my mind all the time. Only I also think I'd be much less nice as well. Because at best when I've got something on my mind, I'm just kind of a downer. At worst, I'm having these completely unexpected physical and emotional reactions to things people say that to them are from left field, but to me ... well sometimes they make total sense and sometimes they are totally left field too because I don't always understand my emotions without thinking them over logically first. Do you see the why I have issues? Here's an interesting example to demonstrate a more worst case scenario. I've never shared or explained this info below, so Yay! vulnerability! And champagne!
In December 2016 I went to Disneyland. Upon returning I encountered a friend, who first thing asked me how the trip was, and then second thing commented on how the next time I go, I'll be taking my kids (or something like that). My reflexive, no time to think reaction was to let out a loud "ugg" and promptly throw my forehead onto the nearest surface in utter frustration and distress. I can only imagine this was a very unexpected reaction from the other person - I have mentioned a few times my readiness to have kids, and we'd talked about Disneyland before. Although, I do go to Disneyland at least once every two years, so the likelihood I'd have a kid by my next inevitable 2018 trip is unlikely. But that's besides the point.
The point is there was context that I did NOT share (ever) that make my reaction completely reasonable, although the reasonableness of it was incomprehensible to others. Let's rewind a bit. In April of 2015, I went to Disneyland (see, less than two years apart). At that time I liked this guy. If you know anything about me and my behavior when I like someone, you'll know that I get really fucking awkward! It's like I can be cool and normal around any guy, until I decide I like him, and then I become this neurotic ball of doubt, seesawing between being overly attentive and being awkwardly uncomfortable before I run away. But I didn't want to be like that in this instance. So, at one point during my April 2015 Disneyland trip I vowed to myself that I would do everything in my power to not interfere in the hopes that one day this guy and I brought our children to Disneyland. It's not like I knew I actually wanted that, but I saw more potential than I ever had, and it was really an extremely strong motivator to spur myself to overcoming myself. Disneyland is a magical place, and a Disneyland oath cannot be made or taken lightly!
So, flash forward to Disneyland trip December 2016. Overall that trip was so very magical - Disneyland was decked out for the holidays! *squee* But there was one moment that was not "happiest place on earth" material. When we approached the place I was during the former visit, I was overcome with sadness. I have this terrible ability to empathize with the past, as if I'm reliving it. I just thought of how hopeful I was in that past moment, and then proceeding months of everything that followed. I felt a rush of disappointment, sadness, feeling like a fucking idiot, and confusion. By then, I had had several months of being at peace with everything. But being in that space allowed everything to come back in a rush. Luckily, it was just a little emotional blip during an otherwise fantastic vacation. But it left a mark. So, I think in the context, it makes sense to me why the above comment was literally the worst thing someone could have said to me about my trip - it tapped into the only, super negative, part of my vacation.
All I can say is that I keep working at easing the burden on my mind. I have to (1) keep writing, even when it's hard, (2) keep opening up to those supportive people about what's bothering me because it really helps and I don't ever want them to not feel like I'm super grateful for them (3) do a hell of a lot better about having difficult conversations with people because one hard conversation usually works out a lot better than days/weeks/months of thinking something over in my head, and (4) don't be afraid to back off sometimes when I need a break because it's not fair to me to put up with other people's headache drama just because I'm too nice not to be involved.
And I feel a lot better now! If you read this far, you deserve a sticker! Or some champagne! Or both, if I'm feeling generous!
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