Something I never understood until now is why every time there was an event planned with family or friends…I would have horrible stomach aches day of. I would feel sick often with no explanation. When I was a young kid for a long time I convinced myself with my wild imagination that I was somehow allergic to holidays. I always seemed to suddenly get sick on holidays. Now I know it was because there was always a lot more social interaction going on on these particular days than other days.
And I was always made to feel like I needed to not disappoint people and my family if what I really wanted to do was stay home in my bedroom on these days. It was rude. It was somehow cruel to not show up for family and I needed to rally and suck it up.
I don’t blame anyone. I know they didn’t know as much as I didn’t know what was really going on. As an adult I was told it was social anxiety. Well it was that…but there was a deeper reason for it. And I can’t count the number of people throughout my life who felt compelled to “get me out of the house” and socialize and I begrudgingly did it a lot to make others happy…not me.
Do I sometimes want to socialize and get out of the house? Yes! I do! I need to and want to. But on my own terms. And this is considered selfish. But I’m telling you I can not predict where my head will be at on any given day and there are real to me some days when it takes everything in me to just show up. As an adult I learned the consequences of not doing that meant people would eventually think of you being a flake. And it certainly wasn’t something you could explain and not have it sound like a pathetic excuse to just not want to be around people. It hurt people I loved dearly. I hated that. I really was constantly going though an emotional battle of trying to self care and not disappointing people I would never dream of intentionally disappointing.
There is no perfect answer for this while people don’t really understand how my brain functions and it’s not something I can always explain. I learned to live with knowing at some point I would disappoint people. There will be moments when I LOVE, ADORE being around friends and family. And other moments where if I push myself too hard to show up..I will need days to recover from that one small to you but huge to my brain act. It’s just how it goes for my neurodivergent brain. I don’t NEED social interaction like neurotypical brains do. I just don’t and it is not something I can force or will myself to not feel or feel. Not how it works and trust me I’ve had 51 years of trying everything I could to not feel a particular way and just be like everyone else. It’s not something you “change your mind” about. Not something you try harder about and the more you try to force it the more you beat yourself up inside for not being ABLE to just go with it and FEEL okay. It’s horrible for how you see yourself to constantly feel you aren’t good enough or strong enough to do a simple thing like socialize. I truly don’t know what the answer is beyond developing a thick skin and acceptance that someone will be upset by who you are at some point so just do what you can and let the chips fall where they may.
You Had To Be There… 