Vulnerability is not my forte
I have been, as a friend of mine puts it, out-of-pocket these last few days. The disturbance in the Force I’ve been feeling for almost 4 weeks continued and waxed and waned and then settled in to a deep sadness and hopelessness.
I had gotten to a point where not only was I no closer to discerning what the hell my problem was, but I was also obsessing about not knowing what the hell my problem was. And pretty soon, I was locked up in my own head, feeling crappy, feeling crappy about feeling crappy, and feeling completely isolated and alone.
I know that I am in large part the architect of that isolation. I am an an INFJ (A was, too, surprisingly) and a Scorpio; I have always been pretty intuitive, and it is my way to reach out to people when I know they’re troubled. So I expect (however unreasonably) others to operate similarly, because we all see the world as we are, not as it is. And I am proud; I hate to beg for attention or consideration, even when I’m desperate for it, needing help, but unwilling to be needy. And because I’m this way I find myself waiting around for people to also ask me if I’m okay, to give me an opening to say, “No, I’m not doing so well,” when I feel like I’m broadcasting despair, but that never seems to happen, so it just gets worse and worse and I spiral downward and inward. I don’t know if people just don’t see it in me, or just don’t care, but as I sink, I start to assume the latter. Whatever the reason, I am not one people check on, or check in with.
And once you’re in that place, everything is colored by it, everything bad that ever happened or could possibly happen to you is pulled into the vortex with you. So while I don’t think this all started out as a grief-incited emotional riot, it certainly arrived there in time. I have found, for myself at least, that any detour to the dark side is an opportunity to revisit the aching sadness of A’s absence in my daily life. Which of course doesn’t help the situation any.
I was, to make a short story long, in a bad way. And I knew I couldn’t stay there. But to reach out and ask for help is really hard for me. I am strong. I am the one who listens and helps. I am the one who has it together. My ego hates being the weak one, but I cannot be the strong one all the time. And probably shouldn’t be. I get a lot out of being the strong one; other people should have that opportunity, too, I suppose.
I started small yesterday; when a pal at the widow board asked me how I was, I actually told her: “not so well.” And when she told me she was a good listener if I wanted to talk, I told her a little more. She had no answers for me, but she did have hugs. It was a start.
When I got home last night, when I had the chance, I told E I wasn’t doing so well. I had to tell him a couple of times. I have been blessed in love with very smart, very kind, very loving men, but they have not been highly literate in subtext. No man I’ve ever loved has ever asked me “What’s wrong?” unless I was actively crying at the moment. It was hard; I don’t ever want to tell anyone that sort of thing if they’re not really going to listen. I don’t think that makes me different than most people, though I could be wrong about that. I know lots of people who will tell you all their deepest-darkest within 5 minutes of meeting you, regardless of whether you express interest.
We ended up having a couple hours of real conversation that left me feeling heard, and left me with some concrete things I could do to improve my life and how I felt about it, and I felt better than I had in weeks. I don’t know if it was because I now had a plan, or if it was just feeling like I’d been let out of solitary. Probably both. I’ll talk more about that soon; I’m still processing it. But today was a better day. And I’m hoping to make it two in a row tomorrow.