Posted by alexandra_k on December 8, 2014, at 16:23:45
In reply to Re: physics..., posted by alexandra_k on December 4, 2014, at 17:04:13
so... i talked to my friends on Skype and... I think that is enough, really. flights really are expensive since i've left it fairly late to be able to get them. i think about what other things i could spend that money on...
the visit with my mother did not go well... it didn't go horribly... but it did not go well. i didn't get good sleep... the person next to me on the bus kept nodding off with their head on my shoulder which i didn't like much. the person in front put their seat back... the person next to them kind of perched at the front of theirs and turned themself to talk to the person beside them... which made me feel like they were staring at me the whole trip through the crack in the seats.
you know how i go on and on and on on these boards? well... you should meet my mother. even when i phone... she thinks she has to tell me everything she's been up to / everything she knows and then i have to tell her everything i've been up to / everything i know... otherwise there isn't any point to the interaction, you see? so she will go on and on telling me every little detail about things that don't interest me at all. like i know... how i do on these boards. only... i am fairly sure that my doing that on these boards... means i don't do that with people irl. only my mother... her mission in life seems to be to trick me! because once she's tricked me and got me talking about something... then she's victorious! because now i have to shut my yap while she tells me the life history of every single person she's met up her f*ck*ng street, or whatever.
so... to start with i was flat. which means she leans forward and gets more animated with her hands. which means i get flatter / die that little bit more inside. because now i'm aware that people around me are staring at this crazy lady which has actually gotten up out of her seat and actually crouched down before me gesturing wildly with her hands.
and i said... i need you to move back and stop with the hands already. and i have to say it a couple times... because... people just talk to talk, right? nobody actually means anything that they say. and then she moves back. and i'm like 'you really can't tell when i need for you to calm down and back off - can you?'
and she can't. she needs me to match her state of hyper. and for me to take great delight in the minute details of her life... sh*t that nobody actually cares about but you put up with in your three year old since they've just started using their words...
and i realise that one of my wellington friends is quite a lot like that as well... starting to bang about in the mornings because it is time for everyone to get up and tell her their plans for the day so she can get in what she wants about people doing this and that and the next thing. and so you ignore the banging... as best you can... since she does need to go to work eventually... after a while i told her... i don't know what i'm doing when i first wake up in the morning. i am not one of these people that bounds out of bed at first crack with plans forming... i can't function without coffee... so then she started with 'coffee is up!' so then you have to get up... and after a couple sips the inevitable...
people, eh.
money is power. to keep people at the distance you like. it isn't a magic bullet, i understand that. but it helps really rather a lot. when you need to depend / rely then you have considerably less power. my friends are generous of spirit in many ways... but they are also super controlling in many others. they could not leave me alone when i needed them to. and they could not see that what i most needed was solitude. they couldn't help me with what i needed... when it conflicted with their... preference. yes. i really do think it is a matter of that.
so mother won't join a bowls club or something because she said that she prefers one on one interaction rather than something like that when you don't get to talk to anyone. intense one on one or nothing at all. i guess that is why she finds people so exhausting. you really can't relax around her. you really can't focus on anything other than her.
i had a friend once who was pretty great... but i couldn't walk around gardens or view art with him. he would start up a constant stream 'wow look at this, look at that, look at the next thing!'. 'this good! this bad!' it was like he didn't have a sense that all that stuff was going on inside me, too, for different things. that i was having different interactions. that my interest in walking around wasn't an interest in me focusing on his reactions 'really? what do you like about that?' and so on... that i needed him to back the f*ck off and let me have an experience too.
i think... most people really are like the above... these are probably extreme cases... but i've found myself surrounded by this kind of thing... all my life. and i have experienced other ways of interacting / being. and those other ways are much more peaceful. relaxing. pleasant. but not many of them... and that other thing is not the norm for me at all.
and you don't have to look any further than my mother to see why i have an intense startle response to the human face. and why i don't find people to be particularly relaxing at all. the way i naturally respond when i need people to calm down / step away from me is to lower my head and withdraw into myself. curl up all foetal inside if nothing else. curl up and die, it feels like to me... immense depression... and the significant majority of people do not interpret this as BACK THE F*CK OFF they interpret it as VULNERABLE TARGET FOR ME TO ABSORB or some weird vampiric / possessive sh*t. helpful helpful oh so helpful victims are targets for sure...
i would think there is something wrong with me... but there are people like me. and now... around uni... i think it is fair to say that most people DO get the back off signals. and as soon as i see someone respond appropriately to that... i know i can relax around them. because they aren't like those other people... so needy in their clinging... these people have ideas... things like that...
i don't know that this makes much sense...
only one more year of first year. sigh.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1058481
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20141123/msgs/1074051.html