November 18, 2012
I always thought of myself as an extrovert. That’s kind of how I presented myself. That’s how I adapted myself to be. But lately, I’ve been having new realizations (haha, I think I say that in every post… so many wonderful changes these days) 🙂
I realize that this is how I’ve adapted to be, cause it was more acceptable in the world. I feel it was more acceptable with my mom. Because if I think back to my childhood, I used to spend hours upon hours, alone, drawing. Hours in my room. Hours doing whatever. I used to always be able to entertain myself. My mom, years ago when I was asking her about my childhood, she said you used to not care what others were doing, used to say “no” to birthday parties, cause you would rather do something else… I think that meant, on my own.
I was happy. Happy with my alone time. Always.
But I think this always concerned my mom. Not like she’s a bad person, but I think it’s the normal parent tendency, to want their kid to get along, to make friends, etc.
But I never felt comfortable making friends. Never felt comfortable being singled out or doing embarrassing things. I was more subtle with making my friends… who I naturally was drawn to and vice versa, but definitely noticed when I moved schools when I was in the 4th grade, that the loud ones were the “popular” ones… those and the people who followed others – and I never was a follower 🙂
Just recently I’ve met some people that I sort of new from Facebook. I wasn’t really friends with them or anything, but sort of “knew” them. They told me that I come off as distant.. or something. They were on some power struggle thing, some bullying disguised as “being nice.” This was the last thing that happened in my life before I made that “I’m Not Being Nice” video and started really standing up for myself. Hurray, for that!
But recently I saw something on someone’s website that said this…
It was about introverts and I totally related to it…
Rather than calling ourselves antisocial… reframe it to selective.
Rather than accepting the label of aloof… you’re discerning
Rather than weird… unique
And these are all me. Not trying to put flowers on it and make it pretty in disguise, but this is really who I am. Selective and discerning on who I talk to and who I make friends with.
And unique with my gifts and abilities.
Anyway, this was very healing for me and I’m going to hang up those words… cause they really hit home. My whole life I have been getting messages to be more friendly or more outgoing… and yes I have adapted myself to be like that… but always felt bad or weird cause I didn’t really like a majority of the people who I met. I didn’t want to keep in touch… and with most people I don’t. And again, I was making myself “wrong” for doing this… letting others make fun of me for these actions…. or feeling bad for being like this… but now the truth is uncovered. I am just selective and discerning on who I welcome into my life. And this is a good quality. One I really, really like. This is very healing. So grateful for this new information today.