I think one of my teeth is throbbing again. I don't know why. Personally, I'm gonna blame it on the wisdom teeth growing in. Why? Because any other options really unnerve me. But in any case, I want to talk about more than just my sore tooth and/or teeth. I want to discuss my social awkwardness, my masking and my struggles with opening up to people. To try and be interesting, I'm gonna break it down using the method I learned in an old school class: the six questions of Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. I'm writing this because I know it's an important thing about my psychology which I struggle to understand, and I'm also writing it because my right hands ring finger is sore, my tooth feels weird, my stomach feels weird and I need a distraction.
But to begin with…Who does this affect? Well, it affects me. What is it? It's behaviors wherein I seem to hide aspects of my personality I think aren't going to be acceptable or well liked by the people I'm around. At school, I know anger issues would not be recieved well. So I try to hide them to avoid judgement. I know that my interests would be judged, so I hide most of those too. I know that my interests in animated shows or video games would make me look like the normal other kids, and those kids are the juveniles who talk loudly and mess around in class. I don't want to seem like that, so I hide it. I only let the other students and teachers know about some of my book tastes. They can't know I liked some of the books the juvenile, obnoxious kids liked. But they can know I like Percy Jackson, they can see me reading lengthy chapter books. Because I think my brain assumed that'd make me look good to people, so it was okay to display.
There's a part of me that feels like the self questioning about masking makes me question my identity. If I don't show my anger issues around anyone besides my dad…do I really have anger issues? Ah, but then again…I'm prone to meltdowns when I'm all alone. When my dad's around, I take it out on him rather than internalizing it and focusing it all on myself. So I think I always have stress, agitation and anger issues. It's just that my dad is so nonjudgmental and forgiving that he makes an easy outlet for my anger.
Moving on! I don't know how to get a Where question in here, except to say that I refused to wear glasses to school until very recently, and goes back to this fear of judgement and stuff. Why do I have a fear of judgement and why do I struggle with opening up to others? I don't know. I've got some guesses, though. Being bullied in grade 4 of elementary school definitely didn't help anything. I was already socially awkward and lonely, but being bullied definitely pushed me further back into my shell.
I think there's a fear of boring people, as well. When I go to share something with my dad that I know he's not gonna be interested in the same way I am…well, there's part of me that gets nervous about it. Some of my interests have included things like comic books, for example. When I shared animated comic book based shows with my dad, I got nervous and embarrassed and awkward and hid in corners and squinted to avoid my dad's eyes. I have this thing where I squint by shutting my left eye. I do it to avoid seeing my dad's face, because then I can't look at it and try to paranoidly search for judgement or emotions within it. I also put my left hand up and try to use it to my hide my dad's face, too. Or maybe to hide my squinting eye? I don't know.
There's also a part of me that doesn't love sharing all this stuff with people (even people like my dad) because I know my interests can be flighty. I can be interested in something now, but I might forget about it in a few months time. So why go through the big ordeal of sharing it, of trying to fight through awkwardness? Why do that, when you know it might all amount to nothing eventually? I think that plays a part in my struggle to open up, too.
There's a lot that goes into all this, a lot more than just a simple answer as to why I'm like this. There's no real clear answer. There's a lot of good and plausible explanations, but there's nothing definitive or whatever. So that's kind of frustrating, but I make do. And as for the final few questions… questions like When did this start? or How did it come to be like this? Frankly, I have no answers for that. Did it all start with me getting bullied? Have I simply always been like this? What's the correct answer? Sadly, I don't think there is a correct answer. I can't remember well enough to showcase one, anyways. So all I know is that there has to be an answer, this definitely is something I struggle with, and it's all just a real riddle for the ages.
On that note, my fingers are sore again. They're sore because I was biting them. I brought all of this on myself. I know that, and I accept that. It's still sore, though. So I'm just gonna end this note here now. Maybe I'll come back to it sometime. I don't know yet.
