Monday, November 23, 2015

Self Awareness; not overly useful in hindsight


I am aware that there is this thing I do: OVERSHARE. I'm sure many of you have been there. Sorry about that Chief.*

My social boundaries exist very far from my person. So far that even I'm not sure where they are. The upshot of this is sometimes information just kind of spews out of me, particularly if I'm shaken up about something - because if I'm upset I often forget to roll a sanity check before I open my mouth.

Interestingly this has in the past lead to two distinct and opposite effects. Sometimes I overshare and the person or persons on the receiving end are so freaked out they, fairly understandably RUN THE FUCK AWAY. But other times I gain a friend so solid I will never have to question their place in my life. Sometimes the first thing happens and then the person wanders back going, "wow that was pretty fucking intense" and then slots themselves into the second group. 

Basically there are very few things from my life that I am unwilling to share if either I think it will help the person on the other end of it better cope with their own situation or if unburdening myself is something I need to do right now. The second thing is why this comes up right now... because I really really really need to remember to not target mere acquaintances with that second thing. What was that phrase I used in another blog a million years ago? Verbal ejaculate! No one wants that all over them from a near stranger. 

I had a tough weekend, with several friends being in very bad headspaces at the same time, and I ended up sharing information about several terrible times in my own life as, well more or less as - "hey, I know where you're coming from; please understand me when I say it is super important that you deal with this immediately" examples. It's all very well to tell someone that you are concerned that they might hurt themselves, and please please please get professional help - but from experience I know that being in that place it's bloody hard to see that anyone even wants to help you and even harder to see that people around you really might totally understand what you're saying. I recognised some trigger phrases in what one of these people was saying, and recognised that she wasn't really taking in what any of us were saying to her. I could also read between the lines that she had been understating the situation to her medical professional. So I told her about the day that I went from feeling vaguely shit about the universe, to having a fully planned exit strategy in place in the time it took to end a phone call. And what I did next, that almost certainly saved my life. After which I went into a quiet spiral of *ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck*. Because those memories aren't particularly pleasant ones. It got her to call a suicide hotline, which she had been thinking about but not doing for ages, because she didn't trust the idea of them, she didn't imagine that they could say anything that might help or do anything to get her out of this dark place. Seeking help is so insanely hard to do when you've stopped believing you're worth anything. 

And SEE here I am telling you guys about it.... because I need it out of my system and you guys are the best. Also you can just the fuck not bother reading this (I probably should have mentioned that earlier ;) ). Sometimes I just need to spew it all out of my system, putting it here - it's somewhere. Not in me. 

Back to the point at hand. I have a tendency to make knee jerk reactions to new people in my life. Every now and then someone walks in that I just instinctively trust. Instinctively take into my heart. And then sometimes I completely forget that they haven't had the chance to form the same relationship (or run the hell away). Matt, you know what I'm talking about. Jesus you poor bastard, I threw you right off the fucking deep end. 

So I end up running off at the mouth to them, when I hit a wall. Like a total fucking womble. 

That one brilliant piece of tremendous LUCK in my life, finding KAOS before I lost myself entirely. Lead me to a bunch of people remarkably resilient to my special brand of douchebaggery. To people I can do that second part of the equation with - I can tell anyone **anything about myself more or less without distinction, but if I'm upset I can ONLY talk to someone I trust implicitly. So, I guess the upside of me going off at the mouth at you is that you can know that I totally trust you. Also if I am happy to put BOTH arms around you. I trust you. And that put's you in a pretty damn SMALL group. 



Peace. Out.

*It's time to play "name that reference"
** in so far as I am yet to find anything I WON'T talk about. 

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