normal is as normal does

When you’re half a woman
and you’re half awake
With a face full of tears
and a chemical shake
Given half a chance,
that I can take
–Elvis Costello/You’ll Never be A Man

You think that you’re living, you don’t really know
Big tears mean nothing
You can count them as they fall
–Elvis Costello/Big Tears

You need to care about other people more than yourself at least some of the time…but you always need to care about yourself. A lot of us are very late learning that, if we ever do. Over the years, I have spent a lot of time not really engaging in life or with people at least partly because I didn’t like myself enough to think I should. For a long time, I avoided being around people as much as I could. Partly from shyness. Partly from snobbery–I didn’t particularly enjoy being around people who weren’t as smart as I am. Partly because I assumed that I was so awful on some level that no one would want to be around me anyway. I thought I was boring and weird. When I was around people, I did whatever I could to either hide or act as much like someone else as I possibly could so no one would figure out…what? What was I so worried that everyone would figure out? Why was I always so scared? What was that worry even based on?

I really have no idea.

As a child, I was well-adjusted to the point of obnoxiousness. I was massively self-assured. I knew I was smart, and I was proud of it. I was a natural leader around other children (ie I was really, really bossy) but was never particularly excited about being around people in general and children my own age in particular. Being sent outside to play was always a bit of a punishment, and of course back then all children were expected to play outside all day. I’d have much rather spent all my time locked in my room drawing or reading. Inside my own head. I was always happier alone or with only a few people. I was always very shy, but once I got used to people I liked being around them in small groups. Ultimately, though, I wasn’t avoiding other people because I didn’t think I was good enough to be around them. I just didn’t enjoy it very much.

That hasn’t really changed. I still get antsy if I don’t spend time alone on a regular basis, and I will never be the life of any party. Put me in a small group, and I’ll be fine. Funny, even. People will like me. In a crowd, I will hide in the coat check room until the earliest possible time I can escape. I’d be the worst possible wife for a politician.

At a certain point, though, something changed me from a shy, but self-confident child into someone who is a mass of insecurities who assumes the worst about everyone including herself. At what point did my dislike of company change from being something relatively healthy into something resulting from self-loathing?

Puberty. Heart break. Bullies. I don’t know. I don’t remember any dramatic incidents. An important break up when I was a teenager didn’t help, but I was already pretty insecure about people before that. It was a gradual change over several years. I can remember the 5th grade as a turning point–suddenly I hated going to recess even more than I had previously. I would hide just inside the school doors and hope a teacher wouldn’t catch me and push me out the door with the other children outside having fun. I would pray to break my leg so I could stay indoors by myself.

Maybe I am too weird to be around people…