theonewhotinkers-blog

[theonewhotinkers-blog]

It’s ok to be angry. It’s never ok to be cruel.

There comes a point when you look at yourself internally - your thoughts, the cause of those thoughts, if anyone is thinking the same, and if those thoughts, intentions, desires, and rages, are felt by everyone else, or if you are simply, to everyone else, a wolf in sheep's clothing, without the clothing.

The problem, often, is that we can't know what someone else is thinking without asking them - and this must not be done ever, according to social standard, and the desire to not seem too personal or interrogating - so we're stuck with our own opinions of other people's opinions - and that's never good. Y'see, whilst we may have something about our selves that we're proud of; it's what other people consider it to be that defines the shape of that 'proud'. Except it doesn't. For the most part; we want to fit in - with the right kinds of people - but fit in nonetheless. This is fine. It's good to want friends, and want people to like you, so that you can have people to discuss things with, build bonds with, and share things with - it's natural and evolutionary - it's safer in the wild to be in a group.

People don't need to express any feeling or emotion, or even have to be looking at us, for us to start imagining what they think of us, and why they do. That's a small part of 'anxiety'. "They're not even looking at me, so why should I presume that they think I look stupid at the moment? Perhaps they're not looking at you because they don't want to be seen to be supporting someone that looks at stupid as you - they still think you look stupid - they're just hiding it". That's where it starts. The seed that grows - and many of us are littered with seeds, some bearing full-grown trees, labelled with names of disorders, that grew from that one seed of doubt, and now the weight of which can be felt every day.

It's important to understand what your own motivations are - and that's something I struggle with. I often find that I think about stopping whatever I'm doing because someone's watching, or even because whatever I'm doing is making a strange noise, and I'm scared that someone might hear it from around a corner and presume it was me that made said noise. After years of this I've finally been able to ask myself in those situations "why do you care?". Something very simple, but hard. I fell to a point in my life where most of my 'friends' had been proven not to be quite that - abandoning me when I needed them most, shunning me when I was trying to help, and even aiding people in hurting me just to try to avoid standing out in a crowd. Once my circle of friends had been narrowed down, and I was done being upset, moving to rage instead; I decided that this was enough friends. From now on I no longer care if what I'm doing or saying will cause people to not be my friend, because I have a group of friends that is small, but worth a thousand times any other humans on the planet to me. I realised that I had enough. That is to say; I have enough people that care about me, I have enough people I can trust, and that trust me, and that it wasn't fair of me not to be spending my energy and effort on them, but spending it on trying to keep the general public happy with me.

I became blunt. Saying what I meant, and providing no glossy cover or sugar-coating to my words. I decided that whilst I'm at it; I would focus on never lying. Some may think that's hard to do - but when you're no longer interested in making new friends, and you understand that 'not lying' doesn't automatically mean telling someone every secret you've ever held, or even answering questions people freely fire at you from the gun filled with the facades they try and uphold whilst you walk freely in the breeze without that mask to make you sweat; it soon becomes an easy habit.

Recently I've been thinking about all of the things I'm 'ok' with, and some of them I considered not ok to be 'ok' with - even taking more than one psychological personality test - spoiler: I'm not a psychopath - though I may be a 'high functioning depressive', and I'm definitely introverted - to make sure that this wasn't something I needed to involve a doctor in.

Being angry is fine. Feeling the complete tightness of rage build up, and feeling like it's going to explode - and wanting it to explode - is fine. It's what you do with that rage that matters. Writing an angry letter doesn't really cut it from me when I'm completely over the edge. I don't think I've ever written an angry letter before, come to think of it - or perhaps even a letter, more than once. What I do is pace back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, yelling at the top of my voice - in my head - yelling and screaming, and yes; sometimes a tear or two will fall as I'm doing this, but it all stems, I think, from my walking everywhere I need to go to. Because I've spent most of my life walking from place to place to get there, aided by public transport when needed; I've become accustomed to the duet of walking and thinking. I know someone that simply goes to the bathroom and cries. I know someone that goes outside and yells. Being angry is boringly normal - but what's not normal, and should be, and is quite a talent to say the least, is being able to drain that rage without affecting anyone else - and it's usually whatever makes you feel most relaxed. Yes; crying isn't very relaxing - but the moment after, after all of the tears have stopped, you feel that huge breath of relief. It's the same with shouting as loud as you can, though I prefer to internalise the screaming.

The fact is: you're normal. Not always boring, but people are focusing on themselves, their friends, and what they're doing - not you. You're not in their 'world' at the moment - and that's ok. That's fantastic! You be you, and be you really well, because if you have even one friend that you can rely on; why care about anyone's opinion but theirs?