Live From the Pit.

"You with the sad eyes
Don't be discouraged
Oh I realize
It's hard to take courage
In a world full of people
You can lose sight of it all
And the darkness inside you
Can make you feel so small"

-Cindi Lauper

If anyone is reading this, it's not going to be butterflies and rainbows.. so if that's what you're looking for be forewarned

I am very depressed. I have been since infancy, I wasn't actually diagnosed with depression until my early adult-life and when I was, I was both ashamed and relieved... I remember going to my roommate and just weeping, "I am broken" I kept saying.. "there is something wrong with me"

I write about myself a lot.. deep stuff, if you read my blog, you would have one of the most accurate graspings and understandings of who I am as a person, but I have come to realize there are very few if any people who actually have an interest to know me or understand me on any level and in that way I am writing these blog posts in vain. (except for you Lois, you may be the only person alive that really cares about who I am on the inside)

If anyone is reading this...ever... publish these after my death... Maybe then someone will take interest... 

I think overall the biggest bane of my existence is loneliness.. I was an only child, wired for friendship, for deep meaningful relationships, and all I have received apart from negligence and bullying in my youth are surface level relationships that don't dare to dig in. 

I had some really really good deep relationships in my later college years, the ones where we would stay up all hours of the night and just listen to and communicate with one another, we would pick each other apart, striving to understand each other on every level, we built a foundation for strong connections, meaningful, intentional relationships... but the creek of life tore us apart as it does. 

As an adult, it's hard to make these connections I crave in my spirit. My only interactions are with my husband and children, and my co-workers, whom I feel just really just seem to tolerate me.

I have anxiety, I don't function the best in high-stress environments, I get overwhelmed and over stimulated.. I am also a diagnosed HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) [It's a thing, look it up] and if you care at all about getting to know me and understand me you will see the root of why I am the way I am instead of taking me at the surface level.. But that goes for anyone doesn't it?? unfortately the former is all my co-workers may see at times.

You really can't judge books by their covers, or by passing interactions, you need to go deeper, because I think at the root of everything, people just all desire to be known, and understood, and I am no different.

I made a comment to a co-worker the other week about how I admired her relationships with the other people we work with, how they have built strong connections...etc... I divulged that I felt people just tolerated me and her constructive response was to tell me that I was off putting.. in the work environment I could be a little snappy.

This is true, but is not intentional.

I explained to her later that I have social anxiety and I don't handle stress well.. so if too much is going on I begin to shut down.. my brain kinda snaps.. It's something I am working on, and my new job is definitely an adjustment.

fortunately she understood since she deals with similar things... but still It got me thinking about how slim a chance it was that I would acquire any meaningful relationships in my current season... because I am not sure there is anyone that will really take the time to listen and understand me (below the surface) before Judging and assessing who I am... (at the surface)

it's been very disheartening and I have been struggling with it a lot...

I haven't worked in 4 years. I got this job at Starbucks mid December and it's fast-paced, and full of people, something my personality type ENFP strives for and desires, but something my anxious spirit is still not quite used to.. like I said I am still adjusting, and I think in time my brain will acclimate and I will function better in the given environment, but until then I just pray for grace and understanding from all around me in this new season...

I went to Michigan to see my pen pal of 13 years and celebrate her baby shower this past week and I think the time away gave me a new fresh perspective on me and my life.

there's something about traveling alone that really hones in on the self-assessment.. maybe it's new places, new people, no distractions of routine or things you're comfortable with.. going out of your comfort zone really makes you see yourself in a fresh new light...

I went to a new place, with new people, I saw how they lived, I gained a new appreciation for things in my life, and I really started to think about myself as a person and my goals for life....

While there, I introduced a couple people to the Myers-Briggs Personality test... and since last night I started to realize that my common score ENFP may not be as strong as it used to be... which is kinda earth shaking if you think about it (Is that even an expression?) Here I was thinking I was one thing.. for so long, thinking I had myself figured out and then I go and take the exam and realize that my percentages are waining and I am on the cusp of a couple other personalities...

let me elaborate because that's pretty vague and I am pretty sure my rhetoric and grammar right now are atrocious but I am not writing to please anyone but to self-therapize

I realized and learned recently that I may not be as extroverted as I once was, I attribute that to growing up, becoming more confident in who I am and needing less and less to be the center of attention... I was a strong ENFP in my youth and young adult-life, I strived to be center stage, adored by many, It all stems from my childhood where I was bullied a lot and was actually very lonely... I also made some terrible friends in my youth that made me more insecure and more needy for real companionship and with these hardships I grew to overcompensate for lost friendships... I needed to be loved by many, I would do anything and in time I have constructed myself into a walking doormat. I give and I give and I hope for love and affection in return, but what I get is not what I put out...

An ex-friend once told me after we parted ways that she thought I was materialistic and superficial, she felt I tried too hard to buy her affections with gifts, and acts I deemed selfless but that I had ulterior motive...

the truth is, I am a very selfless person, I will give someone the shirt off my back and turn around and give someone else the skin off my back and so on and so forth until I am just bones in the wind. 

People learn this about me early on and whether they mean to or not they do end up taking advantage of my generosity.

I give a lot.. even when I have nothing to give, and to be honest I don't get a lot in return...

but inside that's what I desire... that's not my ulterior motive necessarily but wouldn't every healthy relationship be healthy give and take??? Is it too selfish to desire affection and appreciation when you love so much and so broadly?

 it's like that analogy of being a cup of water, and constantly pouring into other's cups so that they are not empty, but in doing so you become empty yourself and there's nobody to pour anything back into you, and so you're just there.. this empty vessel, with an undying longing to be filled up... to be noticed.

The strongest emotion I experience daily, the one that sends me soaring into the pit of despair is Loneliness.. Ultimately I am just really really really lonely and I don't have anything to fill that void.

i can pray to God but He won't hug me, I can pray He brings great people into my life, but maybe He already did, and they did their part and they're gone now?? Life changes a lot and I have seasons that are great and seasons that are low and everything in between is frankly just miserable... I am not really sure how to put it..

I hate the question "what do you want?"

I never have a solid answer to that question, My husband sees me in my brokenness, in my anguish and he asks me that question, and I wish I could tell him how to fix me, because I know that's what he wants to do, he wants to fix what's broken in me, and I want to be fixed... but I am human, like everyone and we are all broken, and broken things can't make other broken things whole without becoming more broken themselves.

The only thing that can fix the broken pieces of you, is the one who made you and that is God. Jesus is Whole, and He can make me whole, but I don't know when or how, and when to be satisfied.. I don't know how to seek my joy in him, I don't have it all figured out and I don't pretend to.

right now I think I just need to feel desired, to feel cherished, to feel loved, to feel appreciated, to feel joy, to feel peace, to feel satisfied, I want someone to pursue me, I want someone to be captivated by me, I want meaningful relationships of equal give and take, that reach below the surface and we can heal each other mutually.

But that doesn't exist. I have learned.

and so here I am knee deep in snotty tissues from crying over my loneliness for the last hour and all I have to show for it is this pity whore blog that will just seem to most as a call for attention... when in fact this is just how it is with me right now. take me or leave me, I am not here to be anything other than who I am...

Brokenness and all.

So back to the extroverted THING... I have discovered that in order to survive as an adult I have had to acclimate and become more of an ambivert. My current season is spent with mostly just my husband and my kids, so anything that branches out from that (although comfortable for me since I love people) is also gradually more draining than it was in my Youth... I have become socialized to be comfortable with smaller groups and so larger groups now feel different than they did before...

I noticed I don't need to be in the center of a room full of people if it's more practical to be on the side with someone I already know really well, I however love to mingle and will graze the room and all it's people at one time or another but again my ultimate goal is not to be the center of everyone's attention... but in the event that I was I would still be comfortable in that scenario as well...

I have been analyzing my journey to ambivert-ness for awhile.

 My husband is on the far introverted side of the spectrum and I used to be on the far extroverted side of the spectrum but I think as we came together as a couple we have both merged to make for a social consistency... however I still go out and he stays home when we need to divulge in our introverted or extroverted-ness.. (him the former, me the latter)

But Ultimately in everything I think I am trying to figure out what it means for me to be less of who I was before... I was a STRONG ENFP... and now I falter a little from that from time to time and I am trying not to wrap my whole identity around this one philosophy but also to try to understand what that means for me and all of my time I spend with self-analysis.. which is a lot quite frankly... if you can't tell or if you haven't read my billions of blogs filled with self-musings.

I am beginning to wonder if I feel like if I could understand myself really really well then I will have it all figured out, relationships, this world, everyone and everything, our ultimate purpose, my ultimate purpose, why I was put here on this planet, why I fought to be here (I was a sperm that overcame a condom and contraception) I wish I could just be complacent in not knowing, and have peace in knowing that God knows His plans for me, and that, that would suffice... but let's get real... who is ever satisfied and not divulging themselves in infinite wonder?

blah blah blah many more words...

I think I have successfully wrote myself in circles.. I don't really have a starting or an ending point and there's definitely not an "In conclusion" to this post.. I really just needed to put down my struggles and my thought pattern before something inside of me explodes.

and I am done.

it is done.

BYE.