Tuesday – Surface Tension
Oct. 2nd, 2007 03:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work, I was thinking about how my personality has too much surface tension, like water bulging just over the rim of a vessel that doesn't quite spill out. Most of the time, I am poised to flow into the world around me, but only if someone touches me and allows me to move.
This strange trait of mine is best demonstrated by the sentiments my classmates wrote about me in my high school year book. Flipping through the pages, you would think they were talking about two different girls.
Half of them wrote things like, "To a very outgoing and funny girl. Stay just the way you are and you'll go far!" But I haven't gone far; I haven't gone anywhere at all, because of the other girl in my yearbook, the one to whom people wrote, "To a very sweet and shy girl." After that brief description, they just signed their names. They couldn't write anything else, because they didn't really know me. They were politely signing yearbooks being passed around the classroom, and mine just happened to pass under their pens.
Which girl was the real me? Both, depending on whether they touched me and allowed me to flow into their space, or ignored me and left me trapped inside of the cup of my own solitude. I am still both, twenty years later. I tend to live inside of my own head, but it's not because I like it in here. I live in here because I can't escape from without assistance. There are no doorknobs, no latches, and no handles in here. All of the surfaces are as smooth as glass. My personality can only be opened from the outside, by someone walking by who goes out of their way to interact with me.
The people who do break my surface tension don't believe me when I say that I'm shy.
"You? Shy? Yeah, right." Once my tension is broken, once I begin to flow, it's easy to forget how still and quiet I was before you said hello to me and brought me to life. Once the tension is gone, I am blunt, funny, outspoken, and – as far as anyone can see – normal, if a bit quirky. Because of this extraverted illusion I create, people assume I must have a busy social calendar. They have no idea that when they leave the room, I cease to exist in the real world.
I spent years of my life expecting to wake up one day and be normal, to be the brassy, smart-mouthed girl that first group of people thought would go so far. One day, I would be able to fulfill all the potential that people claimed they saw in me. I would be the great success they said I could be. One day, I would wake up and be free to start a life outside of my head.
But along the way, there were signs that I didn't know how to read, and no one, least of all me, seemed to know where they were pointing.
There were signs in my childhood. There was the school counselor at my elementary school who spent my 6th and 7th year trying to figure out if I was abused at home, because all of her books said that that was the only reason a child would be as timid as I was (I wasn't; my parents were very loving and more than a little resentful of the implications this woman made). There was psychologist I saw as a teenager who wanted to know why I had not phoned her the night I felt self destructive, instead of waiting until my appointment 5 days later to bring it up (it never occurred to me to use the phone; I answer, but don't initiate phone calls).
There were signs in my young adulthood. There was the time in college that my cousin told that her friends had noticed me and always wandered why I seemed to be by myself (this was my first clue that other people weren't always by themselves, too). There was the professor who found me frozen outside of her office door, 10 minutes late for an appointment because, though I'd shown up on time, I was too paralyzed to knock. "There is something wrong with you," she said with exasperation when I explained that I had been there all that time, my face inches from her door, as still and as silent as a statue, "You should get help." As if help were something a person who never initiates conversations can just ask for. As if I would know how to articulate what I needed help with. How do you say, "Please break my surface tension, because I seem to have too much of it?"
The signs followed me into my life as adult. I was surprised at the age of 32 when a supervisor wrote me up for, among other things, failing to make eye contact. He took this as a sign of hostility. Before this, I never knew that I didn't make eye contact. Having been told, I now try to, but it is an unnatural thing for me. To imagine what it's like, try walking around with your tongue sticking out for day. You may be able to keep it up for a little while, but within a short time you will forget, because it is such a strange thing for you to do. That is what eye contact is like for me. Still, it seems that people read a lot into it, and whether you make it or not. For all my brutal honesty, this makes me look dishonest to people who speak a different body language than my own. But, despite the signs, I never knew my language was different.
Then, a few years ago, I heard that a cousin's child had been diagnosed with an Autistic Spectrum disorder, and when I looked it up a lot of my puzzle pieces fit nicely into the descriptions. Asperger's syndrome? If so, my case is mild, for under the right circumstances I can pass for normal for long periods of time. Pervasive developmental disorder - not otherwise specified, (a.k.a. PDD-NOS)? I like that one, because like so much about me, it is open to interpretation. Whatever it is, I the signs all pointed in this general direction. This information was a bombshell for me; these were answers to questions I had never asked, and they pointed to another answer I didn't want. The question I have asked since I was a child was, When will I wake up and be normal? Now I knew.
The answer is Never.
This is what I am. I am chronically, clinically, cognitively a little bit different. This is why I can observe people and describe them so well when I write; for no matter who or what I write about, I have the vantage point of an outsider. I take nothing for granted, and accept people as I find them, because this is how outsiders learn about the world around them. It affords me the detachment to see things clearly, even when I am writing about things that are poignant and personal.
Some people have asked me why I don't write for publication, and here is my answer: I can't get past my surface tension. I work in an office doing things I can do with only half my brain and making money I could make with half my education, because what I do is not a reflection of myself, and it caries no risks. I appear to be very good at what I do for a living, because a monkey could do it. My job has nothing to do with me, it is just a means to a paycheck.
To write, on the other hand, is to pour myself onto the page, into a story or an observation, and writing has everything to do with me. When someone rejects what you write, it is always personal. Always, that is, except for this one medium I have chosen.
Here, in the vast emptiness of cyberspace where none of you have faces, I do not have to worry about making eye contact and I can publish under an unpronounceable pseudonym, anonymous and invisible. I can do this from inside my head. Seeking real publication, in a non-transitory medium, would be stepping outside of these safe but claustrophobic confines that I live in.
This small world of mine is the only home I've ever known In order for me to leave it, someone would have to touch me and break my surface tension, but that is a lot to ask of another human being. So for now, I am frozen outside of the portal to the outside world, as still and silent as a statue, sliding these notes of mine under your door.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
This strange trait of mine is best demonstrated by the sentiments my classmates wrote about me in my high school year book. Flipping through the pages, you would think they were talking about two different girls.
Half of them wrote things like, "To a very outgoing and funny girl. Stay just the way you are and you'll go far!" But I haven't gone far; I haven't gone anywhere at all, because of the other girl in my yearbook, the one to whom people wrote, "To a very sweet and shy girl." After that brief description, they just signed their names. They couldn't write anything else, because they didn't really know me. They were politely signing yearbooks being passed around the classroom, and mine just happened to pass under their pens.
Which girl was the real me? Both, depending on whether they touched me and allowed me to flow into their space, or ignored me and left me trapped inside of the cup of my own solitude. I am still both, twenty years later. I tend to live inside of my own head, but it's not because I like it in here. I live in here because I can't escape from without assistance. There are no doorknobs, no latches, and no handles in here. All of the surfaces are as smooth as glass. My personality can only be opened from the outside, by someone walking by who goes out of their way to interact with me.
The people who do break my surface tension don't believe me when I say that I'm shy.
"You? Shy? Yeah, right." Once my tension is broken, once I begin to flow, it's easy to forget how still and quiet I was before you said hello to me and brought me to life. Once the tension is gone, I am blunt, funny, outspoken, and – as far as anyone can see – normal, if a bit quirky. Because of this extraverted illusion I create, people assume I must have a busy social calendar. They have no idea that when they leave the room, I cease to exist in the real world.
I spent years of my life expecting to wake up one day and be normal, to be the brassy, smart-mouthed girl that first group of people thought would go so far. One day, I would be able to fulfill all the potential that people claimed they saw in me. I would be the great success they said I could be. One day, I would wake up and be free to start a life outside of my head.
But along the way, there were signs that I didn't know how to read, and no one, least of all me, seemed to know where they were pointing.
There were signs in my childhood. There was the school counselor at my elementary school who spent my 6th and 7th year trying to figure out if I was abused at home, because all of her books said that that was the only reason a child would be as timid as I was (I wasn't; my parents were very loving and more than a little resentful of the implications this woman made). There was psychologist I saw as a teenager who wanted to know why I had not phoned her the night I felt self destructive, instead of waiting until my appointment 5 days later to bring it up (it never occurred to me to use the phone; I answer, but don't initiate phone calls).
There were signs in my young adulthood. There was the time in college that my cousin told that her friends had noticed me and always wandered why I seemed to be by myself (this was my first clue that other people weren't always by themselves, too). There was the professor who found me frozen outside of her office door, 10 minutes late for an appointment because, though I'd shown up on time, I was too paralyzed to knock. "There is something wrong with you," she said with exasperation when I explained that I had been there all that time, my face inches from her door, as still and as silent as a statue, "You should get help." As if help were something a person who never initiates conversations can just ask for. As if I would know how to articulate what I needed help with. How do you say, "Please break my surface tension, because I seem to have too much of it?"
The signs followed me into my life as adult. I was surprised at the age of 32 when a supervisor wrote me up for, among other things, failing to make eye contact. He took this as a sign of hostility. Before this, I never knew that I didn't make eye contact. Having been told, I now try to, but it is an unnatural thing for me. To imagine what it's like, try walking around with your tongue sticking out for day. You may be able to keep it up for a little while, but within a short time you will forget, because it is such a strange thing for you to do. That is what eye contact is like for me. Still, it seems that people read a lot into it, and whether you make it or not. For all my brutal honesty, this makes me look dishonest to people who speak a different body language than my own. But, despite the signs, I never knew my language was different.
Then, a few years ago, I heard that a cousin's child had been diagnosed with an Autistic Spectrum disorder, and when I looked it up a lot of my puzzle pieces fit nicely into the descriptions. Asperger's syndrome? If so, my case is mild, for under the right circumstances I can pass for normal for long periods of time. Pervasive developmental disorder - not otherwise specified, (a.k.a. PDD-NOS)? I like that one, because like so much about me, it is open to interpretation. Whatever it is, I the signs all pointed in this general direction. This information was a bombshell for me; these were answers to questions I had never asked, and they pointed to another answer I didn't want. The question I have asked since I was a child was, When will I wake up and be normal? Now I knew.
The answer is Never.
This is what I am. I am chronically, clinically, cognitively a little bit different. This is why I can observe people and describe them so well when I write; for no matter who or what I write about, I have the vantage point of an outsider. I take nothing for granted, and accept people as I find them, because this is how outsiders learn about the world around them. It affords me the detachment to see things clearly, even when I am writing about things that are poignant and personal.
Some people have asked me why I don't write for publication, and here is my answer: I can't get past my surface tension. I work in an office doing things I can do with only half my brain and making money I could make with half my education, because what I do is not a reflection of myself, and it caries no risks. I appear to be very good at what I do for a living, because a monkey could do it. My job has nothing to do with me, it is just a means to a paycheck.
To write, on the other hand, is to pour myself onto the page, into a story or an observation, and writing has everything to do with me. When someone rejects what you write, it is always personal. Always, that is, except for this one medium I have chosen.
Here, in the vast emptiness of cyberspace where none of you have faces, I do not have to worry about making eye contact and I can publish under an unpronounceable pseudonym, anonymous and invisible. I can do this from inside my head. Seeking real publication, in a non-transitory medium, would be stepping outside of these safe but claustrophobic confines that I live in.
This small world of mine is the only home I've ever known In order for me to leave it, someone would have to touch me and break my surface tension, but that is a lot to ask of another human being. So for now, I am frozen outside of the portal to the outside world, as still and silent as a statue, sliding these notes of mine under your door.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 09:57 pm (UTC)Good luck. I've got to go plan a party for 30 people I don't know.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 07:04 pm (UTC)I think a better definition would be, an introvert who becomes an extrovert in safe, familiar surroundings. I've told these doubtful friends that I am a closet introvert, which they take as a joke.
The test says I'm an ISTJ, by the way.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 07:51 pm (UTC)Both profiles have misses as well as hits, though. They talk about being a stickler for the rules, and I'm not really. I have a hard time following rules that don't make sense to me, and feel that stupid rules should be ignored by everyone. Also, while I stick with tried and true processes, that is only until I see their shortcomings and devise a way to improve them. I'm not sure that there is a test that can peg me exactly.
To write
Date: 2007-10-02 10:00 pm (UTC)Re: To write
Date: 2007-10-03 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 04:10 pm (UTC):D
no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 06:55 pm (UTC)Miss Yvette makes you "normal" :)
Date: 2007-10-04 01:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 06:54 pm (UTC)Or, at the very least, stand around looking at each others shoes. It's a start...
no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 01:38 pm (UTC)2. Normal is boring!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 06:17 pm (UTC)In this one way, I am figuratively and socially crippled. I'm not longing to blend in with the masses, just to fit in and move among them.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 04:15 pm (UTC)And now I see that same version of Normal carbon-copied in my daughter EVERY day, and I'm never quite sure if I should be elated... or scared!!! :D
no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-04 01:20 am (UTC)And I realize that we're apples and oranges sometimes... it's just amusing that we came from the same tree. :D
no subject
Date: 2007-10-04 02:09 pm (UTC)