A friend tweeted a link to something, and one of the items felt like it would be applicable to my situation if it was modified. Unfortunately, just sharing the modified item by itself would almost certainly make people feel guilty and would also appear ungrateful toward the many people who have helped me.
I think it makes more sense to share it using a medium where I can include all the extra explanation I feel I have to.
Before I include the actual item, I want to write that I’ve had almost no one actually express this to me. It’s more like what I assume has to be going through their minds. I’ve been told multiple times that I’m “over-thinking” things. I’m sure that’s happening, but I don’t feel like I have any choice.
I know it must seem like I’m being stubborn… that I’m simply choosing not to speak to people. That’s completely not true, though. Speaking to people just doesn’t work for me right now.
I’m convinced now that the problem is with real-time interaction much more than with my speech. It’s like there’s a copy of me that’s constantly asking me things like, “What are you going to say next, huh?”, “Don’t you know all the things he could be doing in those huge time gaps you leave?”, and “You realize you used to be quite good at this, right?” Except, take that and multiply it by roughly 1,000. In effect, I can’t think of things to say/write, because I’m so busy being mad at myself for doing such a bad job thinking of things to say/write. 😉 As I’ve written many times before, “Chicken, meet egg. You two are going to be great friends.”
My original point? Oh yeah. 🙂 It was to write the modified version of that quote. Here’s “my version”:
- I can’t help it. I can’t always just “be happy.”
For a person (like me) who has always depended upon his ability to break things down into words that anyone in his “audience” can understand, this has been quite frustrating. If I simply slow down and pre-prepare something, it works much better. I think I give the impression that my wreck has affected my intellect much more deeply than it actually has.
edited Saturday, June 13, 2015 @ about 9:25 AM
When I went back and read that last paragraph again this morning, it didn’t make any sense, so I modified it so it expressed what I originally intended. That’s another thing I’m dealing with: I used to be religious about proofreading things before I made them available for other people to see. I think a big part of what has changed is that I’m so much slower now, that I feel pressure to “show results” without being nearly so careful. That’s a big thing that I think has made me appear “less than I am”.
2 replies on “Too long for a tweet”
I think you explained that quite well. I’ve had a near-death experience of my own and have often considered how fortunate I am not only to have survived it, but also that the ongoing issues I deal with as a result are largely physical. Meaning, as someone (like you) always known for my intellect, I think it’s much easier to deal with being perceived as less “pretty” than it would be to be perceived as less “smart.”
I have pretty significant scarring, but I could care less if anyone sees it, comments about it, or feels sorry for me about it. But when something triggers the PTSD, and I’m not able to hide it, that affects others’ perception of my intellect (at least in my mind), and THAT drives me nuts.
Hang in there.
K> Thank you for sharing this. It reminds me of the main reason I always had for web logging: the responses that always seemed to “come out of the woodwork”. 🙂
I agree with your assertion that for an intellectual person, physical after-effects are much easier to deal with (although, my lingering physical effects have been fairly minor). I completely relate to this comment (though I’ve never considered myself to be much to look at, so that helps):