(no subject)
I'm starting to get even more paranoid and less sure about who actually likes me and who just tolerates me to my face. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that there are just very fundamental things about my personality that annoy people or make them dislike me. I'm hyperactive, too talkative, crack jokes too much when I shouldn't, just things that are how I am and I don't know how I can change them when they're almost reflexive to this point. It seems like a lot of my attempts to be friendly, or helpful, or funny, or proactive, or whatever are either rejected and met with annoyance or somehow backfire on me. Three years at Dartmouth and I really don't feel like there's any specific group that I fit in with. There are certain individuals I know like me and I can connect with, but it seems like now I go to every club meeting with this kind of fear. Almost every Jacko and Stand-up meeting I've gone to ends with me starting to feel like I'm not funny at all and should stop trying to be because all of my jokes just annoy or offend people. I am starting to be afraid to even open my mouth for fear of being too loud, but I know I'm not going to stop talking because it's just me.
Today working at Novack I had to keep myself from having a big emotional breakdown in the middle of everything. During a short break I ended up having this e-mail exchange where an attempt by me to be proactive and express interest in a potential activity for one of my student clubs got misconstrued as some attempt to jump over people's heads or circumvent authority, and I just felt amazingly bad because that's not the meaning I wanted to convey at all. And then after that I had to deal with this seemingly endless line of people asking me for things when I had already started convincing myself that I can only give people things they don't want. I cracked at one point, and after handing someone her hot chocolate I just ran to the bathroom and started sobbing as quietly as I could to myself. The sum total of several weeks worth of what I have felt as awkwardness and subtle rejection by people around me just came crashing down on me and I felt like I did not want to be alive. Luckily I pulled myself together long enough to drag my carcass through the rest of the shift, and other people noticed how different from usual I was acting.
I just want to know whether people want me around or not. I don't want to have to play this game of constantly worrying and guessing. I just want to actually feel comfortable for a day or two with the things I like to do, the places I like to go, and the people I like to talk to. I want to feel like I belong and not just skating on the thin ice of other people's acceptance of me. I feel like I just can't be who I naturally am anymore, that life has finally imposed its will on me by convincing me of that. I am doomed to join the mass of bitter, subdued, apathetic people, so I'll be less of a disturbance.
Today working at Novack I had to keep myself from having a big emotional breakdown in the middle of everything. During a short break I ended up having this e-mail exchange where an attempt by me to be proactive and express interest in a potential activity for one of my student clubs got misconstrued as some attempt to jump over people's heads or circumvent authority, and I just felt amazingly bad because that's not the meaning I wanted to convey at all. And then after that I had to deal with this seemingly endless line of people asking me for things when I had already started convincing myself that I can only give people things they don't want. I cracked at one point, and after handing someone her hot chocolate I just ran to the bathroom and started sobbing as quietly as I could to myself. The sum total of several weeks worth of what I have felt as awkwardness and subtle rejection by people around me just came crashing down on me and I felt like I did not want to be alive. Luckily I pulled myself together long enough to drag my carcass through the rest of the shift, and other people noticed how different from usual I was acting.
I just want to know whether people want me around or not. I don't want to have to play this game of constantly worrying and guessing. I just want to actually feel comfortable for a day or two with the things I like to do, the places I like to go, and the people I like to talk to. I want to feel like I belong and not just skating on the thin ice of other people's acceptance of me. I feel like I just can't be who I naturally am anymore, that life has finally imposed its will on me by convincing me of that. I am doomed to join the mass of bitter, subdued, apathetic people, so I'll be less of a disturbance.