Conclusions I came to…

by Kittyinaz | Apr 6, 2015 | My Thoughts

This past weekend, I spent a lot of time thinking about things.

I talked with two very good friends of mine, listened to what they had to say, and thought about it some more.

Then last night I talked over the issues with my husband.  My best friend, the man I have been dating for 20+ years, and married to for 14 almost 15 years. And his comments were eye opening.

We went through the concerns I had, suggestions I had from my friends, and his thoughts on it.

And can I say the man knows me better than even I knew?

First, he told me he could tell I have been unhappy, and slipping into almost depression.  But he also knows if I didn’t ask him, I would not listen as well to what he had to say.  Plus like he said, we wouldn’t know what works and doesn’t unless I try it.  Second, he told me how I really am, the person he has known all these years, is not the one I present to everyone else.

I admit, with his thoughts on it, I am an introvert.  From an extrovert family.  I have very little knowledge of interactions with others beyond a certain part.  I have been taught that I need to interact with people, and like any human being, I want friends.  The problem?  I don’t know what to do with them, besides what I have been told and taught.  I got spoiled for a couple of years, the friends we have in Tucson accept me completely, my little hang-ups and my in ability to understand some social norms that everyone else just knows.

I rather stay away from people, and life has taught me they are cruel.

The mistake I made, was that while I have no issue standing up for myself, (and Mr. Kittyinaz said an introvert does NOT mean that I don’t have a spine) I thought an introvert wouldn’t be like me. I will stand up for myself and tell people what I want.  Instead it just means I rather be by myself, and not in crowds, I rather deal with people in emails, in writing than on a phone or in social media, not person to person.  Which is odd, because when I worked and needed to tell someone something, I rather do it in person.  Mr. Kittyinaz laughed, and he told me it was so I could see their reaction. For me to be able to stop talking when I think they are not listening.  A learned behavior.  But when left to myself, I rather deal with people in a step away from being present.  Talking on the phone is a particular torture, I have to respond in real time, and cannot see what their bodies and facial expressions are saying.

I am not afraid of confrontation, to the point, that if I see something that bothers me personally I will step up.

But he explained to me what my problem was.  My mom explained it best per Mr. Kittyinaz, when I offered a solution to someone’s problem.  I shocked them and my mom laughed and told them I never realized there was a box to think in.

This is pretty profound, and it describes me exactly.  Hubby pointed out that because I don’t know what the box is, I don’t react or think like others.  I don’t know what is allowed or not, what is acceptable except from learned behavior.  And with me not really being around people until I was in 5th grade, when I was tossed from a school that made no big deal about people being different than others and part of a class of 12, then tossed into a private catholic school in another state and knowing nothing, it messed me up even more.  I learned certain social norms, but I was an outcast.  I was punished for being beat up, and learned that people in responsible positions, positions of authority are not to be believed perfect.  And to fight for myself, since no one else would.

My brother is an extrovert to the nth degree.  My aunts and cousins are all extroverts, and they don’t understand me.  I learned to keep my head down, and say nothing, since my thinking was so far different than theirs, they could not understand it.  It was only until later, when I was being applauded for being different and applying those different thoughts to solutions that no one thought of, that it was seen as something different.  And absence does make the heart fonder on both ends.

So what does this all mean?

It means that there are changes coming, but for the most part, you guys benefit.

My home life is making me depressed.   We looked into maybe medication, beyond the light one I am taking already.  But the bad side to the medications, is while it will dull the unhappiness I feel, it will also dull the happy times.  No thank you.  I often feel like I float through life without major emotions, and I don’t need it to be encouraged.

So my husband told me, when I was happiest, was when I was escaping my reality.  In the past, when I worked, I worked obscene hours.  To escape being home.  I wouldn’t care if I got paid for it, since I got rewarded with not dealing with all the crap around me.  I didn’t have the fact I am different being implied that it was bad. I do this almost automatically and he nixed me volunteering and such until we tried things his way.  Why?  Because I would spend all my free time in doing that, and not as happy as I am usually writing.

When I got sick, was when home and work started blending.  To top it off was when I was sick, there was something wrong physically, and I had no idea what to do.

Then I found fanfiction, and started to write.  Mr. Kittyinaz told me he wanted to cheer with how happy I was. It was the reason he encouraged me to keep on, and when I tried to do new things, he kept on encouraging me, along with our family and friends in Arizona.  And when I came up with the idea of writing a book, he was happier.  He thought that this was what I needed.  I escaped my reality, and was around people who encouraged me to do this.  He told me he thought I was an awesome writer, but he pointed out in the last year, I haven’t had a dinner conversation with him about new ideas.  Not one.  When before I told him everything in the past few years.

And he noticed things were getting worse.  But knowing me, he just waited.

He liked me being around, but was getting more worried with the amount of time I was spending and being around the family, getting depressed.  He didn’t know what was going on, but he listened when I ranted and raved about things going wrong.

He waited.

Then last night when I told him what was going on, he told me what he saw wrong in what I was doing.  I was leaving my escape behind, because that was the solution I was given. I was working too hard.  He shrugged and said to others, it may seem so.  And to a point, they are right.

Then he told me what he has observed about me.  If I don’t think I did enough, I am hard on myself.  I hate being lazy, and while I love reading and just vegging, I am hard on myself when there is stuff for me to be doing.  I loose respect in myself.   Which starts a cycle that the only way to break it is to do what I want. Work.

He pointed out that this past weekend was one that I was happy about, and I played games on my computer.  By myself.

When I told him I was thinking about cutting back the writing contests, he asked me how I feel when I am hosting them.  What stressed me out, and what didn’t.  And then told me to set down some rules.  Like banners are made by me with my characters used.  If after the contest, the people wish to have them changed, they can ask.  Also to give myself (and 4Padfoot!) extra time to go through the entries, read them and then make the banners.  I like to give until the 15th for the voting part, he said to relax and make it not hard on myself and give me 5-7 days to get the entries out.  As long as the contest ends at the same time, it is no different to anyone.  The same on the opposite day.  Let me have the time to add the names of the authors and what place they are.   But he told the other side of it, was that I was happy seeing the reviews and helping other out.  Me being happy was the main point, I just need to eliminate the parts that made it harder.  I can do that.

The other part, was that right now, it really sucks editing.  But I was trying something new, and seeing if it would be better to write it all out and then edit.  I am able to say no.  It sucks.  So he came up with a way that was a middle line.  Work on the stories as they flow, then go back and edit when I am hitting a spot where I am getting to where I would switch stories.  That way when I came back to the story, it was a clean slate.  I just write on it.  This will head back to the older way of doing stuff, but as he pointed out, I often write a bunch of chapters at once.  It may make posting erratic, but he recommended for everyone, to keep to schedule I had come up with.  If I skip a week, there was no chapter.  It appeals to my inner OCD.

Again, his point was that I need to do things that made me happy.

But he did agree that I worked too hard, and his middle ground was that the weekends are his.  Not mine, but his.  He will be planning things to do, since he too needs to get out.  Instead of always taking grandma shopping on Fridays, to maybe go visit the zoo and other things.  We have a fence, and we need to go out with the dogs to watch them from running under the house and free.  We also throw the ball and play with them.  To keep that up.  And even when he has nothing to do, then I can play games.

To keep going to the gym.

To go through my Facebook and eliminate people who are not close to me.  I will be posting something as me, for people to reply to for me to keep them.  Otherwise I am deleting them.  Family I have to keep… but everyone else should be cause they want to be friends with me.  To know me.  If you want stuff about FanFiction, like my Kittyinaz Page or join my group.

To stop trying so hard with people I think are friends to be other than myself.  To explain to them how I am truly, and leave it to them to decide if they want to remain friends.  To stop giving into others, trying to make them happy so they will remain friends to me.  He pointed out that it adds to the stress.  If people want me to be less stressed, then they need to accept me as I am.

To say the conversation with him last night was an eye opening experience is to compare Eric to Bill.   No comparison.

He hit the nail so many times it was kinda scary, but it made me feel better.  The one person who I am married to actually really gets me.  He told the real reasons he wants me to write, is because it makes me happy.  Life is too short to spend it being miserable.  I get to sit here do what I love with my dog at my feet.  I get to make pretty things, and had an eye opening experience with a photographer I met this weekend and when they looked over my site and what I do with Photoshop.  I thought I was still a baby and didn’t do anything that awesome.  Their response had me reeling.  A complete stranger telling me that she has been in classes for years, and not able to even know half of what I do is possible.   Take a clear day picture and add weather?  What a concept.. (not to me, but according to her, she never thought about it that way…)

My husband had a lot to say on that.  I am hard on myself.  I have had to live up to impossible expectations, on things that were complete opposites of what I am for so long, that I accept that I will fail.  I was told that accepting praise for something that I find easy is very wrong.  I should always work for praise.

Yeah, he had ALOT to say about that one.  But he did tell me that if nothing else, this time with me around my family, taught him a lot of why I am the way I am.  Why it took me years to open up to him and his family.  And then seeing the growth from me being accepted for being myself.  How everyone comments in both good and bad ways how I am different, I stand up for myself a lot now.  And he reminded me that I need to regain that assurance.

It sounds so contradictory to myself, but as he pointed out specific events, I realized that was what I have been doing.  Backing down to keep people I like around, scared of putting myself forward.  Which is opposite of what I am.  But I took some hard knocks recently, and started second guessing myself again.  And as they kept coming, he pointed out the more time I stepped away from my escape, the worse I felt and got.

I guess it was revenge for all those times I said I was right, and really was.  He had to get one huge shot in.  But he told me he would be good for awhile, as long as I listened.

*snicker*

So, I wanted to write this, to let you guys know what is going on.

I am going to be writing but I am still planning to finish the database stopping everything to work on it on the 15th.  Then I will finish up any editing, and then work on my novel.  Now that I know the real reason, I am going to prove him right in believing in me, and doing what he can to deal with me.  I love the man.  But sometimes I think he needs to talk more and less teasing.  It was something he promises to work on, as long as I remind him as he will be reminding me to keep up on this stuff.

I will be missing Fridays – Sundays.  Sometimes Monday, depending on what happened on the weekends if I need time to rest from spending time in crowds.

I will try to apply the same rules I do to betas to myself, but to respect myself as well.  This is my escape, and I need it to function without being depressed.  Take control of my life, and see who wants to be a part of it now.

And mostly, try to make less drama.

He also pointed out that my two friends were very right when they said I need to learn to say no.  Not only on here, but also in my private life.  He understands the issues there, and will be helping me.  Agreeing to just keep people liking me is very stressful on it’s own.

I will be hosting the You Want Blood awards after my novel is done, for Crossovers.  If anyone wants to help, let me know.  I am planning on no one helping, and know that the first time is a doozy.  The crossovers have to have a Vampire fic as one of the crossovers officially.  And while I know Twilight very well, as well as the TB/SVM ones, I am not familiar with the TVD, Vampire academy and so on as well.  While they don’t have to be about the vampires themselves, unless the category said it did, I figure we should honor the whole You Want Blood name.

Mr. Kittyinaz approves this as he said I was extremely excited with this idea.  There are not enough awards for crossovers.  Not them by themselves.  There is the Non-Canon Awards, and I think mine.  Other than that, they often get grouped in with the other contests.

So the lesson I learned?  Listen to the hubs, and stop thinking I am normal.  Everyone is unique, I understand that for everyone else, I just need to apply that to myself.  Just be patient while I unlearn some bad habits.

Sounds so easy to tell to others, but to actually do it?  Not so easy.  Forgive me when I mess up.