I'm a loner, Dottie... A rebel...

So, here's the thing about me... I have a lot of great qualities, but I also have a lot of bad ones too. I'm not the kind of person who denies when I'm the problem, in fact sometimes I'm all too eager to take the blame for things and beat myself up over it. I am not blind to my faults. I'm very familiar with them. I take a lot of time to sit alone with them... and ask myself why I do the things that I do... and how I can fix them or be better. Sometimes the answer and the solutions seem all too easy... but most times, for me, they are not.

Over the years I have learned quite a lot about myself. In my 35 years of life I have picked up a lot of good habits and knowledge from valuable life lessons. But, through the years, whether it be through heredity, conditioning, abuse, or circumstance... I've picked up my fair share of demons too. It's normal, we all do. All of us battle our own custom designed demons, every single day. The demon I want to mention today is... my loner mentality.

In school I was very social, but very sensitive and empathetic. My troubles were very few and far between back then, but I still had my dark and angsty moments. I spent countless hours in my room with the lights out, candles lit, music blasting, laying in my bed and staring at the ceiling. I was always both light and joy, and darkness and pain, I just didn't understand it back then...

Now I'm an adult. I'm a mom. A single one at that. My troubles are vast, my stresses immense, my time... limited. My work hours are nuts. I sleep at work on an air mattress every other day in between my shifts. I've been running on about 4 hours of sleep for the last 10 years. There is no balance or harmony. You make do with the time you have. I'm tired, I'm worn out, and constantly running on empty.

My lack of sleep and wonky work hours are just one of the many reasons I keep to myself. I have no time to do anything. I barely have time for myself, let alone other people. I try to spend as much time with my girls as I can, when I'm not working. My boyfriend works the same schedule, and often times we're on opposite shifts. So I don't always see him... but we make the most of the time we have together, when we are able to sync up. I'm always behind. Always playing catch up and trying to stay on top of everything. It's physically and mentally draining.

Now, lets consider my job itself. It consists of talking to people all day long. Some are decent, most are not. I am pushed to my limit on patience multiple times a day. I'm yelled at, called names, argued with, lied to... you name it, I'm dealing with it. By the time I get home... I've had my fill of people. I don't want to deal with my own problems, because I've just spent the last 8 hours dealing with everyone else's. I shut down. I don't like to talk on the phone, I don't like to text. I want to come home, I want to have the house calm and quiet, so I can deescalate from my day. When I tell you I shut down... I mean, I shut down HARD. Most of the time, I am home after a double back and haven't been home for 24 hours. I've barely slept... and I need to close my eyes for a few minutes. Luckily, my girls are grown now and very used to my schedule and understand the situation. They work on homework, have a snack, read, and watch tv for a bit, while I take some time to heal... basically. I am very open and honest with them, so they understand what my days consist of and how I just need a little bit of peace to feel better. Some days, I'm fine. Some days, mom needs a pause before we ask for a million things or horse around, or I make dinner and prep for tomorrows misery.

I've touched on my empathy in previous posts, and it still comes into play with my loner tendencies as well. It is like I'm a vacuum cleaner with a broken off switch. I am sucking in what everyone around me has going on in them, always. I am affected by all the people I come in contact with. Ups/Downs all day long. You think I'm stressed out with my job? So is everyone else I work with. And here's Layney... sucking in and feeling what everyone else around me is going through too. Because you know, my anxiety isn't through the roof already by just walking around in this world like the giant weirdo I am, let me take on your stress and anxiety too. I'm drained. I need peace, I need quiet, I need to recharge. I am worthless to everyone around me, if I don't take care of myself when I get like that. You cannot pour from an empty cup. I also get very irritable and short when I haven't had a second to ground myself and find some peace. So, it's in everyone's best interest if you STFU and let me get right with the universe for a second. Haha.

I've also come to the realization that I have ADHD. It causes issues in basically all aspects of my life, but for the sake of this post... I'll try to narrow it down to just my loner ways. I want to do things how I want to do things. I get something set in my head and spend a lot of time thinking and planning and working on it. Often times people come in and after 2 minutes of thinking on it, want to tell me how I should be doing something that I've just spent days/weeks/months/years thinking on. Then I shut down. I get frustrated and just stop. I don't want help, because you have not been in my brain and it's too time consuming and frustrating to try to explain it to you. Understand... it's a struggle in itself just to get everything lined up in order for me to actually put a plan into physical motion. So when the stars finally align and I am able to sync my mind and body up to accomplish a goal... this is going to derail my train. And I'll most likely fall into a funk or depression. So, no... I don't want your help. If I actually allow you to help, #1: that's extremely rare and hard for me to do because I don't like to be an inconvenience to anyone. #2: I am used to doing everything alone and on my own, as a long term single mother. No one is going to save me. If something needs done, I am the only one here to make that shit happen. #3: (I'll reiterate this again.) IF I allow you to help me... you need to help me how I am asking you to help me. If I want your help on one thing, don't decide you don't want to help with that thing... but rather springboard into helping me with something I never asked for help with Nor do I want your help with at all. When you do this, it results in nothing but panic and frustration with me. I will make a point to never ask you for help again. And fall deeper and deeper into my loner tendencies. The weight on my shoulders becomes crushing... but its easier to just take it on myself then ask for help and have the added stress and frustration.

Still on the topic of my ADHD... I live in my head about 60-70% of the time. I like it there. Things are how they should or could be in there. It's chaos, but it's my chaos. Any chance I get, that I'm not working or being a mom... I'm in my head. I'm dreaming up ideas, goals and things to go after. I know it doesn't look like I'm up to much, sitting/laying around zoning off into a wall or ceiling... but trust me when I say I am extremely busy. I'm running marathons. I'm running circles around one of your single thoughts. I cannot tell you, the amount of notebooks I have with ideas scribbled in them. (For example: I could have been rich off the Rock Band game. I had that scribble in one of my books years before it was a thing. I have a lot of things like that... but I have ADHD.) Most everything lives in my head... because I tend to get in my own way. The lag time between an idea and it coming into fruition... is quite lengthy or nonexistent.

Same thing goes for communication. My last relationship... well, my "marriage" anyways, was with a narcissist. He was quite literally the worst person I have had the displeasure of knowing. Often times, I did not have a voice. It was mostly him shouting at me and me saving my breath. The times I would try to voice my feelings or thoughts on something, they either fell on deaf ears, or they were twisted and turned around on me. Nothing was ever him, it was always me. It was always an attempt to make me feel small, stupid, ridiculous, irrational or crazy. Small men do that. Small men with insecurities that they are terrified to face head on. Deflect, deflect, deflect! The point of this... rant, I guess you could call it, is that I started internalizing everything. But... to be honest, I always internalized everything. I grew up as a very sensitive and emotional kid. Complicated, deep, unpopular thoughts. Passionate and creative. Head in the clouds. Who I was and how I was... was not encouraged. If I tried to talk about anything that moved me... it was scoffed over. I was made to feel like an annoyance or disappointment. So, I learned to keep it to myself. Think what ever you want... but don't write anything down... and don't talk about it. No one cares. 35 years of that.

My marriage just more aggressively and abusively shoved my feelings and thoughts deeper down, so I can't even begin to understand how to bring them to the surface. That's the truth of it. I have always been a loner. I've had close friends over the years, with kind souls who have allowed me to be me... with no judgement. And I have a boyfriend now... who is so supportive and wants to hear what I am feeling and thinking. It wasn't until him, that I realized how incapable I am of talking about anything of meaning. It's a mix of my conditioning... and my ADHD. I can't talk to you about what I'm feeling or thinking... I can only feel it. I can think about it, and I often do... but the connection from within myself to my lips. It's severely severed. Part of this is due to how my brain works. Most people think in a straight line, chronologically, I do not. My thoughts jump around. Its squiggles and endless jumping swirls in my mind. It works for me, because I've always been this way and I understand myself. On the rare occasions I work hard to get a thought out... it frustrates people. They don't track, and keep pulling me back. I explain and continue... then I get stopped and pulled back... again and again. Then I get frustrated. I've forgotten where I was going, and I just throw in the towel. It's easier to just let the other person express themselves, so I can take that information, internalize it, think on it, and adjust on my end as best as I can. It's nice having someone want to hear what you're thinking and feeling... until you try to tell them and you are made to feel like you are wrong or broken. How you think and communicate is wrong. I know that is not the intention... but that's how you feel. Internalization and working through things on your own, is the only thing that ever seems to work.

I have found over the years, writing is my best way of communicating with people. No one interrupts me, no one pulls me back. If I start to jump around, I can try to put it in order later. There is no pressure to say something, right now. Pressure makes my brain shut down. I can't think or focus. I get anxious and my brain just goes numb and switches off. Here, I can pause, sort my thoughts, and accurately express the things I feel so deeply within. I'm a writer. And accurately depicting a thought or feeling is extremely important to me. My voice fails me... always. This is the closest I get. So, thanks for listening. As you can probably understand by now... it means a lot.

So, I am a bit of a loner. I don't do it on purpose, so please never take offense. I am a walking enigma. I've always been very THIS, while also being very THAT. A walking contradiction. Ying/Yang. Light and Darkness. I am a very empathetic person who typically wants to connect (and does whether I want to or not) to everyone around me, on a very deep and personal level. I want to, but it gets very heavy and I need to run away after a while. Sometimes I get very sick and overwhelmed over it. I am also and extravert with introvert tendencies. I am very fun and quick witted. I love having a good time and laughing with everyone... but then I need to be alone and reset. Anxiety and empathy cause imbalances and I can go from having a great time to feeling sick and overwhelmed with the snap of your fingers. I will start to feel like people are focusing on me too much and get really sick. This may be partly due to insecurities, I guess, or anticipating the future and my picking up that too many people are looking at me and feeling what they are (or might be) thinking about me. I don't like it. It's too much and I get overwhelmed. I like to be a part of things... but still be able to duck out, without anyone noticing. I like fresh air and open spaces. I don't like to sit in corners or on the inside seats, where I can't escape. I don't want to feel trapped. I don't like people standing behind me or too close. I can take high stress calls all day long and be fine, but if you have one too many people (or too much energy or internal struggles) in the room with me... I freak out on the inside. Sometimes I'm fine... then sometimes for no freaking reason... panic attack... must leave... NOW! So, sometimes my loner tendencies are to avoid that happening.

I have little tricks I use to make myself feel calmer to avoid that happening. I like the lights off, makes it easier to hide, makes the room less intense and more cooler feeling. I run a fan sometimes to get air movement, so it feels like I'm outside and free. I play music, so I can focus my mind on that during anxiety or overthinking flare ups. I always have something to do. If I get anxious and have no projects to work on, I will pull my phone out and just scroll. I can't focus on anything in those moments, so I have no idea what I'm looking at. I'm just scrolling and focusing my breathing. And other times when I can't shake it, I get up and leave. Sometimes I just walk around, other times I go in a room by myself to have a quiet moment to retrain my brain on how to breathe and try to convince/reassure myself that I'm okay. Other (more severe) times, I have to go outside and get some air. One time I got so worked up, that I had to walk out of work to get some air and puked in the parking lot. It's really fun and not at all embarrassing.

So, I tend to be more loner like, and disengage from conversations... to avoid this reaction. Once I freak out like this, I don't want to come back. I'm too embarrassed. Its hard to calm down, knowing as soon as I do, I'll have to return somewhere that people were just like "WTFing me." It's like being trapped in a gas chamber with no mask, everyone else seems to have a mask and aren't affected, but sadly you are and you can't fucking breathe! You're basically dying, so you run out gasping for air. Then have to talk yourself into going back into the chamber for more. I don't want to. It's a horrible feeling that I wouldn't wish on anyone. It's just so much easier (and feels safer) to be alone.

To all my loners, my ADHDers, my empaths, my anxious or depressed friends. I see you. I feel you. Keep trucking. My ultimate goal, is to build a life of peace, calm and joy. To live a life where I don't ever feel trapped, I always feel free and I have all the paper I need to properly express all the painful and wonderful things I have going on inside.

All my love!

Layney Lethal