A little look inside my head.

So, if you'd rather not know, don't read it. (yes this is a warning that I'm going to actually write some of the things I've been subjected to) But I guess this is sort of an explanation for things. I can't really say this out loud to anyone, and typing is the easiest medium for me to share my feelings. This is going to be a lot of writing. And it's not exactly happy either.

I've realised (not very recently either) that I really need someone to talk to, I mean, to share my problems with. I guess a certain person (or people) reading this might think 'hey! you're welcome to talk to me any time you want - I'll listen! I'm an excellent listener! Why can't you let me be your listener person? Am I not good enough? I'm offended...' etc. Please don't be offended by this, I mean seriously don't. I hadn't finished what I was going to say :) here comes the other side to the problem.

I also realised I can't stop this immense guilt preventing me from telling people what bothers me. When someone listens to problems I have, afterwards I don't feel any better, I usually just feel worse. This is for two reasons:

1) I hate burdening people with my problems, everyone has problems. Who would possibly want more? One side to my guilt is that I wouldn't want anyone to worry about my problems in addition to their own, I couldn't bear to make someone unhappy because they are worried about me.

2) If the problem concerns said person, I could never tell them, unless it got so that it was driving me insane from being constantly on my mind, i.e. if I was on the brink of tears because problem x was troubling me so much. This is because I would feel like telling someone that some part of what they do upset me in some way would in turn upset them, and I can't make anyone feel bad about something. Again with the guilt.

I know what has led me to get into this state. It's been a combination of factors. For years I have been everyone else's agony aunt, and perhaps it should have been the other way around. I know for a fact that some relationships were purely on the basis of 'I offload all my crap onto you Natalie, I feel better for it. It's a win win situation' i.e. in retrospect I have been completely taken advantage of and used, until my use has worn out and I have been simply discarded. This is not an understatement. I can name at least 2 cases where I cannot justify being on amiable terms with someone for any other reason than for the one I just stated.

I can understand that with my family, things have been difficult, least of all for my Mum who yes, looked after us. I can't expect to have been shielded from all the troubles that were going on 'behind the scenes' - I was growing up, I had to get used to the fact that life was not some jolly trip. Perhaps she has serious problems that should have been looked at or something, and I know it's a good thing that parents and children talk through problems.

Talking to her way into the night I have to admit, at the time made me feel closer to her, and made the whole situation feel a little less lonely. I felt good in myself for helping her cope with what she was having to deal with, but after a time when I was the one having to sort out all her problems it got a little wearying. (Think about it - I was only 13) I was the one having to listen to every horrible thing that went wrong in our lives and having to sort it out... at least in the emotional sense. You have no idea the number of sleepless nights I had as a young teenager, worrying about what was going to happen to all of us, if we were going to be alright. When mum insisted she wanted a night out, away from the house I was yelled and screamed at for simply wanting a little bit of security - asking her to stay so that I felt a little safer was out of the question. So instead I used to lie awake, unable to sleep until I heard her come home. Everyone had to be in the house before I could sleep, and until they were I used to lie awake thinking of all the possible, terrible things that could have happened to my mum to make her not be home yet. Most of them involved her drinking too much and... y'know crashing the car. Imagining your parent in that state is enough to keep any young girl awake.

So alright, I listened to her problems and we talked about things. She went out on occasion and that made me worry something bad was going to happen. Doesn't sound too bad does it? But the thing was, if I had a problem, every time I'd try to tell her about it I'd get completely ignored. Rebuffed; none of my problems were as near the scale and magnitude of hers. If I had a problem, she have five, larger ones that she'd immediately go on to tell me about in detail, six times over. I don't exaggerate - I'd be kept up until the wee hours listening and talking through her problems, when all that could have started this might have been 'mum, I didn't have such a good day at school today' - talking about my problems only doomed me to a late night of sorting out hers.

Even when it got too much for me to cope with, and I eventually came to her in floods of tears, desperately needing to talk, or simply to cuddle, I'd get told to 'go to your room and cry it away - you'll see that it's not so big a deal Natalie'.

So if I couldn't go talk to my mum about my problems, why didn't I just go and talk to my friends I hear you say? That's a laugh, I didn't have any friends. I was just that girl who had been set upon by her entire form because her 'best friend' decided to spread some rumour around about her (I never found out what it was, but many others came from it, I'll assure you). When I say that everyone hated me, I wouldn't have been lying. My first year of highschool was perhaps the worst time of my life - I'm sure we have all been in the situation, once or twice where, when asked to form a group in class, you were the one left with nobody to go with. The teacher eventually takes pity and places you with someone, but they won't include you. Imagine that but for an entire year, for every situation. P.E, lunchtimes, breaktimes, on the bus... you name it. I was isolated. I tried to make friends, but once that idea of me had been printed into the whole forms head, I was poison.

I couldn't talk about it to my younger sister because I felt that this time was probably the hardest for her, and being guilt tripped into not sharing my problems with those older or equal in age to myself, I couldn't do that to Blythe.

So, all in all, I had an unhappy time and I had nobody to share it with, and even if there had been a listening ear out there, I wasn't able to share things with them. During Highschool once we weren't setted for classes in forms and more mixed up I made different groups of friends, but, so glad to have people who liked me, I'd do anything for them. I'd help them with anything, listen to all their problems. I couldn't stand up for myself, it might have lost me the precious companionship I had been deprived of.

It was sort of around this time I began getting it into my head that
1) everyone had problems
2) everyone else's problems were greater than my own

But helping people talk through their problems instead of them listening to mine was sort of my anti-drug. It made me put my own problems into perspective, made them seem less terrible and also made me forget about them - bury them somewhere deep to never be spoken of. If I could help people solve their own problems it made my problems go away. I guess Highschool taught me a lot of good lessons in how to make a person feel valued, how to actually listen to someone (there is a proper way to listen to someone), how to talk to someone, and how to value friendships and look after people in general. Those are skills I know I still hold today.

I found this thing a few years ago and it said that there are 5 important things you do in conversation that classifies you as a 'good listener':

1) You use the person's name while speaking to them, it lets someone know that you know who they are and it makes them feel more important and special
2) When someone has said something, ask questions on the subject. It lets the person know you have listened and taken in what they have said. Asking someone to clarify what they have just said is a big yes, because to understand a topic or problem people will do this subconsiously to understand the goal together
3) Look at the person when they are speaking to you, but look away when you yourself are speaking
4) Remembering to ask someone about the problem later on in the day, or the next day makes them feel well... remembered.
5) Repeating what someone has just said in your own words, as a verification also lets them know you were listening.

While I was learning this myself, I also became aware of how few other people actually listened. People are selfish, they only like talking about themselves, and you'll find that conversation does not work if someone only ever talks about themselves. Even if they are the type who 'oh no I can't tell you what's wrong' - most of the time it's attention seeking. They will tell you eventually. You can tell a bad listener by the fact that they will -

1) Use the word 'I' a lot.
2) Cut across what you are saying with something that happened to them, or something irrelivant to the conversation, and anecdote about themselves
3) While you are speaking, if they are not listening they will simply go 'mm.... yes...' in the same tone of voice.

I got that a lot while I was talking to people, so in the end, coupled with everything else I simply stopped sharing my feelings, as I realised there was nobody who truly wanted to know how I felt. These days if someone asks me, I will give them a short answer, even if deep inside I'm bursting to tell them how terrible I feel. 'I'm fine' usually indicates I'm happy, whereas 'yeah, I'm ok I guess' probably means I'm not ok and could you please help me talk about my problems. Though I probably wouldn't be able to because sharing my problems with other people, as I said before, makes me feel guilty.

These days however, I seemed to have reached exhaustion point. Not sharing my problems over so long means I'm finding it really difficult to listen to others - if someone simply starts offloading onto me I'll tune off. I've been taken advantage of too many times now and I feel I just can't do it anymore, I seem to be alright if I know I'm going to get something back when I really need it, or if I'm feeling particually happy I can listen to people. But I feel all my good advice and helpfulness just ... not there anymore. As though it's all been sucked dry.

I guess a good analogy of this came from a book I read a while ago that says that women have a sort of psycological 'caring meter'. It's their capacity to be able to help other people. Basically this it how it works

- People doing things to help said woman fill the meter up. The amount the meter is filled up by is exactly the same no matter how big the help was, so it is better to do lots of little good things than do one big good thing. I.e. opening the door for the woman = 1 point, remembering to say thankyou = 1 point. But also buying the woman a house = 1 point. (you get the idea, I've exaggerated here)

- The woman will always help and care for people to the best of her ability, regardless of how full the meter is. Even if the meter goes into 'negative' - she will still continue to use the (now non-existant) points from the meter. However, if the meter is in negative, the woman will begin to become angry and upset at the people who still ask for her help when they are doing nothing to help her back (in extreme cases she will begin to hate these people) but she will never stop helping them.

But I guess I feel so underappreciated I find it hard to help people at all, I mean I will still do, but I find it very hard to. Comes from being taken for granted too much in the past.

I guess this is just turning into ramble now, but basically the point of this post was to clear up a few of the things that go through my head. So all in all I really, really need someone to understand how important it is to me when I feel appreciated, even just a simple thankyou from people makes me so happy. I also need to feel secure and feel that people aren't going to leave me or get cross with me, or but in, or make me feel guilty because I need to share my feelings and problems. Sharing problems is a hard thing for me to do - it does not come easily like it does to so many other people I notice.

So as you thought perhaps at the beginning ''hey! you're welcome to talk to me any time you want - I'll listen! I'm an excellent listener! Why can't you let me be your listener person?" You can, but just understand it's going to take time and probably a hell of a lot of patience. Though the (person) people who read(s) this (is) are wonderful (<3) (yay for non subtle subtext) and I hope I haven't scared them away by all this rubbish, it's taken me a lot of courage and tissues and time to write this all down at stupid o'clock in the morning. So I hope it's helpful, or at the very least, insightful.

I'm going to go to bed now.