Accepting Help as an Introvert - TOO COSTLY PT II

Follow-up to this post / another example about how introversion makes accepting help too costly.

Or let's say your mom offers to come all the way from one city to drive you all the way to another city for a doctor appointment because she would "do ANYTHING to help". But riding the bus alone even if you get coronavirus for it is more helpful because the COST of your energy being drained for a stressful ride where you have to TALK and LISTEN and FEEL THE ENERGY of another loved one and BE VIGILANT of them getting stressed out and needing reciprocity etc (when you're already a bad passenger and car crash PTSD is triggered by the mere unavoidable sight of brake lights any distance ahead).

Even just having to text back and pretend you're grateful for the offer instead of fatigued by having to read and figure out how to respond to anything unnecessary and fueled by emotional needs is distinctly UNhelpful. It costs too much to accept these offers of "help" that require so much and many types of fuel. I don't know why people cannot appreciate how much easier it is to pick from a limited number of departure times, get on the bus with strangers, put on headphones, and just RIDE. Next bus. RIDE. Ferry. RIDE. Get off. Walk. Walk. Walk. I would rather have those four hours of relative silence and knowing exactly what to do next with drivers who are trained to do what they do where I am only one passenger of many. Than alll of the communication and updates and back and forthing for 24 hours then fucking Jesus Christ how many hours? 6 hours minimum of the travel and how can I thank you enough and now I'm worried about you getting home safely too and do we want to go out to eat together too and all of that bananas.

When you spend time with people, you want it to be high-quality. Not squandered on this stress where you will no doubt snap and, intentionally or not, behave in a manner your mom doesn't like or approve of or that hurts her feelings IT IS TOO MUCH. No fucking thank you!!! All of that energy squandered just stifling the screaming is too costly.

It is a logistical nightmare that ruins even fun shit just making sure everybody pees and poops when and where they need to and feel comfortable. Constant fucking compromise, people "helping" each other out. I have to poop and now you have to pee and oh wait now we have to stand in line for freshening up makeup and now we missed the ferry and have to wait here in the car together for another hour and you won't just let me read you have to talk or listen to your talk radio.

I just want to look over there out the window and not look at anyone else's face for a month. Not have to try to summon up a response designed to be loving from the one billion muscles in the face that if I don't twitch them correctly will break your heart and what's wrong what's wrong are you okay what's wrong. I understand I do that too but I can't give a shit RN please understand. Just leave me alone.

Of course, I am trying to (and I do, naturally, which is part of what makes it such a struggle to just make the healthy decisions and try to respond -- or resist responding -- in a way that reflects love and reduces the suffering for all of us) temper these feelings with empathy for people wanting to know how they can help and just offering anything that comes to mind and is in their power. Your mom knows the journey is hard, and she is not trying to make it harder; she genuinely (thinks she) is attempting to make it easier (even though I've explained this to her multiple times, and when I do she says she understands, but somehow it just must not stick in there and I should not take it personally she is just doing her best and has competing motivations, etc.). We all often forget though how much of a burden COMMUNICATING is. Especially for introverts. Especially when it is unnecessary and fraught with emotions: the need to reassure, to be grateful, to be loving. I don't have any of that right now. I am busy. Please don't drain my fuel tank. Please I am begging you.

It just never feels right to say "the best way you can help us right now is to leave us alone and not bother us and not ask us for attention or communication or responses." Because when you do that, you are telling them: you are bothering me. You are being needy. You are asking for our help when you do that, not actually offering help to us. Unfortunately that is the truth, though. Figuring out how to respond that does not increase the suffering is a dilemma, and extroverts constantly gore you on those horns. Life force just shooting out in blood-red pulses splashing all over everybody. What the fuck are you supposed to? It's like you have no choice but to expend the energy on this job that they forced you to accept when you are already working triple-time trying to just survive and get through the crisis. How is that helpful?

Accepting Help as an Introvert - TOO COSTLY PT I

Introversion often comes across as bitchiness. Being "aloof", a "stuck up snob". When usually it is that we are fucking tired and can't afford the eye contact. This is extra true for femmes with big tits on their chests. Especially if they also have some ASD or other non-neurotypical ways of processing information (like I didn't hear you or know your words were meant for me to put together / was looking at something bright and shiny / am trying to just move my body through a doorway without shoulder-tackling the jam).

It sucks when you are, say, painfully sleep-deprived while, say, trying to help your loved one through a health crisis exacerbated by them being even MORE sleep-deprived than you are, and extroverts offer to help or advise you to seek help from "a friend", but the help would cost more energy (leaving you even more exhausted and fatigued) than it is worth.

Let's say you have a sleep deficit of 35. I don't actually know what numbers you use to represent a sleep deficit but let's just say 20 is bad 50 is terrible 90 is you're going to die from sleep deprivation). A helping professional asks if you have a friend or someone you trust nearby that could give you a place to sleep if it is impossible to sleep in your one-room apartment with your loved one who *definitely* cannot sleep & will keep you awake all night with her. But you are introverts so you while you know people and they would probably do their best to help if you asked, you haven't cultivated friendships with other introverts that are that close and familiar where you'd be comfortable and natural and truly wanted in that situation. Because introverts tend to have just one or three close friends. You and your loved one are married to each other, so that's what you've got: comfort and love and closeness of that kind just with each other. So while you could try one of your other friendly contacts, the oddness of asking for the place to sleep and explaining the stressful private reasons why you need it and the necessity to interact and also demonstrate gratitude and submission to their (usually extroverted) home & ways and figure out the logistics with that person of getting to and fro (plus the energy and expense of to and fro-ing) actually requires so much energy (that you don't even have) that it would add between an 8 and a 12 to your sleep deficit in exchange for at best a reduction of 6. It's not fucking worth it. It would be more helpful to try to get a nap on a bus or in a public library or on a bench at the train station or in a piss-dripping doorway outside. Nothing against your friends; they are great which is part of why inflicting yourself on them would be extra stressful. You'd just have a better chance of reducing your sleep deficit on a park bench or down on the waterfront while one of the piers is breaking off and sinking and construction goes on all around you than if you have to do phone calls and smiles and all of the stuff.

If I had any room left on my credit cards I would just get a room. Which is why I do not have any room left on my credit cards. Because regardless of mafia-level interest rates, as an introvert it is still far far cheaper to get help from the plastic than negotiate and pay for getting help from friends and loved ones. So that is what I have been doing when I have needed help since I was eighteen. You don't have to tell anyone why or what for, you just slide it or give the security numbers. Much. More. Efficient. Leaves more room for resting and sleep.

It Hurts Me Too

When I bitch, it's not just unpleasant for other people; it is unpleasant for me too. This is especially true when I bitch people out directly -- confrontationally. Especially in real life.

Like yesterday.

I confronted a stranger in a members-only space who was not a member. Part of a group of people who flouted numerous rules (in place to keep members and our assets safe), but she wound up getting the brunt of my frustration.

The stress (felt in my body and mind) and bad feelings I got from it were much worse AFTER I said something than before. You could measure the consequences of those folks actions on me against the consequences of me saying something and it is measurably objectively true that yesterday my bitching hurt me much more than what I was bitching about hurt me (yesterday, anyway; it is unknown what pain I will experience in the future because of my bitching, or may have averted by doing the bitching).

I wasn't a bitch in the classic sense of the term; I did not go on and on in a shrill voice lecturing. I was direct and to the point. I showed absolutely no empathetic or emotional response to her (probably[?] fake ass) apologies and excuses. But still. My heart rate went up, I couldn't concentrate on my work, my hands were shaking. And afterwards -- for many many hours -- I kept returning to thoughts about it. Adding in worries that I had been too harsh. That I should have been kinder. That the member who brought them in was the person I should be confronting, not this young woman who may not even be aware of the guidelines.

When I do these righteous confrontational bitch-ass things, I often think shit like I am not the asshole by saying something, THEY are the assholes for doing the bullshit they did. I am not the asshole for saying words in an unkind-sounding way, THEY are the assholes for behaving in a way that clearly demonstrates they are unkind and don't care about anybody but themselves and are untrustworthy and don't think rules apply to them and clearly don't value me or the space we're sharing or any of the other people who come here. But the truth is we can all be assholes. There can (and usually are) assholes on both sides of a conflict.

If you would just follow the rules that are posted and emailed to us and you agreed to then I wouldn't have to act this way.

Wiser people might point out ... I do not actually *have to* act this way. They didn't force me to react in this manner. I do not actually have to react at all. And I would be happier if I didn't.

More peaceful people would point out that maybe there are not two opposing sides to these conflicts. That we are all part of the same body; if I focus on how I am connected to these people I fearfully perceive myself in conflict with, I can feel we are not on different sides. Being a bitch is always going to cause me more pain.

In hindsight I was able to envision how confusing and hurtful my smackdown may have been to this person so much younger than I am who is doing their best (as we all are; I truly believe that and want that belief to guide my actions more than fear/anger/ego). And since I am more than just an asshole -- I actually do care about people and do not want anyone to experience pain, let alone be the cause of it -- that just led to more suffering for me.

*****
I want to work more on this blog focusing on alternatives and solutions to bitching, healing for assholes and bitches, and tools to work through why we do this. I want to examine and reflect on the efficacy of bitching and ranting, and recognize when it's counterproductive.

Because I didn't start this blog to create a proud poison-slimed barbed rainbow of bitching; I started this blog to try to channel that shit and keep it from infecting how I express myself everywhere else. I started this blog to be less of a bitch, not more of one. Because ultimately I am the one who suffers the most from my habit of being a bitch.

But I Have More Than Fifteen Items!!

 Don't do me any "favors", cashier, inviting me into your express lane when I have a basket full of 59 items. Especially if I tell you ONLY IF YOU DEFEND ME AGAINST ITEM-COUNTERS WHO MAY FOLLOW! Like you better tell them it was YOUR decision to put me in your express line, not mine. I know my place in this world, and I had no intention of expressing myself inappropriately.

Of course she did not say anything to the grumpy old man with his ONE silver-wrapped baggette-length hot sandwich. I know how grumpy your mouth looks under your mask. And I am so fucking sorry. I really am. SHE MADE ME DO IT!