Not Explaining Myself to Others

Well. I became aware of a facet of one of my personal habits that I wasn’t aware of before. Sound confusing? Yeah. It’s like being so used to behaving a certain way in certain situations and not realizing my own behavior caused a disconnect between me and whoever I was communicating with.

Firstly I would like to state that my insecurities with communicating verbally started when I was very young for many reasons. My reactions in how I would respond to someone verbally would vary depending on the situation I was in. In some of the situations I find myself in today, I still feel the urge to react nonverbally out of habit or out of discomfort because I either haven’t formulated a reply yet or I don’t feel comfortable verbalizing my response. Other factors can play a part in why I chose to react by being nonverbal.

In both situations I am discussing in this post, the common thread is that I didn’t explain myself well to the people I was communicating with.

Situation #1 took place two days ago. I was preparing to go out to the mall with my parents. As I went to get my coat from the closet, I suddenly remembered that I had left it downstairs in the boiler room overnight to let it dry after it got wet from rain. Since it wasn’t that cold that day, I decided to look for one of my lighter coats rather than fetching the one I originally wanted.

My mom, who was also at the closet, reminded me that my coat was downstairs. Obviously I heard her although I didn’t respond verbally. In my mind, yes, her words registered within me but since I already knew where my coat was, it was like getting a second copy of the same information that I set aside. It didn’t even enter my head that the appropriate thing to do was to tell her, “Yeah, I know, but it’s warmer today so I think I’ll go with a thinner coat.” Partially I was really distracted with searching for my other coat, but it was also as if I exited the conversation without being aware I was expected to be part of the conversation. It’s awful but my default for when I’m both distracted and someone is trying to talk to me, I kind of tune the person out. I hear him/her, yet I’m not altogether there verbally and it’s almost like I forget that I can talk.

So when she repeated what she said, only this time louder and in a more annoyed tone, it took me a second to rein in my own irritation at her tone before I said, “It’s not that cold today.” In the minutes following this exchange, my goodness… I felt pissed off at how she spoke to me. All I could keep thinking was, What is her problem? because it sure seemed like she was the one being unreasonable for no good reason. Reevaluating the situation after I calmed down, it finally clicked into place. Her perception was that when I didn’t reply to her, I was either not listening to her or deliberately ignoring her advice. Yet in my viewpoint, I believed I hadn’t done anything wrong because I had acknowledged her in my mind. The problem was I didn’t give her any acknowledgment verbally and that’s how the misunderstanding arose. This is the first time I’ve ever caught myself in my own habit, though it’s definitely not the first time I’ve behaved this exact way in past situations and not been aware my non-verbalness was the issue.

Situation #2 took place today. It had more to do with me being non-verbal by omitting information or not even bringing it up because I don’t deem it “important” enough to speak up about. This scenario was also a little different from Situation #1, in that I’ve been aware for a while now about the mechanisms of why I act like this but am reluctantly coming to terms with it now in writing.

The jist of what happened was I got a mild headache in the afternoon. It wasn’t so bad that I needed to get into bed or that I felt nauseous but I was slightly tired and moody because of it. My default for this type of thing is to deal with it on my own, which sounds like a terribly put together plan because it involves just keeping to myself and trying to act normal in front of others although I feel so sh*tty. I also don’t mention to other people about how I am feeling, however, this can also depend on who I’m with. If it’s a trusted friend, maybe. But not usually with my family.

So my dad approached me after dinner about something. I have no idea what it was for but I’m assuming it had to do with his phone since he had it with him. The awful thing about feeling unwell is it can really shift my perception and make me more sensitive to my surroundings drastically, to the point of exaggeration. I wasn’t looking up at the time my dad came to me but I saw out of the corner of my eye that he was walking towards me in a kind of starting and stopping motion. Ever see someone on the street busy on their phone and how he/she takes a few steps and then stops? That’s what he was doing. For that reason alone, I felt irritated and that irritation grew with my own assumption that he was going to ask me to help him when I was so not in the mood for it. When he stopped in front of me and called to me, I said, “What is it?” My tone came out slightly sharper than I intended. He noticed and said something like, “I came to you because I needed your help.” I felt bad so I made a weak attempt at asking what it was about but really I was disinterested. As soon as I said it, I got uncomfortable. He didn’t say anything back and just ended up going back to his phone and walking away.

This is one part of me I still haven’t puzzled out yet. Around my family, I’m very private. There are things to this day I will probably never tell them; whether I am not comfortable having a dialogue with them about certain things or I don’t feel it’s necessary for them to know. Yet something as simple as, “I can’t help you right now, my head hurts and I am so unwell” is a thing I would never say either. I don’t know what it is about admitting that I am NOT okay, particularly to my family, that I dislike. It probably has to do with my intimacy and vulnerability issues. I find myself almost… nauseated by the affection my family has shown me for the times they’ve known I was sick. I feel smothered by their concern and constantly having to verbally update them when they ask how I’m feeling or if I feel better yet. Ugh.