The Fear of Annoying Everyone

I've talked about this some on a previous blog about taking up space. But today it's hitting me harder. I want to preface this by explaining I'm newly on a low carb/high protein diet and I have lost around seven pounds so far. (Yay me!) But I do think it affects my moods as well. I'm on medication for bipolar and I have been pretty stable, but some days, especially since starting the new diet, I find myself feeling out of sorts. So, I guess I blog about it and make it everyone else's problem.

I've been told as a kid, teenager and even an adult that I'm annoying. I know I am weird. I think and say weird things. I dress funny and have a whacko sense of humor. I know, I'm a lot. Many people tell me they love my personality and quirkiness until they have to be around me for any length of time. Then I'm too much.

I realize I can't help this and it's technically other people's issue if they think I'm too much. But it makes it hard after losing friendships or just people avoiding friendship, or losing jobs, opportunities and other things over the years because I'm just kinda nutty. Mind you the medicated me isn't nearly as bad as unmedicated Eric. Unmedicated Eric was like the Incredible Hulk of verbal diarrhea. My wife has told me back when I was unmedicated, I talked so loud and so fast, she would sometimes need a Xanax just to keep from having a panic attack herself.

Now that I work from home, I don't have a lot of real life friends and the ones I see I only see a few times a year. My better friends are online through social media. And while that is great, I worry a lot I annoy or irritate people. I understand not everyone lives online like me, and people have real lives to tend to. But sometimes the past of people telling me to just shut up or how annoying I am creeps into my brain and I just wonder if I should just leave everyone alone and talk to my journal instead.

It sounds kind of silly. It's like there are dueling internal monologues in my brain and I can't shut either of them up. Talk about annoying things. But also in this current society I find people are much quicker to toss someone aside no matter how well they know each other.

I see a lot of people talking about protecting their peace and no one is entitled to access to them. Those are all valid things, but it feels like adult conversations are a thing of the past. When someone does say or do something that bothers a long time friend, the thing now has been to just block and ghost instead of saying "Hi, you said or did this thing that upset me and I would like to talk about it."

Although, I have done that myself with some people I thought were friends and the response I got was "Well fine, I will never joke or talk to you again ever ever ever ever!" and then they block me. So I guess we as a society are just weird as a whole now.

All that aside, it makes me feel like a lot of times I just don't know where to fit in. One person I only know casually on social media but they were a big fan of my art once said that I seem like this great big energy stuffed into human form and just trying to figure out how and where I fit in. I took that as both a great compliment and an apt description.

I sometimes wonder if other people feel this way. As if those around you just tolerate you because you're family or come in handy at times or something. I know I went through some things years ago where I lost a lot of friends, partly due to my own actions but there were some contributing factors as well. And it just really hurt to see people I was friends with in real life for years just turn on me without even talking to me first. I know I've worked through a lot of this stuff, but sometimes that trauma creeps back in with some paranoia that people will do that again. It just goes to show that healing isn't linear and it's an ongoing process even when you think you have moved past it, something triggers it and it rears its ugly head again.

So, today has been one of those days. I just worry in my head that I'm getting on people's nerves. No one did anything to make me feel this, just something I feel like in my own head. I try not to bug other people with it, but it's a frustrating feeling and one I hope goes away soon. If you've ever felt this way, drop a comment if you like. It would be nice to know I'm not the only one who thinks this.

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