I have recently gotten hooked on the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. Although I am not generally interested in vampire stories, I can relate to how Edward and his family feel like outsiders. I have felt like an outsider for most of my life.
Edward and his family try to pretend that they are something that they are not. They are strong enough to lift a car, but they pretend to have the same limitations as the humans around them. They can run faster than the wind, but they walk like humans so that they will fit in.
While I am certainly not that strong or fast, I have an intensity inside of myself that fuels me in ways that make me feel like as much of an anomaly as Edward’s family. I have to work hard to control the intensity because it causes others to raise their eyebrows whenever I show it. A friend of mine recently told me she that thinks people simply assume that my son’s attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) comes from me because we are both so much more “extreme” than others. Of course, his issues are much different than mine, but what we have in common is that we both have an enormous amount of energy inside of us that is always pushing for release.
Sometimes my intensity shows itself through talking very fast. Other times, it shows itself through working tirelessly to complete a project as I take on the work of five people and help others complete their parts. Once people get over the shock of seeing some sort of evidence of my intensity, they appreciate it and want to use it in completing their goals (generally through volunteer work).
As with Bella’s fascination with Edward’s family, people don’t seem to see the downside. I long to spend an hour or two relaxing, but I don’t know how to do that. I spend most of my life channeling my intensity through working, blogging, and volunteering. I need to get it out so I can sleep at night. It is very hard for me to sit back and “unwind,” and I generally need to take some sort of substance (wine, Xanax, etc.) to accomplish that.
It can be hard being an outsider. I feel like the lyrics in the Superman (It’s Not Easy) song. I have been given this gift of having much more energy than those around me, and it wears me out sometimes. People tell me they wish they could accomplish all I do in a day. I wish I could accomplish being still and resting.
Photo credit: Amazon.com
Let me give you some encouragement. You are in the middle of being a Mom, healing, being faithful to your commitment to help other adults abused as children and on and on. All good stuff. Take it from a person who thinks I am somewhat older than you are – there does come a time when you can slow down and rest.
I will admit I was addicted to busyness myself with the same kind of characteristics you describe. I lived to do things well, to be active and productive. What I finally learned was I was deep into avoidance and denial, I could not sit in the stillness for fear of what that would bring up, and it was easier to be busy than to be with myself. That is my truth and perhaps not yours, but when my mind, heart and soul came to the place where all that busy behavior wasn’t working anymore, I stopped.
I still don’t sleep through the night – that is going to be with me my whole life I am pretty sure. But stillness happens and it will for you when you are ready. Take care of yourself.
“Always on the outside of what ever side there was. When you asked him why it had to be that way he answered Just because. Dylan.
I think I would go to therapy just for the nap afterward.
Often is feels like I am in this world I am not of this world.
Michael
oh my, you took those words from my head. Faith I too look at the women around me and wonder how they sit calm and let things go undone. I have tried to stop and take it easy, tried to say no to people but I am my happiest when I am running around like a mad women handling everything for everyone. So why at times do I sit and cry for the stillness I see others complain about.
I just smile at the mom who is mouning about working over an hour today as I have stopped by the school to drop off 150 cupcakes, decorate for a meeting between my day job of 9 hours and my evening job of 4 hours and then back to the house to finish homework for a college class I have tomorrow evening. LOL
I feel exactly the same way. i never have fit in and I dont think i every will. my life has been really really bad, it continues to be and i just fight really really really hard and yet i lose and fight and struggle and fall between the lines and on the outside all anyone sees is a girl, a regular girl. at least that is what i let them see. and i fight to even have a few hours of sleep at night. i could have even a fraction of all i dream. i am just …
I’d like to read that series myself. I read some bio and interviews with Stephanie Meyer which piqued my curiosity about her style.
For me, writing, photography and music have always been my ‘friends’. I never had close relations because I could never trust. I have been a dedicated outsider since my twenties when I began to read ‘outsider’ literature (including lots of existentialist writers). (also see Colin Wilson: “The Outsider”
My inquiring mind and energy didn’t manifest in a physical way. I was always running in life, but I didn’t have a necessity to be moving in the moment. I was always running from being pegged, or getting caught into some scenario where I was a piece of the scenery.
I had energetic bouts all my life that are now diagnosed as ‘hypomania’, which could spread out into years.
For me, being an outsider in a world that is intensely nepotistic and political has given me a unique perspective.
I want to finish my life in a log cabin a little higher up near the glacier where I live, playing music and dreaming – the witch that I am.
Recently I went to the open house at my kids’ school, and I was feeling so much like this. I feel so different from other people. I also feel a lot like other people are living their lives while I feel as if I am merely watching life happen around me. I know that is due to the depression and my dissociative nature, I just wish it wasn’t like that. I wish I could put the issues of my past behind me and heal my life and “go on” and live my life. I just feel trapped inside so much of the time…..
~Secret Shadows
Faith,
I had a boyfriend once who couldn’t relax. He went to a therapist who told him that not everyone relaxes in the same way. Some people uses a technique, whether they know it or not called “active relaxation”, and that may be more your style.
Keeping your hands busy with knitting, sewing or crocheting or something while you watch the vampires might help…?
mia
When all else fails and I can’t seem to slow down…I take out a 1000 or 750 piece puzzel of a picture that I really enjoy. Everyone inside me gets on board for this…I don’t know who they all are yet but it is just a feeling I get inside of everyone giggling. After a little while…maybe an hour at the most..of doing this I just let down and relax inside. I am one of those people that always needs to feel like I am accomplishing something. If I am not doing that I feel worthless and start crashing out and getting down on myself and then racing thoughts will start and then I just feel like I am spinning out of control. So relaxing and watching tv is very hard for me to do unless I have physically worked so hard that day that it hurts to get up. It’s bad I know…I am working on this in therapy. I am extremely hard on myself…almost as tho I am continuing the abuse of my abusers in my head and still beating myself up. This is a tough topic.
Hi Faith,
Wow, can i relate to this. I also feel like im supressing powerful parts of myself. I ‘play myself down’ in order to fit in alot of the time. I dont mean this in an arrogant way, because im not particulary educated or successful. I just feel like theres this powerful energy that i can call upon at anytime should i need it. Maybe its because everything pales in comparison to what i went through as a child.
Hope your ok Faith, Simon. ( A regular poster from last year).
Hi, Simon!
Good to see you! :0)
- Faith