The big theory behind depression/anxiety/mood swings/et al is that we isolate ourselves therefore we lack social interaction and thus it makes us feel the way we do.
Well,I went to the July 4th shindig at R’s and my mental health doesn’t feel any better. If anything it feels worse. Because I have a weak psyche and being around other people just illuminates the fact that I do not belong anywhere, and people aren’t all that shy about pointing it out to me.
BUT I did manage to the hardest part for myself, which is the initial approach when people are already there and you have to arrive and have all eyes on you. That part is always a mega bucket of suck. Though now that I have a kid as a buffer, perhaps it is less sucky. Or my distorted thinking just tells me that people focus on the adorable kid instead of the uncomfortable mom. And I was uncomfortable, for half the people I didn’t know. Plus, it’s just never going to stop being awkward hanging out with my ex bf and his current wife. I should be totally at ease with that sort of weirdness, considering my family get togethers include my dad and the woman he left my mom for and their teenage son. It just never ceases to be odd, even if it does become the norm. With R, I just can’t shake the feeling that I have REJECT written on my forehead. I am aware this is purely psychological but it won’t go away.
I survived. Eventually even started to have a little fun. Oh, well, not fun. I mean, I was in suburban hell, after all. Surrounded by R’s owners and minions and their love of classic rock music from the 70′s which in my book has NO balls. And the “band” performance was almost comical with R oversinging because he drank too much. It was all around awkward. But honestly, no one mistreated me specifically so I should have no complaint.
Yet…
I do, I just won’t mention them. Though I will mention how I went into the shop per R’s request on a holiday, with my kid in tow due to sitter stuff, and when he asked me to go get lunch, his son in law who was there said, “You’re going to feed them supper, y0u don’t have to buy them lunch too.”
UM, what??? I was asked to come to the shop. I was invited to the cookout. I even asked if I could bring anything and was told no. SOOO this whole statement he made really pissed me off because it was, without being blunt, basically saying I am using R to buy me and my kid stuff. Or am I just being too sensitive?
I doubt it.
But in spite of the oddness and discomfort, I went and survived and my kid had fun. I just don’t feel any better. The whole time I was there all I could think was, I could be home on the internet or watching The Killing…Because that is more fun to me than hanging out with a bunch of late 40′s early 50′s types drinking too much and trying to be rock stars. I’m sorry if it sounds mean but it is true. And perhaps therein lies my biggest problem. I am busy trying to be what I am SUPPOSED to be and it makes me miserable whereas just being who I am makes me content and happy.
I just have so much concern for my kid and I want her to learn the social skills I don’t have. So basically I torture myself on her behalf and I wonder if it’s “sucking it up” or punishing myself. Because there was no fun in hanging out with Ursula, his eldest, who swatted her 15 month old on the butt four times while we were there. There was no fun with Ursula’s drunken friend telling me I am slow and “How do you hang out with this bunch if you’re so slow?” There was no fun being excluded from the “lady festivities” in which not one of the women could even speak to me but instead horded up inside making mixed drinks and purposely excluding me.
(Though the last one could easily be my fault since I have never been one of the hen fest crowd and don’t exactly break my neck to become part of it.)
It was just weird.
I’d rather have been home watching The Killing.
I am just a wallflower homebody I guess.
It just annoys me that I do what I am “supposed” to do to feel better mentally…Yet it leaves me feeling more hollow inside. Maybe some of us are more content with selective isolation. Why must we conform and meet the status quo when it just makes us miserable?
Ok, done with the venting. I have to be at the shop at 8am because R has a(nother) funeral to attend.
I am just emotionally drained.
Socialization sucks.
If that makes me anti social, so be it.
