Have you noticed as we navigate life, there are questions asked that left you confused as to the intentions behind that question? 

When I was pregnant, I didn’t want a gender reveal. It didn’t matter to me what was cooking up inside me, just that all the ingredients were coming together to form someone unique; everything else will be as it should be.  Every conversation gravitated towards moms telling me that they needed to know.  My focus during pregnancy quickly became about everyone else’s experience that I barely got to share my own. In fact, one mother told me that I must be having a girl because girls take their mom’s beauty… that one aggravated me.

Thanks to my ADHD brain, I would spend too much overthinking about the conversation I would have had with them later, now that I had stewed on it. What I never did, was have that conversation with them.

I would think about every reason why they would choose those comments and I would challenge them in my mind. But in my body, I ended up in discomfort or feeling very unseen. It’s been pointed out to me that I’m heavily affected by justice sensitivity.  Such a new concept to learn at 41 but one that explains so much and explained the exhaustion from it all. When I’ve looked into how to get out of these loops, the main thing is to figure out what’s actually bothering me and deal with that specifically. There’s always a triggered insecurity that’s stopping me from processing fully. While it’s easy to make assumptions about people, it’s easiest to blame others for the discomfort I feel.  

In many ways, I have no problem calling people out or asking someone why they did something when it’s done to other people. But when someone makes a comment to me, I freeze, maybe laugh politely and move on to something else.  I know I move on when I feel excluded. I can tell when someone doesn’t care to involve me and there’s no room for my thoughts.  The freezing up part is harder to explain or understand. Though, at this point, I think it’s due to feeling so largely misunderstood as a child growing up and the consequence to this misunderstanding by punishment from my parents or being torn into by others. 

As a result, the people-pleaser in me takes over, because while I like pushing boundaries with people, I’ve always thought there’s a right time and place for it. Funny that I never thought the right time and place meant when I felt slighted or uncomfortable. 

It’s quite a feeling to see the conditioning of my silence when other people seemingly take advantage of my peace.  Infuriating in many ways, to unpack this as an adult. Like nobody ever taught me to care about myself and in other ways like nobody ever cared about me.  

My extrovert friends and I would joke that we were like the social clowns. We were there to make everyone laugh but the downside is our vulnerabilities get ignored. It frustrated me incredibly when someone would be surprised when I talked about my struggles. I want to jump up and down in everyone’s face and tell them I’m human like you too! Of course I have issues! But I don’t.  At least, I didn’t up until now.  

I’m trying to be more adventurous and push back when someone makes an unsolicited comment by asking them what they meant by that.  Genuinely play dumb and have them spell out their intention.  Either they may see it for what it is, or I’ll learn that I was wrong in my initial assumption. It’s also instilling a new sort of confidence in myself.  One that makes me feel like I belong because I’ve spent far too long thinking there was something wrong with me and thus that nobody cared. I’m doing this unapologetically because I really don’t see an issue asking someone why.

My intention is that that curiosity changes thought patterns hopefully making people more aware when talking.  It’s how I feel connection with people, which I’ve learned is my priority. I’m trying to push myself out of my comfort zone as I get older because its so easy to stay in those confined limits.

This is the adventure I’m on; learning that we don’t all have to think and act the same way, and there’s nothing wrong with that.