Wallowing

"Darkness surrounds my loneliness.  Pervading my soul, it stirs my silent anguish."  I wrote those melodramatic words feverishly on a scrap of paper at around age 14 (there abouts) as I sobbed in my bedroom.  My favourite past time.  Nothing has changed at age 41. 

It seems at times there's nothing I like better than a good old sooky la la sobbing session.  Not to be confused with  Weepy, Mopey, Why Me?, Melodramatic Melt Down Mode, which I quite enjoy at times too.  Instead of silent tears of despair, this version involves racking, heaving sobs and sometimes howling like a banshee.  Occasionally items are thrown.

Especially when my husband has the audacity to inform me, in the midst of it all, that I should be jumping for joy.  In my defense I'd had a raging headache for 3 weeks straight ( I kid you not) and could not be held accountable for my actions.

Of course I would like to believe that I am just an extremely sensitive individual with deeper emotions than others.   Somebody who feels things intensely.  Instead of just the miserable, pitiful, wallowing, self-indulgent sook I really am.  After all I have a real reason to sook.

All my life I have never fit in with others.  Painfully shy, quiet and introverted, I would rather the ground open up and swallow me into a vortex than to have to answer a direct question or be the centre of attention for even a nano-second.

This probably explains somewhat why, when I heard Carpenters music for the first time at age 11, I was immediately drawn to Karen Carpenter's voice.  Rich, soothing, intimate.  Singing such unspeakably mournful lines like:

"I'll say Goodbye To Love, no one ever cared if I should live or die..."  OR

"Day after day, I must face a world of strangers, where I don't belong, I'm not that strong.."

This was EXACTLY how I felt.  As well as this, naturally:

"What I've got they used to call the blues, nothing is really wrong, feeling like I don't belong..."

In fact, I've never belonged.  In addition to crippling shyness, I am also an Aspie, an affectionate term for a person with Asperger's Syndrome.  I was not aware of this fact until age 40, just last year.  However, I've always been acutely aware that I am different from others.   Others love socialising for hours.   Others don't  love blissfully rocking backwards and forwards to Carpenters music for hours.  Instead they would possibly be more tempted to open a vein if they had to listen for even a second!

Sometimes it's hard and very disconcerting to realise that I am 41 and basically haven't matured beyond age 14.  And that I will always be different to others.  The quietest person in the room, no matter where I go.  In fact, if I had a dollar for everytime I've been informed of how quiet I am, I would be a very rich woman indeed.   It's funny how people think it is their duty to inform you of this, but somehow they never tell overly loud people to just shut the hell up.  But I digress.

Then, on top of all my wallowing, I end up feeling agonisingly guilty for feeling sorry for myself at all.  After all there are many people battling life threatening illnesses ( which I've experienced directly with family members) and I just can't seem to get it together, get over it, get on with it, get a job, or even socialise without feeling like I've been run over by a truck.  But, as Rudy Simone says in her book Aspergirls: Empowering Females With Asperger Syndrome "telling a person with Asperger's to just get on with it is like telling a person in a wheel chair to just take the stairs to get to the second floor" And I'm sure this applies to anyone suffering from depression, Aspie or not.

So I will allow myself to wallow.  A little bit anyway.  To have my frequent 'sook' sessions. I'll put on Karen, allow her to soothe me.  Then I will quietly get on with life the best I can.  As a quiet, shy, Aspergirl who needs a good sook as much as a good book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNGanUj8HHI