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An Open Apology
10 years ago
If someone treated me the way that I treat my friends and watchers, I would be mad at them. I have a tendency to leave messages unanswered for months (or for forever) when it should just take a couple of minutes to respond. I also haven’t updated my galleries for well over a year even though I have new stuff to post.
These habits cause me a lot of shame and embarrassment. Unanswered messages make me look cold, a stagnant gallery makes me look lazy.
It’s hard to explain why I do this. I seem to have some weird, OCD-like tendencies when it comes to online activity. For example, I feel like I can’t post new stuff if I don’t have it all properly sorted in chronological order and if I don’t have all my messages answered and my inboxes cleared (Guess what? They never are).
There’s also some social anxiety at play here. For most people with social anxiety issues, the internet is the one way they can communicate with others comfortably. That’s not true for me. I go through periods where I just avoid all social media because it provokes a lot of discomfort. If anything, speaking to people face-to-face is EASIER because I have the advantage of body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice to convey and interpret meaning. If you take that all away and just communicate through text, I feel like I have to word things EXTREMELY carefully to avoid misinterpretation. It’s all too easy to shove messages aside and say “I’ll respond to those later when I’m in a better frame of mind,” then forget about them because that better frame of mind never comes.
If you feel I’ve given you the cold shoulder, please don’t take it personally. But if you say “To hell with it” and walk away, I’d understand. You wouldn’t be the first.
In the future, I’m going to try to make sure that I take no longer than a week to respond to messages, and go no longer than two months without posting something. If I can’t keep up that level of activity, then I really have no business being on this site at all.
These habits cause me a lot of shame and embarrassment. Unanswered messages make me look cold, a stagnant gallery makes me look lazy.
It’s hard to explain why I do this. I seem to have some weird, OCD-like tendencies when it comes to online activity. For example, I feel like I can’t post new stuff if I don’t have it all properly sorted in chronological order and if I don’t have all my messages answered and my inboxes cleared (Guess what? They never are).
There’s also some social anxiety at play here. For most people with social anxiety issues, the internet is the one way they can communicate with others comfortably. That’s not true for me. I go through periods where I just avoid all social media because it provokes a lot of discomfort. If anything, speaking to people face-to-face is EASIER because I have the advantage of body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice to convey and interpret meaning. If you take that all away and just communicate through text, I feel like I have to word things EXTREMELY carefully to avoid misinterpretation. It’s all too easy to shove messages aside and say “I’ll respond to those later when I’m in a better frame of mind,” then forget about them because that better frame of mind never comes.
If you feel I’ve given you the cold shoulder, please don’t take it personally. But if you say “To hell with it” and walk away, I’d understand. You wouldn’t be the first.
In the future, I’m going to try to make sure that I take no longer than a week to respond to messages, and go no longer than two months without posting something. If I can’t keep up that level of activity, then I really have no business being on this site at all.
What's worse is I'm terribly hypocritical about that sort of thing. I'll often take forever, but if someone takes more than a few days to respond to ME, I'll wonder what's wrong.
With me, I am so social at times and with some people that they don't see how bad my anxiety is. IT wasn't so bad but its getting to be a fine vintage nowadays. I am what you call a social anti-social, or a social butterfly wall moth. It's hard to grok.
I worry about not replying to comments or note-pals, because I often reply in my head then forget to actually reply. Making me seem forgetful when I wasn't really forgetting.
I feel terrible when I have commissions from multiple people and I work seamless on my lists in rotations so it appears I am jumping someone when its just how I manage my day of work or posting. I worry too much because they usually don't care. =.=
I've always been very social. I always made friends well. I always became the leader of groups, and was much cooler to other people than I recalled from my own anxiety blocking my vision. I can blend into other groups pretty well.
I am cripplingly depressed but people can't tell at all unless I have a break down (which only happened in retail jobs with asshole managers or with partners that I trusted enough to show it to on a particularly rough day). The thing is when a group of people walk by and someone laughs, I assume its me they are laughing at because in the past it was lol. Or when I am in a group with people and feel like a sore thumb, I feel like an air balloon of a thumb because I always did stick out in one way or another. Constantly feel judged, and I can't ignore it, and so its also paranoia I guess. Also I am sure some narcissistic quality to it as well since I used to get treated badly for being attractive, like I couldn't be a nerd too. Eventually it all just turned into anxiety I guess.
It sucks to be at cons with that because I can't even sit in the drawing/chatting areas because its too hard so I end up standing around or drawing in a corner, looking at people and being really lonely. If people talk to me, I don't recoil and hiss or melt, I just amble on socially. *shrug* I really need to get it fixed.
Instead of getting better or worse, it seems like the sources of my anxiety gradually shift around. Some things I used to struggle with aren't as big of a deal now, while things that used to be no big deal for me are increasingly difficult.
That's interesting how it shifts. I guess you gotta work with the flow.
You're stuck with me for the foreseeable future though ;D Can't leave my lovely 'kidna all by herself <3
~
(And thank you. )