Neurotic Owlphabet, part 11.

He borrowed the compact from Manic Pixie Otter.  Obviously an owl would never own a leopard print compact.  That would just be silly.

So different people react to things differently. When I’m upset, I want to be left alone to calm down.  Seriously, trying to get me to talk about it or comfort me will only make it worse, but a little time on my own to calm down and I’ll generally be back to ‘normal’ soon enough.

This seems to be an affront to certain people — one of my biggest ongoing issues with a friend in grad school was that she wants to talk to you and pat you on the back and give you a hug when you’re upset, and I want to go hide in the bathroom and not have anyone fucking touch me.  Those two aims are at odds, obviously.  Also, the time when I have to explain that to people?  Usually the time when I’m already crying, so not really capable of a calm discussion about whyyyyyyyyy I can’t let my friends help me.

It makes me a jerk sometimes too – since I desperately want to be left alone when I’m upset, that tends to be my first impulse when someone else is; that, or the awkward long-arm shoulder pat.  I need to stop trwating others the way I want to be treated, since most people seem to fall into the ‘rally round and hug me’ camp, and it makes it seem like I don’t care.  Just for the record, if you had a terrible life event and then wondered why I didn’t call?  I thought I was giving you space.  I’m sorry.

One last thing — sometimes I burst into tears for stupid reasons.  Sometimes I’ve forgotten to eat, which leads to the chain of bitchy, weepy, feed me or I pass out; sometimes I’m just physically exhausted.  The way I tend to describe it is that when I get too tired my tear ducts get tired too and just decide to let it roll.  I guarantee that, no matter how embarrassing it is for you, it is infinitely worse for me.  Just let me go hide in the bathroom/eat something/sleep, and then let us never speak of it again.  That same grad school friend seemed to think that my not-infrequent weepiness was me wanting attention.  You might think that too.  You would be wrong.