There is nothing going on inside you.
You are closed off.
You show up with an attitude.
You don't encourage people.
You need to speak up.
You don't have anything to say.
What you really mean is.....
You carry an oppression with you.
You need to be yourself.
If you keep those walls up..... people will stop trying with you.
We have to walk on eggshells with you
You really need to let God heal you.
You just need to let us love you.
These are the statements that replayed in my head for days on end. Spoken by folks who I admired, respected, and had confided in. Everything I had intended to convey came across just the opposite. Surely they knew what they were talking about.
My interpretation of these statements was that there was something grossly wrong with me. I was a mess. A disappointment. A failure. A disruption. A broken nothing that was wasting space....and breath. It was my fault that I was stuck, and as long as I remained stuck...I was useless.
The truth was....there was so much going on inside of me that I didn't know how to process it all. I had been through unimaginable crisis in a short amount of time. I felt confused...frustrated...overwhelmed. In the midst of it all I had been hurting...writing...exposing my soul...talking...blogging...bearing my heart...healing....so how was I coming across as empty? Closed off?? The more I tried to explain, the worse it became. So I gave up. Exhausted. Devastated.
I remember the moment... I was sitting in the driver's seat waiting to pull out. I saw the semi-truck coming. The thought to just pull out anyway...It would be so easy. Life insurance would pay if it was an "accident". Life would be better without me around to mess it up. The hitch?? My daughter was sitting in the back seat.
I know it sounds crazy, but these were real thoughts bombarding my overstimulated brain in the midst of an extremely stressful time. I would concentrate. Trying to force myself to focus on what God has to say about me. Trying to drown out the voices that were constantly reminding me of everything that I thought was wrong with me.
Relief came from an unlikely place. A high school classmate had posted a link on her Facebook page to a website that was all about introverts and what makes them tick. After a short quiz, I tested positive. I am positively an introvert! As I read about all of my quirks, I felt like a load was lifted off of my chest. I suddenly made sense to me, and for the first time in a long time...I could breathe.
As I have been coming to terms with my God given personality, I now realize that there isn't anything wrong with me. I have been able to begin forgiving myself for not measuring up to people's expectations of me and focusing more on what God desires for me....which frees me....to be........me.
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