normal isn't my first response. If I'm lucky its my second response, but often I don't even realize what I really feel until hours later when I get home.
I hate the word normal. I think it belongs in statistics, or in fields where people say the mean, the baseline, the normal. Even lucky people from non-N families aren't born "normal" if normal means "absence of challenge". Things always happen. Life throws curves. I was thinking that realizing what one feels IS complex when you're taught to stuff your feelings. But I was also thinking that life, and the world, are mysterious and grave and full of innuendo and subtlety as well as lightness. One hour the cheetah is napping, so relaxed she looks like a kitten. Then next, she's running. So if you have to ponder, in order to suss out what your feelings are, that makes you perhaps someone who is engaging life, and its meanings, on a pretty deep level.
That's tiring. But it's also a rich and respectful way to deal with this world. I'd say, add more of what can be simple pleasures to your life, including structured things where interactions are simple too (how deep can one get while rollerskating or reading aloud or volunteering?). Then your level of complexity will settle and accomodate your more balanced life. Maybe rhythmic things in the company of others (heh, that sounded odd) would be helpful.
I then have to deal with others expectations being based on the person they thought they met last time.
In a sense, aren't you taking care of people by worrying about this, in a way? What I mean is, so does everybody. Every single one of us deals with others based on who we project/think/assume they were last time we encountered them. And people go through changes, have belated realizations (some never have many at all). Some people adapt with ease to others' changes, others don't. It's okay that you are a person to whom others sometimes need to adapt. Because you adapt right back with your fine Nsurvivor radar.
Perhaps your worry is based on a false assumption: that we owe others consistency, rather than truthfulness:
Hello, last time we met I was XX. Today I'm kind of YY, so I won't be able to ZZ.
For me, it's a sticky thing to be assuming or mind-reading what others are expecting. Perhaps more people than you know are willing to be present with you too.
I often assume the wrong thing entirely. I notice that a lot of "you think this or that" comes out of my daughter. She's usually leaping off in a direction that has SOME logic, but rarely is it what I happen to be thinking.
Does any of that make sense?
Instead of "normal", Nsurvivors start out anxious, maybe. But in my life, extreme anxiety has mellowed with age. The draining, exhausting hypervigilance has eased. I don't have panic attacks any more. I'm not as afraid of being judged as I was before. (Likewise, I don't judge so much.)
I'm more able to notice another person and like TT said, assume we're together, there's nothing dire going on. They're more likely to be muddling along like I am, missing some stuff, catching some stuff.
Unless they're Ns...I'm happy with just about everybody. It's good to breathe.
I love Quaker meeting. I want to go back. Bet you'd like it too, Sea.
best,
Hops
