I have no idea if any of my posts lately are making sense, or if I sound like a babbling rambling fool. I need to write and get things out of my head though so I hope that I am not being too terribly off. I am in a massive information consumption, and book-reading loop. This morning I have been on a Psychology Today reading kick. I am fairly certain that I am reading obsessively to help calm my anxieties about going to my aunt’s house today. I do not “feel” all that anxious, but my mind is acting otherwise. She has put out a facebook invite to any and everyone so I have no idea how many people will be there. I do not know many of them, except family. I also have the lingering anticipation about the kid’s anxieties.

I have not told Daniel yet.

It seemed to be a better route not to tell him about this yet. I tried to in the beginning of the week, and he shutdown for a while then, came full force with a ton of questions. As well as almost tears, hitting his head with his hands and then, playing drums on everything in the house. Tap, tap, thump, thump, rad-a-tat, rad-a-tat, all over the place. The one question he repeated for several hours was, “Why? Why do we have to go? Why, is it there? Why are there people going? Why does the car shake? Why does the road go up? Why? Why? Why?” He was getting himself so upset that finally I told him that we were not going and not to worry about it. He would not have been able to function the rest of the week. I felt horrible because I wanted to prepare him ahead of time and discuss it with him. He was just unable to do so this week so I will do it about an hour before hand.

There are times when it is better to wait and tell him.

There are other times when I must prepare him ahead of time months in advance. It all depends on how he is responding, feeling, and determining what he is able to process at the moment. He has too much anxiety about getting in the car right now. The anticipation of thinking about it, worrying about it, fearing things like getting carsick again, would have been too much for him. There was no way to make him feel better about it. I do have a plan to help with today, and I am hoping it works. If not he may have to stay home with Daddy because Ariel and Joshua are excited about going – though they are having their own anxieties.

Ariel has been sharing much more about her social thoughts.

She talked to me about how people look at her funny sometimes when we are out and she does not understand why. I explored that in much more detail. I will not go in depth with it though. It was a great opportunity to explain to her that we never know what people are thinking. We may be reading people wrong when they look at us and there are many reasons as to why a person may be looking at us oddly. Such as we look familiar, they like something about us, they want to talk to us but do not know how, or they want to ask us a question, they like our clothes, there could be anything! I realized that everything I was telling her was positive. I had explained to her that in that type of situation it does not always mean a bad thing.

I then, thought to myself, “I need to listen to my own words!”

She explained to me as well that she feels more comfortable talking to people who are in business, or she knows what they do. The more we talked I discovered that she gets anxious about meeting new people because she does not know anything about them and does not know how to, or what to talk to them about. Oh, gosh! Me too! She wants all of the information about people beforehand so she knows what to talk about. That is exactly what I do. This is the reason I look up people and try to get to know things about them before I interact with them.

I cannot do chitchat very well.

At some point, I get annoyed and shutdown, or walk away because it makes my brain feel fuzzy and confused. My purpose in talking to people is mutual information sharing. I like to learn things in a conversation. Whether it is details about their work, their ways of thinking, or their lifestyle. I need concrete information and I can sit with a person who is willing to answer all of my questions for hours. When I am talking to them I am connecting so many other sources of information swimming around in my brain, and I add that information to the conversation. I do not talk to people just to talk. If I am going to invest my time in a person, I want it to be worth it.

If I invest any amount of time in a person, it means I want to.

If I see that, they are not giving me mutual information exchange I tend to walk away, or stop talking. I see no point in it. I can be silly, and say frivolous things at times. However, at some point I need to see that the person and I have something of substance to talk about otherwise I cannot keep up the conversation in the physical or in the virtual. I go back to my word productive. It needs to be producing something. I like talking and reading about people who produce thoughts in my mind, and keeps me connecting and wondering about all kinds of things. Ariel is like that too, I have watched her walk away from conversations when she does not get to contribute thoughts, or does not understand the point.

We all do this at home as well, but we are just as goofy as we are serious.

I think I just tapped into my anxiety. I have several different things making me anxious. I am anxious about Daniel’s response to the car, his response to being around a whole bunch of people, and how people will respond to him. I believe my other aunt who sent me a ton of letters out of nowhere causing me to spiral into social confusion frenzy, may be there. She is upset (through the family grapevine) that I did not tell her that we were moving here. To be honest, I did not tell anyone except my close aunt, my grandma and then, my dad and step mom about a month before. I did not have time or the emotional ability to get on the phone, or email everyone and tell them that I was coming here.

My thoughts, why would they care anyway they never talk to me?

What does it matter now? I am just going to be myself and try not to let that nonsense get to me. My kids are my focus and my cousin since he will be leaving soon. I still have the underlining anxiety quietly hiding that will manifest itself in other ways. I have to keep that in mind for the kids and me. We all do it even though Joshua has no problems walking into a place and talking to people. He is very social; he still has meltdowns/shutdowns in his own way. As much as he loves it, it still takes a lot out of him. I assume I needed to get this stuff out of my head to help me move forward for the day. I had planned to only share some links and pictures of what the kids have been up to! My head is so full of words. I have a story floating around in there as well. Need-to-get-it-out. Onto my initial quest!

The kids have been watching Lego engineers on Lego.com Creator.

Joshua is very animate about becoming a Lego Engineer when he grows up. Ariel has added that to her many occupations she plans on doing. Daniel however, well he wants to fly. No, not in a plane or helicopter, he wants to grow wings and fly. He asks me, “Why can’t I have wings like a bird?” at least one time at some point in the day. Who knows, maybe he will one day. They have been on Lego Universe for days as well. Not all day long, but off and on. They have been creating all kinds of things. Ariel has struggled in the past trying to be imaginative with Lego’s. She has always wanted to be able to create things the way that Joshua does. He thinks of something and the next thing you know he was created an entire movie scene and is playing out the story line that is in his head. She can do this with painting and drawing, or writing stories and poetry. She was so excited to discover that she could create things in her head too with Lego’s.

She needed visual instructions for Lego’s though!

I did not pick up on this, until after watching her create some things the other day. She had been watching the Lego designers give step-by-step instructions for building. It all finally clicked for her and then, once she started creating things she had to give me step-by-step instructions on how she build what she created. I have pictures of her doing this with her lamppost. She was very detailed and serious while giving me the instructions. Joshua and Daniel happily played with their Lego creations not desiring to instruct me on anything. They just wanted to play, while Ariel felt it necessary that she share with me how she did it.

Awesome! My kid’s rock!

I cannot help it I have to say it, I love how different they are and how each of them share. It makes me so happy. I better get busy and prepare for the day. I just realized going through this post that I am scripting in my head for social conversations today. How funny, I am telling myself what types of people to speak to and what types not to by reminding myself why I have conversations. Writing this stuff out reminded me that chitchat conversations confuse me, and peoples faces confuse me. I get anxious after-the-fact because I do not understand what, or why they were making a facial expression at me, said something that seemed odd to me, or are responding in a way that I do not understand. I had no idea why I was writing all of that stuff out. Preparation is the name of the game! I am always two-steps behind my brain, and two-steps ahead of my mind. Lol!

Reads others may be interested in also. 

Toxic Relationships in Eating Disorder Recovery

Overcoming Resistance in Binge Eating Disorder Treatment

Treating Mid-Life Eating Disorders

Myths of Forgiveness

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