I am wired backwards
I sometimes tend to have the opposite reaction to things than what is normally expected. Here are some examples:
A friend tells me in a crisp voice, “it is 10pm get out of my house,” and I feel warm and loved.
Someone I am dating tells me that he was upset about part of a serious email I sent and I find a smile blooming on my face and I am thrilled.
Another friend who I was hoping would be a close friend tells me that I am draining to him when I am trying to provide energy to him, that I will grab a hold of things and worry them like a pitt bull when I am trying to help and that I push my concept of change being good for people onto others when I am trying to be laid back about these things and the result of these comments, while sad, was a sense of contentment and balance.
On the surface, these things do not look good. Most people would avoid being the one to even say most of these things. I am not someone that likes pain and looks for it. For me, these things mean something very different than what they look like on the surface. The information I am given is so very important that I appreciate what other people would see as negative things. This is what I see for each example.
The friend that is telling me to get out of her house knows that we will talk until the late hours in the morning if given the chance and we both need to sleep. She wants me around to the last possible moment so there is very little time wasted on winding things down. She knows me well enough to know that I can take a quick break off and she trusts me enough to do it. She has taken the role of responsible one so I don’t have to watch the time. All this makes me feel understood, cared about, loved, welcomed and wanted. It provides me a delightfully warm feeling when it happens and I leave with a smile.
The email that the SO found troublesome was a long serious email and I worked hard to not hurt him with anything in it. It seems odd to be so delighted when he said something in there did. But I know that I am not always clear and that I don’t always know how what I say will affect other people. Him saying there was one spot that bothered him meant that everything else was good, I got a chance to be more clear about what I was trying to say, something affected him and he was willing to give me feedback and I got more information about him. Also that he trusted me to talk about this instead of just ignoring it and sweeping it under the carpet. I was delighted with the opportunity it provided and the connection we had.
Being told negative things from someone I really like and admire turned out to be really good. I was so very happy he felt he could tell me these things. I learned that he didn’t have the capacity to handle my energy level so I could adjust where he fit in my life to take care of that instead of always guessing. I got a different perspective on things that are important to me and an opportunity to see that I am not doing things the way I want to do them. The feedback was invaluable to me and has really affected the way I feel about some things. I have a better understanding of how some people react to me and have managed to adjust how I approach things so that people don’t have to be overwhelmed by me and I don’t have to wait and guess at people’s reactions. I got feedback, information and felt a solid connection with this friend. While I am sad that things couldn’t live up to the potential, that potential wasn’t inline with reality and it is so much better to know it now than later. I appreciate him being strong enough to tell me things that would hurt but were true. I felt cared about even when basically being told he was avoiding me for months. The information and perspective he gave me lead to another step of growth I am very pleased about. I may not talk to him much, I will always value the gift he gave me.
This is why I feel I am wired backwards. I get value out of what others see as negative things. People will avoid telling me something negative to either protect me or because they are uncomfortable and actually hurt me in the process by denying me the information I feel I need.
Finding the positive in the negative may be “wired backwards” but it sounds like a useful trait to have.
It isn’t so much finding the positive in the negative, it is actually wanting the negative because that is the only way to get the positive. It is hard to explain to people that I want this level of communication. So it looks like I am wired backwards.
You appreciate communication and have learned to spot shortcuts and avoidance – and non-avoidance.
You’re not backwards – you’re skilled.
Bingo, you got it. I just look like I am backwards.
It just means you have a better sense of self than most people do.
I don’t think you’re wired backwards. I just think everyone else has been conditioned not to cause “controversy” even when it’s helpful.
Now if I could just find a way around that conditioning…
And to sort out the people that can handle communicating at a different level. I pointed out to a friend what looked like avoidance and then explained my reasoning why I thought so and he decided I was attacking him. Others will just disappear and won’t talk to me. I would like a less painful way of sorting.
I appreciate that you have enough sense of self to be on the positive side to this.
Nod. There’s also a bit of limited thinking. When someone is strange and doesn’t have the same assumptions as most folks, it can be hard. Other folks can’t help but work on other sets of assumptions, even if it’s explicitly pointed out to them. “You told me that I could have handled this differently; that means you think I was wrong. What else *can* it mean?”
What’s worse is that some people do claim to use different sets of rules, for their own benefit, and that gets people suspicious.