I am owning up to my inner drama queen. I was thinking about making a post about how I haven’t been sleeping well and I should load myself up on sugar so I can drop into a sugar coma and sleep this sickness off. This isn’t the drama part. I really wanted to add a closing line of “I should probably turn off the water steaming on the stove first.”
It just itched to be included. I see it as funny and I think it is. But I can also recognize that it could and probably would concern a few people. I think I might even get my knickers in a twist if I didn’t hear something about it. Humor back would have been fine because it at least was acknowledged.
I realize I post a number of things about my life that could concern people. Some of it concerns me as well. Part of the reason I post it is because I want to force myself not to hide from it. I want to be called on it. Another side of me is annoyed when people do poke me about things because I know I can take care of myself. This side has been calming down lately for which I am grateful. I think I know I can take care of myself but I don’t want to have to. I want to know that people care and are concerned for me.
I have this great quality, I don’t care overly much if in general people like me or not. I am not to everyone’s taste and I am good with that. People that like me, yay! People that don’t like me, yay! because they will leave me alone and avoid me and if they don’t like me, I usually don’t like them either.
One of my major defense mechanisms is of being convinced that people will get tired of me or change their opinion of me and become one of the ones that doesn’t lake me anymore and leave. If I really like someone, I find myself making it easy for them to disentangle themselves from me. This gets in the way of close connections and I am trying to learn new ways of dealing with this.
One of the outgrowth of this defense mechanism is that I need reassurance that people like me, that they want me around, that they can handle me. I am still convinced I wear people out and they can’t deal with me and run away (too much evidence that I can’t get details for support this), so I don’t dare let my old standby defenses go. Which I think leads me to being more of a Drama Queen. Putting things in that are meant to get people to react so that I know they still care and are still there.
Add to that the fact that I have very large emotional reactions that I am learning to actually allow myself to have and work through and I look even more like a Drama Queen. It is my understanding that I have chased off someone else with this quirk of mine.
I could just do what I need to do to fall asleep in a moist air environment. I have some electronics to clean up and find places for that aren’t right next to where I sleep. But I have no motivation for that. I seem to need to stick a needle into myself by going public to push me to do something I know I should do anyway.
La..dee..da..da. Self insight can be such a delight. *le sigh*
On the other hand, I am much more even keel and calm and rational on a lot of things Drama Queens are known for blowing up on that I hope it all evens out.
I still want to know the ex-girlfriend stories told about me and ex-employee stories. I would love to know how I look from the outside and be able to compare that to the crazy ex-girlfriend stories I get from others.
Just out of curiosity, where are you on the Enneagram?
My motivations seem to stem from 7 and I am spending a lot of time and energy in 5. I am missing a few key 5 like characteristics.
I have a strong 6 wing and learned as a child to look like a 4.
How is that for confusing. The simple answer 7w6 who is messing things up because I am doing major overhauls.
Ahhh, okay.
A lot of what you’ve been discussing sounds very much like me, but I’m a 2w1, average.
There is a lot of doing the same sort of things for different reasons. The commonality is the being human part. The sad bit is that the self help type books don’t seem to get that there are different solutions for different people for the same problem. It goes against logic without a model like the enneagram.
What works for me might inform you on how to find what works for you but it is very likely that it isn’t the answer you would need.
Sometimes having two different types discussing the same problem is very useful because the different POVs help dig up hidden aspects that neither person thought to consider.
Right!
2′s and 7′s are very similar (and often they’re mistaken for the other) so when you’re busily typing up your “7″ stuff, I can easily see why I’m nodding my head like a bobblehead at most of it.
How did you learn to look like a 4? I recently wrote (then deleted) a post on an enneagram board about how 4 behavior was the sort that wasn’t condoned in my house….which was pretty unfortunate for me, since I have some big tendencies that way.
By being picked on so much (overly reactionable child that I was, it was entertaining to the bullies so they kept doing it), it was impressed on me that I was different from everyone else. I also think differently than most people and have had to learn to translate between how I think and how others think.
I learned in 6th grade when I was accepted for the first time as who I was instead of ridiculed (a positive point for a private christian school), I learned that being different and trying to be the same made me an outcast, being different and trying to be more different meant that I was eccentric and interesting. I think it is a lesson a lot of us nerds/geeks/dorks could have used.
From that point on, I worked on expanding my unique qualities. It became my saving grace and my niche. I built a lot of my self understanding on my uniqueness. But I don’t have the envy of a 4 and way too much energy for one. I do have the depression a lot because I have a biological depression which I think is a major reason I am willing to do the work to face my fears/pain as a 7. I have had to deal with it for so long and being a 7 hasn’t worked as well as it does for other 7s.
I had a huge stake in being unique. Friends would have something cool and I didn’t want one one because they already had it. I couldn’t be like anyone else. After a week long enneagram workshop and figuring out I am a 7, I was able to see the uniqueness as a way of being ok with being different from many people. Since then, I have relaxed that impulse and realized how desperately I want to be part of the group. I would love to be a sheep. Of course, I want to be going where I want to go and I want a small flock to hang with but still, a sheep is good. I don’t do well with trying to force myself into other people’s idea of fitting in, I just want my natural self to fit in.
It boils down to Deny before Denial. I denied myself fitting in so that I didn’t have to risk being told I didn’t fit it. It hurt a lot less for me to do it to myself.
Take a look at your 4 like impulses and see what they fed. If it wasn’t accepted at home, what were you getting out of them that made it worth something to you. The thing I love most about the enneagram is that when you get down to the motivations, things make so much more sense.
Does being a 7 really “work” for any of us, though? Most of the 7′s I’ve known have actually been very unhappy, deep down, moreso than most people.
What my 4-like impulses fed…
Hmmm, well, many things associated with type 4, such as an emotionally turbulent, romantic, tortured artist-type temperment seem to actually be the deepest part of my self. Like you, I don’t relate to the shame or envy aspects, but I have to think that, had I grown up in a different sort of environment where my natural reactions were more accepted, I’d be much better able to deal with emotional pain now, rather than turning into some kind of freaky basket case. There was always such a contrast between my feelings and my mother’s whole “Throw it out the window/don’t dwell on it/put on a happy face” thing. I grew up feeling I wasn’t ALLOWED to feel my painful emotions (at least, not to the extent that I do feel them) and that if I betrayed them to anyone else, I was being a terrible burden. Even now, I’ll vent in my journal, then turn around and erase what I’ve said because I don’t want my friends to feel I’m being a drag and a drain. And to this day, if I start to shed a tear, my mother will scold that I’m “wallowing” in my sadness.
My 7w6 boyfriend grew up with a similar dynamic, not being able to express his emotions. For both of us, because we’re extremely emotional people (actually, both having been diagnosed as bipolar, whether or not that is valid), such repression causes things to come out in more explosive, dysfunctional ways. Perhaps if we were allowed to be more fourish, we would be more functional as adults.
Hey, *I* sill like you! Then again it’s only been what, 15 years we’ve known each other? I haven’t gotten tired of you yet
Oh, and no making weather in your apartment, please.
There have been times when you ran away. And you needed to. It was hard because it is something we never discuss.
I have always been amazed at how you will eventually reach out to pull me back in again. Truly, that is why we are still friends and in contact. I let go because our time together was done. You were the stubborn one and kept reestablishing contact. I still watch for when you are done with me and it is time to take a break, but I don’t completely let go any more. You are stuck with me.
Weather in apartment is good! Need more.
I like you, I want you around.
That doesn’t mean I’m never overwhelmed by you, by my other friends, by the sky being overcast, by espresso machines…
The point being, there’s a huge difference between finding someone overwhelming and disliking them. Perhaps it would be easier on you to sort things out if you could find a way to not have the two concepts so tightly bound together?
–Ember–
I swear I did a big long reply to this. Was I dreaming or did I do it in email maybe? Have you seen it?
I don’t have it in my main email. I’ll check my other emails, but perhaps you wrote it out and then got distracted before hitting post/send? I’ve done that many times…
–Ember–
One of my major defense mechanisms is of being convinced that people will get tired of me or change their opinion of me and become one of the ones that doesn’t lake me anymore and leave. If I really like someone, I find myself making it easy for them to disentangle themselves from me. This gets in the way of close connections and I am trying to learn new ways of dealing with this.
This has been one of your primary defense mechanisms since we were kids. Something I wouldn’t have known if we hadn’t had that candid talk when I was 19.
I do hope you find new ways of dealing with this. At some point? You need to be tangle-y. You’re worth it. I have 2 very old and dear friends who keep reaching out to me every so often because they know that sometimes that’s the only way to get me to interact. Not because I don’t love them deeply – I do. I just rather suck at maintaining constant contact. Mostly because I can’t mail anything, I hate phones (more as I grow older too) and I get wrapped up in my own head so much that it’s sometimes the best I can do to get out of bed in the morning.
One of the outgrowth of this defense mechanism is that I need reassurance that people like me, that they want me around, that they can handle me. I am still convinced I wear people out and they can’t deal with me and run away (too much evidence that I can’t get details for support this), so I don’t dare let my old standby defenses go. Which I think leads me to being more of a Drama Queen. Putting things in that are meant to get people to react so that I know they still care and are still there.
a) I do want you around – I wish we lived closer to each other. I hate the fact that I can’t just drive over there and bring you some hot tea, soup, and something good to read. Or just call you up and go out to coffee.
b) Ha! That’s not you, that’s them. I suck at keeping in touch with people. I suck at the maintaining constant connections. But I did hunt you down again after years and I would again if you disappeared (unless you told me not too – then I’d debate whether you meant it or not.) 38 years isn’t too bad of a track record… even if there were some long breaks in there? You’re always in my heart!
c) I’m glad you put those things out there to react to. Because it lets me know that I need to react. Otherwise I go off rambling along thinking everything is fine… when we all know that “everything is fine” is a euphemism not unlike “and they lived happily ever after” – it’s not real when it comes to life. We are not indefinitely “fine” are we? Sometimes we’re happy and sometimes we’re depressed, angry, apathetic, confused… so many adjectives other than “fine”.
d) These lists of mine in your comments are starting to be a habit!
Love you sister.
(((hug)))
That candid talk at 19 is one of the reasons I can see what I do. It was so instinctual that it is hard to see from the inside. I love the piece you wrote about it. It helps me explain it to others.
There was always something different about you once we got through school. I figured we would always be connected without realizing I thought that way. It was interesting watching you burn through friends and I always managed to avoid that burn and was still standing afterwards. I was proud of how I could managed to remain a friend of yours. I felt like I had a super power.
The only reason I let it get to be 13 years since we last were in contact in because I really didn’t want to find out you were dead. I had plans to find you, I knew that I could get a hold of your dad and I kept an eye on him in Denver. I was scared so I kept delaying it. And then you found me, Yay!
It was so nice to find out you had turned a corner and weren’t on the self destructive streak anymore and I didn’t have to fear that. And I didn’t even have a clue just how bad it really was.
I am glad we have managed to stick it out this long. I figure you job was to reach out and hook me and my job was to bob along with whatever direction we were going in and weather whatever storms showed up.
You know, the funny thing is, any time I hear you say “burn through friends” I try to figure out who we are talking about.
Two of my closest friends in the world I’ve been friends with for what seems like forever. L has known me since I was just turned 17 and is called Uncle by my daughter. Closer to him than I am to my own brother. He’s one of a group of 8 guys I met at the same time, 5 of whom I’m still friends with. N has known me since I was 21 and introduced me to my husband. J who I met the very first day I was up at C.U. 2 weeks after I graduated high school at not-yet-18 is still in my life as well. Just put one of the yearly hand-crafted ornaments on my tree yesterday that she sends my daughter. S who I met my sophomore year in high school remains in my life – but also in that “we live so far away we only see each other once every 8-10 years” ways.
I don’t really think of myself as “burning through friends.” Given that I’ve had some of the same friends for around a quarter of a century, that thought always seems odd.
But then, I also kind of understand. I burned through *circles* of people quickly – before I discovered that I don’t fit into groups of people well. I don’t want to be a leader and can’t stand to be a follower. Idiosyncratic loner with brilliant friends who forgive her many quirks sounded much more appealing!
But you are a superhero to me. You did stick when I so needed someone who could/would stick.
I’m so glad I survived my self-destructive 20′s myself. It’s little short of miraculous. But there it is. And here I am. And there you are – still in my heart!! ((((hug))))
The one name I can remember is Robin. She was a bff at the time and lasted through a couple of cycles of friends. I thought she would stick. Then there was a big burn and you were never going to talk to her again. I am pretty sure that didn’t get repaired before we lost touch so it seemed final to me. I think Elayne might have been another bff burn I was witness to. There were a couple before Robin but I don’t remember any names. Yeah, you didn’t do well with groups. Even when you were the one that collected them together.
It seemed that you had these wonderful close friends and then something would happen and they were no more. And I seemed to be the only one standing from one cycle to the next. I even survived the burn through the circle of friends that you met through me.
The long term friends you have now might have been in the background in those days and not been seen by me. I might fit in exactly the same position as they do but saw it the way I did because I am in the middle of my own life. They might have had very similar views. But I never knew of it.
We lost touch right near the end of our 20s so I have very little experience with the mellowed down you. The earlier version of you burned really bright and flamed out often. As kids, I don’t think there were any burns. It was from high school on.
I am not sure why I stuck. I have been burned a couple of times by you (because of you?), that if it was anyone else I would have walked. But those times were burn more by proxy. I was tied to you about something, then something dramatic happens in your life and I get torched. I am not sure if that isn’t what happened to a lot of your burned friends. It wasn’t something you did directly but it was very much in connection to you.
That is one of the reasons I faded back enough that we lost each other. At the time I knew I was too vulnerable to survive another burn being next to you and I didn’t want our friendship to end so I moved to protect myself until I was stronger.
I am very glad I was able to be there when you needed it. A curious point of wonder is if your other long term friends were able to have enough distance when burns happened that your connection to them didn’t get scorched, or if they were ones that were at ground zero during a burn and survived. I am not what I would call one of your tougher friends. I see myself as a lightweight but the same resilience I had dealing with elementary school might be why I didn’t end up a scorched remain after a burn.
I never thought of it this way before but I think this is a really good description. In your self-destructive days you went around collecting flammables, combustibles, and shooting sparks. That is why people got burned, not because you burned them but they were too close when something finally caught on fire. I felt I always managed to duck at the right time and get missed by whatever big ball of flame was on the way. I just floated along behind you in your wake, bob bob bobbing along.
You would come, life would be intense for a few weeks, and then you would be off again on another adventure. Rinse, Lather, Repeat.
Robin. Yeah, I thought we’d be friends for a long time to. I miss her. But to be honest? She went crazy. The “burn” was her screaming at me one morning that I was responsible for everything that had ever gone wrong in her life from her mother’s breakdown & institutionalization as a child to her breaking up with her boyfriend 5 years previously. She threatened my life and my dogs and I was seriously afraid I’d come home to find my house burned down. This was while she was living at my house rent-free after I’d paid to get her home from Florida where she was sleeping on her sister’s living room floor.
Not exactly me “burning” through someone.
Actually, the L. I mentioned previously was one of the people I met her through. Not in the background, just not necessarily a circle you ran with.
Elayne. Couldn’t remember her name. We were friends for what? About 3-4 months?
It’s funny that you perceived yourself as fading back enough that we lost touch with each other. I saw it as my fading back from you enough that we did. Mostly because you already had a picture of who I was in your head that you were unwilling to let go of that centered sometime around the time I was 19 and I got really tired of trying to deal with the fact that you wouldn’t let go of it.
To be honest – except for the part where you said “the mellowed down you” it kind of sounds like you’re still doing that.
It’s kind of like how you were stunned that I had no issue with you being poly because you’d already decided I was “conservative” and therefore wouldn’t understand. M thought that was really weird as he knows quite a bit about my own past and didn’t understand why you would think that.
Either way, it’s kind of a moot point. We are who we are in life…
I relate a lot to what you’ve said here. I’m always feeling like I wear people out….like the closer I am to someone, the more they have to “put up with”, and the more I’ll wear on them.
“Add to that the fact that I have very large emotional reactions that I am learning to actually allow myself to have and work through and I look even more like a Drama Queen.” – This seems to be common for 7′s, in my experience. The problem is the not feeling we have permission to feel the way we do, so we feel a combination of embarrassment/desire to restrain our reactions, along with resentment at feeling this way. The mixture of repression and resentment seems to only lead to a bigger reaction. At least, this is my theory on it.
My thing is that I didn’t dare feel what I was feeling, it was too much for me and I would shunt it off and not deal with it. It is that avoid pain thing.
I can’t say I am embarrassed by my reactions nor do I feel I should have to restrain them. This might be a difference in our upbringing. I just hate dealing with the repercussions from other people in reaction to my emotional reactions. I resent needing to put energy into reassuring them when I need what energy I have for just dealing with the storm inside myself. What I am trying to do now is education people so that I am allowed to have my reactions and process them without them needing to get in my way and for them to not misinterpret me.
Swallowing my reactions so I don’t have to deal with the bullshit of others goes against the work I have to do in getting out of being a pre-programed 7.
It is funny when I get really stressed and watch my 7 like tendencies come out when appropriate. When I broke my foot, I was having a great time and I didn’t overreact at all. Many things were downplayed and I made jokes out of them instead of getting worked up. I am very happy with my type defenses when they are needed. Yes it would be cool if things were like this all the time, but I realize that is a fake version of true happiness. Ok for the moment but not something that can be lived on. To find that for the long term is what I am working on achieving.
“I can’t say I am embarrassed by my reactions nor do I feel I should have to restrain them.”
I feel embarrassed that my reactions seem so over the top compared to other people’s. My mother would always say I was “acting as if a dear relative had just died”, and that I would “mature” and learn to control my emotions as I got older. Now, she seems perplexed that I never learned to do that the way she can. I use her as a prime example, but lack of understanding/acceptance has come from other people as well. That has created a feeling in me that I’m not entitled to my emotions, that they’re not valid, and it creates a great resentment that others are allowed to feel these things, while I’m always expected to suck it up and not burden anyone.
I believe one big reason my bf and I connect as strongly as we do is the fact that we understand and accept each other’s out of control emotions and reactions…..plus we understand the guilt we each feel over expressing those.
“I just hate dealing with the repercussions from other people in reaction to my emotional reactions. I resent needing to put energy into reassuring them when I need what energy I have for just dealing with the storm inside myself.”
This reminds me of a discussion we had on one of my enneagram boards about the movie Legends of The Fall. Everyone was talking about Tristan (whom I relate to very much) being insensitive and selfish. I was like, “But can’t you see….he was struggling so much to deal with his own shit, he couldn’t worry about anybody else”….and they said no, most people didn’t relate.
(((Pat, Pat, Pat)))
Nope, still here. Your not getting rid of me that easily.:D
Feel free to give me a call if you want to talk.