Self Isolation - Tumblr Posts

this was 12 yr old me's shit.

focused on myself rn

YES! THIS!

When I was in elementary school, I tried talking to a group of kids at lunch and I’d consistently be ignored or unheard, but one time, they all turned a glared at me.

I was shocked, surprised by the reaction. I shut up and cowered, secluding myself. I thought I had done something wrong to deserve that reaction, that I had said something wrong.

So I prevented myself from speaking at all unless I have planned out my exact words perfectly in my head. Perfectionism and anxiety kept me from socializing with my peers. I analyzed my words everytime I went to speak, though it often took so long that once I had perfected my sentence, the topic had already moved on. So I just stopped trying at all, resorting to daydreaming and silently listening in on other’s conversations to entertain myself.

My dad often told me: “you are doing the world a disservice [by not socializing]” I took insult to this, thinking he was blaming me for struggling(even if it was I that had to out effort in to help myself and stop self-isolating), but now as I look back, I understand what he really meant. He loved my personality and self, and he wanted the world to see me for the beautiful person I was, but I kept failing him by locking myself away.

I didn’t really notice my loneliness until the pandemic when I was truly alone, no one to call or hang with. I used discord to help make some online friends for a few months and it helped—typing slowly and rewording your messages wasn’t frowned upon and taking time to respond was normalized in chat-based media.

I didnt talk without scripting my words for a long time. It wasn’t until 9th grade(when I was 15yo) when I rambled about Amphibia for literal hours to my therapist and friends that I finally managed to break out of the habit. Since Amphibia was my hyper fixation at the time, it was one of the few things I was confident on to not get wrong or accidentally offend someone when talking about.

I’m not good at catching subtler social cies, but I am sensitive to signs of awkwardness and irritation, so I feel incredibly punished whenever I get an upset response from people after I say something or communicate something, especially when it’s unexpected because I’m confused why I got that response and fixate on it.

Even now when I have friends and can talk confidently, my social skills are still stunted and I am scared to talk to people IRL even when I know them because I’m scared to disturb them or upset them by accident.

Banner by @ alwaysribbit

People underestimate how much it fucks you up to be subtly excluded as a kid. I would try to talk to my classmates and be met with disinterest or annoyance. The one friend I had, who I clung to and nodded along to his every word, had other friends he liked just as much or more. And his other friends didn’t care for me at all.

I look back at pictures from the time and see how separated I was from them. I remember knowing I was different. I remember posing questions about the world to the girls playing next to me and realizing that they had never asked the same ones to themselves. That the ways we thought couldn’t be more different.

I kept myself amused with my own fanatical stories and musings in my head. I would wander the playground on a circular path, imagining a friend and being sorely disappointed when it didn’t feel as real as I’d hoped.

There was a bubble separating me from everyone else, thin, and nearly invisible, but with a pearly sheen you could catch under the right conditions. I knew it was there, they knew it was there, and it changed me

to the science side of tumblr

dear science side of tumblr

how do I stop the virus so I can start self-isolating by choice instead of by force

I love how the mentality that's been pushed lately on social media has been one of "being in your you era" or "entering your villain era" or worst of all "not owing anyone anything" which, as I've mentioned in a previous post, is nothing more than the same hyper-individualistic self-isolation, and apathetic mindset that many gymbros participate in that's simply being repackaged and marketed femininely as "self-care".

Meanwhile, and not to sound like I'm "not like other girls", the mindset I've been in has been one that's completely the opposite in which I seek to strip myself of any and all egoistic tendencies, while simultaneously looking towards those who are very talented and skillful but are low-key and humble about it as inspiration for what I one day aspire to be.