(This is apropos of seeing something similar happen not-to-me and remembering that it makes my skin itch.)

There are two ways the situation tends to go.

Something lousy happens, either by me doing something really stupid, doing it accidentally, or sometimes without any doing on my part (getting a bad cold).

I express my unhappiness with the situation. Usually when it's a direct result of my actions, I lead off with "I fucked up, you guys. Oh wow did I fuck up." Sometimes I'm looking for advice. A lot of times I'm just looking for comfort.

When it's something that I did, sometimes the response is "Don't do that, then."

When it's something that's happened to me without anything that I actually contributed to the situation, sometimes the response is "You're not allowed [to get sick, or whatever]!"

Neither of those are practical suggestions that could help me deal with the situation that I am currently in.

"Don't do that" was either advice I could have used beforehand, or was exactly what I was trying to do. If I could have used the warning beforehand, this statement will hurt me. If I knew that I needed to not do that beforehand, this statement will make me even more angry than I already am, not just at myself but now at you too. Either way, it is not comforting, and tells me that the next time I am in distress, you are not a person I should reveal that to.

"You're not allowed" says, to the irrational four-year-old parts of my brain that don't listen to the rest of the Collective, that not only are we miserable, but we are now in trouble for something that is not actually our fault. The irrational miserable parts don't understand it when someone says words that don't agree with what is actually meant. The irrational parts conclude that you cannot tell the difference between things that happened to me and things that I did on purpose, and you will blame me and I will be in trouble. The next time I am in distress that was not of my own making, I cannot trust you to help me without getting me in trouble.

Humans are complicated. This is why I'm not an actual extrovert. It's too much work. I hate humans.

I have a temper that's quite a bit like Dad's, although at this stage in the game it's evolved into something somewhat different, but still recognizable.

Dad would let the little things pile up, and then explode once they'd gotten too much. He very much had a volcano temper, and, like a volcano, you couldn't step on any of the lava flows, after, or you'd get really rather scorched.

I have an avalanche temper. Little things, and not so little things, fall down on me. Now, there's a chance that the sun will come out (figuratively) and clear things up. It often does! Sometimes fully, sometimes even extra ... and sometimes not entirely fully.

If things have gone badly enough, I have a whole mental hillside full of snow, sitting there perfectly peacefully. This is hard to tell from a mental hillside full of snow that isn't dangerous at all. I have trouble telling the difference, unless things are falling on it, because it's just sitting there until disturbed. Sometimes I will take a ski pole and stick it down, and comment that that's piling up pretty good there, ayup. Some of the more hazardous hills have permanent boards with marked rules driven into them.

I make little mental notes to myself, but don't really document them anywhere, because it's not the sort of thing that I track.

Sometimes, just a little thing, two or three flakes at most, will come along, and WHUMP, there slides the hillside, and once the flying snow-dust has settled, there's a pile at the bottom of the hill, and the side is pretty well cleared off, and often enough someone has absolutely no clue what just happened, but they found themselves quietly de-added. Why? Well, because they snowed on me that time, and because they touched off an avalanche, because they kept snowing, and didn't do enough melting. Nothing spectacular, but it just kept piling up. Most times it's things that are my business whether they annoy me or not, and they're doing nothing actually wrong. By the time it's gotten to me enough that I notice it, it's already sliding, and isn't nobody going to benefit by it heating up all of a sudden when it's sliding.

Sometimes, a weather front comes along and dumps a whole heap of snow on something, in a way that's not going to get cleared out any time soon. That, that I notice. Sometimes the snowplows get broken out. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes it falls on more than one slope at once. Sometimes when one slope goes, it touches off a few more that were getting ready.

Moving writers group was like that. Little things were piling up, and then suddenly it was much too much. And we moved.

While it's piling up, the plans are also stacking up, when it's something will take planning to fix. I have no idea that I'm actually devoting brain-cycles to this, except that I devote brain-cycles to assorted contingencies for whatever happens, and I can't consciously track it all. But once it gets triggered, I've already made the decision, and anyone attempting to argue the decision is going to be doing it from the bottom of a big heap of snow.

1. How can I tell if you are angry? Level one angry: I glare, glower, strut and rant, snap, and make a lot of unnecessary noise. Level two angry: my face goes white, my ears go back, everything I say comes out low and controlled, my lips tense up, and I am really trying very hard not to lose control and go into... Level three angry: berserker rage. I know that when I'm very very angry, I do very stupid things. The past several years have been better, and I haven't gotten into any situations where I've felt that I've been in danger of snapping violently, but I know I have the capability to go all Mark Vorkosigan if I am pushed far enough.

Most of the time when something irritates me, I don't even make it into angry. I'm merely irritated or annoyed, and I scowl and complain a lot.


2. How should I behave around you while you are angry? Don't try to calm me down, you'll likely only make me madder. ( This, and 15 more! )

Caring for Your Introvert

And some introverts don't get that when their friend who walks the edge of the introvert/extrovert line wants to spend time with them, it doesn't mean "we have to do something and be social". My most memorable high-quality interaction time with my best friend was the random day last November when he started playing a video game and I curled up next to him very quietly. It was interrupted with talking from time to time, but the bits I remember most clearly are the bits where we were just together, each alone with our own thoughts. And it was Safe.

I got used to our quiet mornings together at school. I resented it when others intruded. I got used to having that time that was not isolation but not interactive. "Companionable silence" is the traditional phrase.

I learned how to get him to talk to me. You do know how to get an upset introvert to talk, right? When you see they're upset, sit down a safe distance away and be very quiet.