Introspection

Lately, I've been feeling more introspective.  Sometimes I see this as a blessing and am grateful for an opportunity to gain a deeper knowledge of myself.  But other times, I wish I could turn it off.

I consider myself an extrovert and have for most of my life.  Post-pandemic, or quasi-post-pandemic, or whatever the hell we want to consider this time period that we are currently in........ I feel as if I've shifted how I see myself on the scale, sliding closer towards introversion.  I don't really feel like this shift was sudden or conscious.  It was, instead, gradual, and caused or influenced by many external factors.

Firstly, the pandemic restricted travel and socialization in general for quite some time ( ~2 years maybe?).  As an extrovert, or at least I think I can still say that I'm an extrovert, I thrive off of the energy I get from socialization with my people.  And I didn't get a chance to see so many of my people during those rough 2 years.

Secondly, during the socialization freeze, I was also dealing with being a few months post-op from a microdiscectomy surgery.  To not re-hash all of that loss of identity here, I'll just say you can read more detail on that in some of my other blog posts (Personal Share - Optimism isn't always Easy; Strugs; Say It Ain't So;  Surgery Share; Frustration Share).  The basics of why this was a challenge boil down to an athlete being told that they may never get back to their sport or the fitness level that they pride themselves on.  Oh, and also just chronic pain even post-op due to the length of time that the disc was pressing on my nerve.

Thirdly, I work from home.  My fiancé also worked from home for some of the pandemic, although he's been going back into the office 2 days a week since folks started sort of returning to work.  It was just the two of us in the house together, in our own respective 'at-home' offices.  Me in a spare bedroom and him in the dining room.  Even though we were technically together, it often felt like we weren't because we were both in our own work worlds.

And lastly, throughout this time, I've been doing some personal work through therapy to help navigate all of the moving pieces that were swirling in my brain.  Therapy, in general, involves turning your view inward, even if you don't always want to, to try and untangle your reactions, feelings and ideas around various challenges in your life.  I've been trying to answer questions like: Who am I if not an athlete?  What aspects of my life does this injury require that I change?  Am I still the same person I was?

If you're not careful with these big questions, they most definitely can overwhelm you.  And I'm not ashamed to admit that I've had my fair share of feeling overwhelmed.  Whether it was worry about my personal journey with recovery and identity, concern about family and friends that I felt I was losing touch with, or just general fear about what was going on in the world at the time, there were plenty of options for things to be stressed about.

As we've slowly inched sort of out of this pandemic, I've found that the nature of my thinking has stayed more inward-looking.  It's almost as if my personality has been altered somewhat.  I haven't honestly decided if I like this change or not.  But I have been noticing that things that used to be energy-providing have felt different to me.... almost more... draining?  Since time lately seems like a construct and is moving both too fast and too slow, it appears to me that this newly somewhat more introverted version of myself might be my 'new normal'.

I've found myself trying to look for opportunity in this 'new normal'.  If I was going to be this introspective and therefore be more aware of how internal and external factors can effect me, I might as well try to improve myself while I'm at it.  (Or at least that's how my type A personality thinks about things.)  I've been in therapy since my back issues began and have worked through a number of personal issues that I might not have faced if I weren't forced to.

This wasn't and still isn't the easiest thing to do - face your personal habits and processes and pick them apart so that you can get to the core of why you react the way you do to things, how you might be able to moderate those reactions and how you can help those who love you understand you better.

As I've been digging into my own self, I've come to the realization that this new personality I have come to develop leans more towards an anxious/avoidant attachment that I'd like to admit.  For those of you who don't know much about attachment styles, these refer to the particular way that an individual relates to other people.  There are four distinct styles: anxious (referred to as preoccupied in adults), avoidant (referred to as dismissive in adults), disorganized (referred to as fearful-avoidant in adults), and secure".

These attachment styles often develop in early childhood, but continue to shift and change in adulthood.  I've taken a few of the more reputable assessments and dug into attachment style over the past few weeks and sometimes it feels like a confusing abyss.  There are a few things that have stood out to me that make me think that my personality shift might have shifted my attachment style as well.

When I think back to my childhood, there were some inconsistencies from my parents, but I felt safe, taken care of and truly loved.  Much of the literature I've been reading about attachment styles, however, points to inconsistency as a root cause for the development of anxious/avoidant attachment.  I think it's important to note that inconsistency can mean many different things when it comes to parenting.  That being said, raising a secure child seems like an incredibly daunting task.  I know that I personally worry about my own ability to be a mother one day, especially after reading how such small things in childhood can have such a large and unintentional effect.

A few words I recently read on anxious attachment resonated with me.  An article stated that someone who is anxiously attached might 'believe that their needs are only important to other's when it's convenient'.  My instinctual response to this statement was to think that it was just my responsibility to take care of my needs.  Digging a bit deeper into my response, I've identified that I've never been one to expect others to think about my needs at all.  I don't say that in relation to my parents and the physiological needs that they filled for me when I was a child.  I mean it more in a way that I've always taken pride in my ability to do things for myself.  This ability was incredibly weakened, if not totally depleted, while I was dealing with back surgery, chronic pain and identity crisis.

While continuing to read about anxious attachment, I found myself identifying with some of the signs & symptoms that were being called out.  One article mentioned this attachment style as 'tiring' and 'feeling like you were on an emotional roller coaster all the time'.  Another said that an individual with this type of attachment might sacrifice their happiness for their partners and need constant reassurance from them.  Both of these seem to align with how I sometimes feel and how I make decisions based more on how they will affect others before myself.

It sounds kind of messed up when I say it like that.  That my decisions aren't made with myself or my needs in mind, but others instead.  Lately, I've been consciously trying to work on this.  I don't want to become someone who only considers their own needs, but I recognize that there's some detrimental and maybe even disordered thinking that goes into what I might consider my typical decisions making processes.  What sucks about this is that it requires constant effort on my end.  Self-care can sometimes be really difficult.  Exhausting even.  It doesn't help that my chronic pain can also serve to make me more irritable and tired too.

When I have the space and time to take a step back and think all of this through, it makes logical sense to me.  I have a series of items that are working against me as I try to shift my focus from negative to positive.  But, I do believe that most folks have things going on in their lives that might be doing the same.  Again, I have a habit of comparing myself in this way.  Just because other people are dealing with their own issues doesn't make my issues less important.  I have to repeat this to myself.... often.  And even then, sometimes it just makes me angry.  I keep thinking back to when I used to be able to just deal better.

Clearly, this journey of understanding and accepting where I'm at is still in process.  It's times like these where I keep coming back to a phrase that I bought a long sleeve t-shirt for, "Healing isn't linear".  We all have things that we are healing from - whether it be physical surgery, identity loss, or any other number of deeply personal issues.  While I sometimes wish that healing could be a straight line from point A to point B, I know that that the winding road and setbacks are meant to bring me strength.  I try my best to acknowledge that, even if it's hard.

With that said, I think I'll go take myself on a walk to get some sunshine.  We're slowly inching out of this MA winter and I can't wait for warmer weather.

<3 Vicky