Climbing over communication hurdles

[whisperpeir]

As I puzzle through how to reduce the friction I’m experiencing when typing a post for DreamWidth, I’m realizing that I climb over communication hurdles in most aspects of life. Emails, text messages, phone calls, greeting a neighbor, interacting with a cashier, even my loved ones asking how my day is going is challenging.

Often, I feel an unpleasant resistance to communicate in my body first. For example, my chest might tighten or a lump develops at the base of my throat. At times my body’s reaction is far more visible, broadcasting distress in embarrassing, awkward ways that I have little control over. A shaking person with tears streaming down their face is easy to dismiss, especially when their voice becomes flat and repetitive.

I notice the resistance to communicating in my thoughts too. It often manifests as intrusive ideas based on unhelpful assumptions, which leads to a mental game of push a mole gently back in the ground (no whacking sweet garden critters here, thank you).

“This person will be offended that your message isn’t longer,” might come to mind before I tap send on a friendly reply. I push back against the mole with a “that’s not true,” and maybe a supporting, “they’ve never mentioned the length of a single message in over a decade of knowing each other, rascal.”

how it feels to communicate
(sometimes, with headache)

Sometimes the mole has a lot to say, too much to counter, so I pause communication and maybe return later. Sometime the mole has nothing to say, but the sensations in my body are so loud that I stop communicating anyway. It’s hard to maintain relationships outside of the people I live with.

This is what I navigate before getting to act of communicating, which opens a whole other can of chickpeas. While listening to someone in conversation, as an example, I need to convey that I’m paying attention without being distracting because I’ve learned that a blank, downward stare with my ear pointed at a person often gets a negative reaction.

To assure the speaker I’m listening, I’m in the habit of smiling and nodding in a kind of friendly bobbing rhythm that most people enjoy—despite a long history of debilitating depressive episodes and general rage about cruelty in our world, a handful of acquaintances have told me that I’m among the most cheerful people they’ve met. One person asked how I did it, and thinking back on that interaction now, it might have been helpful to mention the smile nod technique.

Unfortunately there are many interactions in which a cheerful head tilt is inappropriate, such as when a stranger suddenly pulges a recent, heartbreaking tragedy as you’re looking for light switch covers at the hardware store. (I hope that person was comforted rather than offended as my mouth twitched between friendly grin and oh-no-that’s-awful frown, unsure of where to settle.)

Oh dear, I’ve written about all this friction and haven’t gotten to the actual interpreting or stringing-words-together part of communicating. I suppose what I’m getting at is:

I have trouble writing blog posts, and while figuring out how to overcome this mini challenge, I’m learning to articulate a few aspects of my life for the first time. That’s pretty neat. Thanks, DreamWidth.

Comments

[andrewducker]

I'm sorry you're feeling blocked. I hope that working through it like this helps!

[whisperpeir]

Thank you. I believe it is :')

[sennashi_dorei]

N2mu! Thanks for the follow!

[whisperpeir]

Same to you - I've very much enjoyed reading your posts. Cheers!