TW: Communication

Trigger Warnings: Mental illness, self harm

One of the most difficult things in my life is communicating what I think and need to other people. Since my mind works in images and correlations, it is hard to separate one thought from the next and keep a consistent line between cause and effect. This is especially frustrating if I'm talking to someone who either talks very fast or someone with a tendency to interrupt.
On the other hand, I enjoy talking to people who know how to reign in my tendency to derail. It makes for much more rewarding conversations (though derailing and randomness can be quite liberating as well, they're death to serious conversations).

Boy and I have a very good handle on each other's ability to derail. He'll say something along the lines of "What are you trying to say?" or I'll give him a pointed stare, and suddenly, staying on topic is no longer that hard.

With other people in my life, it's not that easy, especially with the kinds that likes to interrupt or make snide comments/eye rolls. Both of those things are extremely frustrating and makes me feel inadequate and insignificant.

It has also become a problem when I try to describe my struggle with social anxiety and depression to the people in my life. There is a vast difference between telling me something and giving me constructive criticism. I can handle the latter much better than the former. Unfortunately, telling me and ordering me around seems to be the only way many of the previous generation fall back to when talking to me, and in the past, that has lead to me taking out my frustrations on myself, verbally and physically. If I'm not worth listening to, what worth do I really have, if any? How can anyone know how I think, how I feel, if they're not interested in listening to what I say? Should they really care?

I think differently now, but there are still individuals in my life I avoid having deep discussions with, all in order to keep my sanity. Individuals who find my way of describing the world I see childish, confusing, or wrong. People who don't understand, and don't want to understand, my way of using images to describe how I feel.

Finding people who will listen, who know how to stop my derailing train of thought in a constructive way, and who teaches me new ways of communication on a daily basis has been one of the best things to happen to me during my way to recovery. People who understand that I'm not broken, I'm just a little lost. People who don't try to push their agenda onto me in the name of "helping". My family, my tribe.

Talking is all well and good, but if you're not prepared to talk with me instead of to me, I would say that it's not really my communication skills that are lacking (even though I know that I need to get better at expressing myself verbally. We can't all be Eddie Izzard).