unsocialized

navigating social life as a multiple is harder than you think

There are many of us
Living inside this body
We are all ages and sizes
We have our own lives
Our own trauma
Our own likes and dislikes
Our own stories
And ways of relating to the world

What you see on the outside
Is probably not what’s going on inside
Because inside, we are a mess
Of differing emotions
Often we seem like all we want to do is fight
You think our desire is to be right,
When really, we just need to be heard
And you’re not listening

We are well aware
That our social skills are lacking
And our anxiety is high
Because we don’t understand
What we are supposed to say or do
And evidently, people think we are wrong
But we don’t understand why
We really, truly don’t

While our trauma is not your fault
And it’s not your fault we also have
PTSD and anxiety, and we are struggling
To process this social situation
Because what was just said
Was a major trigger
You didn’t understand that,
Which is okay, but we can’t explain it either

Because we have been told
That we are just making excuses
For our bad behavior
We don’t expect to be catered to
We truly don’t understand your response
And then it makes us look
Like we are just angry people
When truly we were triggered badly

We are melting down inside
Trying really hard to hide it
But not doing a very good job
We can’t tell you
Because we feel ridiculous
And are afraid you will judge us
Because that’s what we are used to
And we are feeling unsafe

And so we are confused
Which feeds our anxiety
Which makes us hyper sensitive
And we are panicking inside
Because you appear to know
What the rules are here,
And yet we do not,
And so we freak out

You ask us why we didn’t come
To a certain place
With everyone else
It’s because, unless you invited us
We assume that you don’t want us
We’ve always been told
That nobody really wants us
And we operate on that assumption always

It’s not that we don’t want friends
We want friends badly
But we aren’t sure how to make any
Because unless you tell us otherwise
We assume, from experience,
That we aren’t the kind of people
That you want to be friends with
Because we are difficult friends

We are high-maintenance
We are fully aware of that
We were told that often
But wedon’t know how to fix it
We do want friends
But we need to hide
So that we do not
Bother and annoy you

We are always sorry for bothering you
We know that we aren’t normal
And that you have other people
That you would rather hang out with
That is our automatic assumption
Because we are weird and unpredicatble
We’ve always been told that
And we are ashamed

We can’t ask you to help us
To explain the rules
Because we should know the rules
And we are embarrassed that we don’t
We acted in a way
That made sense to us
But obviously it was wrong
And we can’t ask you why

We have a couple of friends
And we are fiercely loyal
We love them so much
But are not really sure how to show that love
In a way that’s useful to them
Because most of the time
We don’t know what the fuck
Love even looks like ourselves

We have to learn these things
By observing and interacting with you
And we are sorry that we did something wrong
We wish we could ask you what it was
We are fully aware that in any situation
We are the ones that are wrong
Because we are too stupid to know
What is expected, but everyone else knows

We feel this very deeply
We hate it more than you do
We don’t know what the rules are
You ask things of us and we are happy to oblige
But we feel like we can’t ask you
To define what it is you need
The terms and conditions
Of social life and friendship