Is this a problem?

Hi readers, This post is going to a bit different from the others I have thrown together haphazardly when I can be bothered.

The focus of this post is about how I feel I don’t have the right to complain about my life. I haven’t got a clue if anyone else feels this way ( though I would imagine at least some people do) but when talking about myself to others my mouth keeps moving about what’s going on in my life while my head is screaming that they honestly couldn’t care less and they have far more important things to worry about than my general well-being.

Even now as I type this I’m struggling to think up sentences that don’t put me across as being a one-dimensional self-serving being who will blindly ignore other people’s struggles in favour of being able to talk about myself for just a few more minutes. There is always this niggling little thought at the back of my head that I am selfish for telling people about myself an about the things that make my day-to-day life a bit of a mess. It’s like my head thinks I’m saying the goings on around me are far worse than they actually are, but I don’t honestly believe I’m exaggerating.

It’s difficult to explain – I try my best to keep what I say in check and that I don’t stray onto the topic of me all too often but sometimes that little niggling thought changes its stance and continues its persistence in  toning everything down with an almost stiff upper lip attitude but with the side notion that “Maybe you do need some attention, at least acknowledgement.” It seems like an eternal conflict between not wanting to seem selfish and honestly feeling like perhaps I deprive myself of attention just to stay out-of-the-way. I prefer staying out-of-the-way, it leads to less problems, maybe that’s why I kindly decline offers to go drinking with colleagues and friends, I much prefer the solitude of my own company knowing that I can’t cause trouble. Without wanting to perform a five-star ‘oh woe is me, how bad is my life’ move I think that these feelings might stem from when I was a lot younger.

My Mum was a very ill woman when I was little, though she still cared for me no matter what it took – I remember being in this strange world where things kept happening around me that seemed bad, my Sister got in fights and trouble, my step Dad wasn’t particularly sympathetic towards my Mum throughout her medical troubles and the only thing I could see that was common about all of these things was that I was there. Looking back at it now that was very selfish, to assume that I was responsable for all these things happening that caused problems. Selfish or not I became a very quiet person, not you’re average kid. I would ask if I could go to sleep early, I had a small circle of friends at school who I would have fun with but didn’t often invite to my house. The years passed and things changed a lot but I still seemed to be the quiet person who would rather sit in the library in secondary school at break

All in all, I can’t escape the feeling that I am a selfish person and don’t have the right to complain about what has happened in my life, or even that I need to talk about it. Perhaps with all the seclusion I put myself through I have experienced very little and so have little else to talk about to other people when they ask about me. It’s somewhat depressing that out of the things I have done up to this point in my life, when someone asks about me all I can think of are the things I went through and how I feel the need to tell them, but then feel nothing but guilt for clouding their day with my troubles.

 

I don’t expect an answer to the question of whether this is a problem or not. this post in itself is what I try to avoid as to not come across as an attention seeker. with my mind more muddled than it was when I started writing this I’ll end there.