Learning to cringe again

I lack personal confidence and have low self-esteem. If I ever reveal this to people who don’t know me that well they find it hard to believe. I’m also a very shy person. Plus I have the added handicap of blushing profusely and often for no reason. Occasionally I will blush for other people; in other words when others are in a situation that calls for blushing and they fail to do so I will blush for them. I’m a proxy blusher. I also worry a lot. I could worry for England. Olympic gold standard me.

People I meet don’t always recognise this picture of me, but then all they see is the exterior. I am like the proverbial duck. On the face of it I’m the serene gliding on the water. They never notice the feet below furiously paddling to keep going.

I’ve never been good with rejection, even though I’ve had my fair share of it. And the past few weeks have been quite a shock to the system. My confidence has been dented big-time. Strangely my reaction to rejection or tragedy is often different to many people. I give the appearance of reacting in an opposite way to being upset. I appear on the surface to be happy or devil-may-care but it’s a defence mechanism. I have been known to laugh at bad news. Its not that I find it funny, I just can’t help myself. I also have a tendency to say stuff that I don’t always mean. Verbiage is broadcast before brain is engaged. I then regret what I’ve said and want to crawl away and hide under a stone. Enter ‘the cringe’. Throughout my life I’ve said some spectacular foot in mouth things.

I once heard Desmond Morris say that people who blush are survivors. Blushing is a survival technique dating back to the very beginnings of our evolution. I buy that. It makes sense to me. I’ve survived pretty well so far.

So my strategy is to surround myself with a hard shell to protect this soft nut inside. My fear is that if I weaken I go under; we’ll call it ‘stiff upper lip’ syndrome.

I am the walnut, goo goo goo joob



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