The trait I value most about myself is my charisma, or my rizz as my gen z/a kids hate me saying.
It’s taken me my entire adult life to even realize and acknowledge that I have charisma. I have thought for a long time that I am introvert and need to be alone and away from people to recharge, but also to not be scared all the time, thanks to PTSD. But that’s not who I am. That’s who childhood trauma and neglect, bad fits in multiple relationships, and some rough times in the Air Force made me feel like I was.
The past few years I have noticed that I always have a lot of fun with people when I’m not guarded. There were times randomly when I would have a great time in something mundane, like a blood draw, and think nothing of it. Or worse, think it was because the other person was really cool. Until 2021 when I had a blood draw at the same lab I’d visited previously. The tech knew my name without me even having to give it. And said I was memorable. WHAT?! Me, memorable? Really?
And so over these past couple of years, that incident along with others turn over and over in my brain. I feel recharged when I have those moments. When I laugh with someone I’ve known forever or someone I’ve just met. When I can be 100% my over-the-top self with a drunk person and they think I am hilarious. I have spent so much of my life trying to hold my hyperactivity in because I learned that I was too much and annoying. That no one cares what I have to say. I learned to be small, invisible, and hidden. And I especially learned that my true self is something to be ashamed of and to hide from.
As I age and continue with therapy, I am learning how to validate myself and own who I am. But to also understand that it’s ok if someone doesn’t like me or finds me too much. Even being too much for many people, I find people that are too much for me. Sometimes low key people aren’t enough for me and that’s ok too. I don’t need to shrink to fit into their allowable space, just as they don’t have to rise to fit into mine.
More than once my wife has been shocked by how some of her friends become extra when they meet me. She doesn’t even recognize them at times when they are over the top and more than she’s used to seeing. And most of the time I don’t do or say anything to build them up to that. They just get around me and seem to have outbursts of joy and excitement. It happened again last night with someone she’s known a long time who is always boisterous and excited, but was NEXT LEVEL last night. My wife concluded that it was me, once again.
But I love it when people are enjoying themselves and not trying to reign themselves in to look cool and be what they’re not. And that makes me pull out my bag of tricks, jokes, and joy.
On my one year deployment, I watched several groups of three to four month deployers come and go. It was the same dog and pony show every time a new group rolled in. The departing person would bring their replacement in, introduce them to the key people, and start training them on the job. Later on they’d sit with you for awhile and learn more about how they could improve on what the last person was doing. But for one cycle of new people I decided to play a social game. I would try on a different personality for each new person I met, regardless of how I had behaved with their predecessor. It was one of the most enjoyable experiences I had out there.
I was impatient and told one person to move repeatedly, while acting too distracted to really tell them much. “yeah, great, nice to meet you. Now please step back because I gotta go over there. Ok bye.” This person later told me they thought I was extremely intimidating and an asshole but was happy to learn that I was actually pretty cool.
I was overly friendly with someone replacing a person I despised. This new person and I were pretty tight until I blew up at them for not knowing how to do their job so badly that it interfered with mine. Also, I’m sure that asking someone how the fuck did they even become an officer isn’t a great way to remain friends with someone either.
I was quiet and shy with someone who was being shown around by someone I had enjoyed working with and didn’t want to leave. The replacement thought I hated them and didn’t want to get to know them. I felt bad about that, but this might have been one of the few times in this experiment that I wasn’t acting in a specific way on purpose. Having new friends leave all year hurts badly at times.
I was completely not serious with another person. That person was told that I was actually very good at the job and everyone trusted whatever information I gave out, so that was no fun. I really wanted to see how that would play out if they thought I was worthless. But I guess I wouldn’t have wanted to seem worthless in a time crunch situation when they doubted me.
This game was a weird window into a bad time with low confidence on my part where I started to see that I wasn’t who I thought I was. I was socializing a lot on that deployment and I would feel recharged afterwards. I would spend tons of time alone and be even more depressed when I was around people until I had more people-time. Looking back at the game from the more healed place I exist in now, I can see that when I had some pressures of my home life relieved, I could start to come back to life with the proper amount of people-time.
I am an extrovert with charisma who was taught through poor (jealous) parenting that I was unworthy of people’s admiration and respect. I wasn’t worth anyone’s time. My mother was and still is painfully shy. My father wants to be the life of the party and the one everyone wants to talk to. He also wants to tell everyone how great he is and all his stories about times he made great things happen. It’s like he’s constantly trying to prove his worth. And these two people worked hard to shut down a naturally charismatic and engaging extrovert of a child because that child’s natural abilities and personality made them feel small. A child just being himself made them feel less than.
And the deepness of that thought stops me in my tracks and makes me feel genuine pity for them. How sad to break a CHILD’S spirit because you are insecure in who you are. How sad that instead of pride for bringing something you always admired into this world, you decide you want to break it rather than admire it.
We have four kids and they all can do things I always wish I could do and be – Boy #1 is an amazing artist and musician, Child #2 (more on this in a later post) – is highly intelligent with a photographic memory who remembers everything and is going to be highly successful in business, Boy #3 is extremely charismatic and thinks like an adult when it comes to pushing outside his comfort zone and already thinks like an engineer, Girl is proud to be weird and doesn’t care what people think of her. She’s also a talented artist and musician. Three of the four set goals for themselves and continue to accomplish them. Two of the four are on the autism spectrum and also have ADHD and still do their best. Four of four are open about having anxiety. One of the four is sometimes scared to meet new people and sometimes avoids it. But I am just proud of all of them for being them. And they deserve the very best this world has to offer because they are human.
So yes, I am an extrovert and I charge myself around people, even if sometimes I am a little quiet and don’t come bursting out right away. Sometimes I need to warm up and sometimes I come right out with my extrovert turned on. That’s how I was born and that’s who I am and no one will ever take that from me again.
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