The Quiet One

Do you know a person who is exceptionally quiet? The shy one, the wallflower, the one who just doesn’t say much? I think most of us have met someone like that.

I think a lot of humans out there look at the quiet one as the weaker of the group, it seems easy to do. I’m one of those quiet ones. Always labeled as shy, constantly teased about the cat having my tongue, being too quiet etc etc.

Being the quiet one used to upset me terribly, I could always overhear what was said about me. It seemed like because I was quiet it must’ve been assumed I was deaf as well. There are quite a few disadvantages of being quiet, the biggest that I’ve experienced is for some reason others find it necessary to make decisions for me. I’ve noticed throughout my life that when you’re quiet others seem to take it upon themselves to fill in the blanks they have about you instead of just asking. Maybe it’s just my experience but I’ve experienced it enough I swear it’s just a common thing.

Another disadvantage of being the shy quiet one is how easy it is to forget about them! I’ve been overlooked more times in my life than not and it is definitely frustrating. The shy quiet ones usually get targeted by the toxic as well. They are easy targets for manipulation.

I could write for days about how crappy it is to be overlooked, forgotten and teased about being the shy one. I could spend hours writing about how many things I’ve overheard someone say about me because I’m so quiet. When you are quiet it’s so easy for others to make decisions for you, to make judgments about you and to actually forget about you.

I think for me one of the hardest things I’ve dealt with being the quiet one is how many just assume things about me. It’s helped me tremendously knowing I have this rare personality that is completely misunderstood by most people but knowing this about me has also caused me intense emotional pain because I am made up of so many layers and I see things at such a deeper level than most that when I meet someone new I am presumed to be too quiet, too complex or just too much for most people and our relationship goes no further than a hello.

I have found some great advantages of being quiet throughout my life. I’ve found the quieter I am the easier it is for me to use my gifts of intuition to find those people who are safe for me and who truly “see” me. It’s been a great filter to see who’s helping me and who’s harming me.

Being the quiet one has allowed me to see people for who they are, to see how much integrity they have and to see patterns in others so well I can almost predict their future and have to a point it’s a little bit scary.

This could possibly be why I only have a handful of people I can count on. Life is busy, people are busy, it takes someone willing to sit down and become quiet themselves in order to understand this complex personality of mine and sadly if they don’t do this for themselves and know themselves first they will be quite unsuccessful when it comes to knowing me. This usually turns into a sad moment for me because I see this in them before they see it in me and I pull away, I call it a safety measure to prevent future pain for myself. Sadly it causes great sadness inside me.

Would I change myself and allow others to infiltrate my world in order to be accepted into theirs? I’ve tried in the past only to hurt myself more. Personal accountability has been a savior in my life and a savior for those in my life and it’s been hard to find a balance in a world that breeds victim mentality and constant shame and so I continue to be quiet around most.

I use this blog to express my sadness about this world, to express my pain and to hopefully let anyone who feels like I do feel heard. If you resonate with the things I write about you are not alone. I am here. I hear you. I can feel you.