This isn't normal is it?

[suchawimp]

Or at least I am not normal. I actually think that I am not quite right upstairs.

It is like there is this public view of me - quiet, shy, sweet, and just nice. People say things like oh you never swear / raise your voice / complain / say a bad word about anyone. I read about people who feel like they are squashed into boxes but I seem to have created my own little box. I feel like I would like being that person if I was that person. If it wasn't a battle. I hate mess and want the pretty homely home and yet there is stuff everywhere. I like to bake and wear aprons which gives a certain impression of me but it is one that I can't live up to.

There is a big gap between the me that I am and the me that I want to be. I want to wear floaty skirts and sort of retro stuff and always do my hair and make up. Just feminine. And yet I am the least feminine looking lump of a creature.

I want to be the kind of person that sits and cross stitches little mice for Christmas decorations. I buy the magazines and pick projects that I want to do and plan the things I will need and then they never get done or made. Or I day dream about sewing little baby clothes or embroidering cloths or sewing pretty peg bags. And then play on Facebook.

I found some lists ( I am a bit of a list person.) from various points in my teens. All quite similar in theme. Lists of a new me plan or how to be feminine or how to be a southern belle even. A list of how Giselle from Enchanted acts or Doris Day characteristics.

It is like there is this big disconnect and I don't know how to fix myself. I am a complete worrier and I worry about people a lot. People say that I am very caring and maternal but I don't know if that is real or not. I think I am being real but then someone will say something like oh you are too good to be true - like last week when we were talking about charity work. It just makes me wonder about my own motivations.

Surely not everyone has all this STUFF inside their heads all the time. I just hold it all in and it seems like I am always thinking. No matter what I am doing. I don't even know if any of this makes sense or if anyone will make it all the way through.

Well...just be who you are...

And, if you feel you need to, then rebel? I guess?

Part of your OP just makes me want to hand you a packet of red marlborough and a bottle of JD and see how you get on, I have to be honest.

But really, OP, you sound lovely. Keep on being who you are.

If you're not normal then I will join you in not being normal. I'd love to bake, to sew, to keep house. I can do all these things. Just none of them particularly effectively. I know! Terrible in these enlightened times that I would be happy effectively being a 50's housewife. I just feel like I'm disconnected to the era I should have lived in.

such, I can relate to some of what you say. I always have Plans, Plans, Plans, but often don't get anywhere with them. I suffer from depression and anxiety, and seem to find it hard to take the first step towards something. I want to do everything so perfectly that I don't actually start anything.

I'm interested to see what other people reply.

It made sense to me, I tend to like the idea of things, but am a horrible procrastinator and will end up not finishing or never getting around to starting - and it's always stuff that reflects the kind of person I'd like to portray/be rather then what a lazy lump I am.

Actually that's not entirely fair on myself - I feel constantly harassed and like things need doing before I can concentrate on the things I'd like (which seems to be never!).

I'm not entirely sure how some people manage everything they get done in an average week. I'm sure my procrastinator tendencies are at the root of it, focus isn't something that comes particularly naturally to me. I'm definitely a multi-tasker

It's just a personality type isn't it? There'll be loads of people who completely get what you mean and loads who don't.

Oh and daydreaming - bloody awful daydreamer. You spend so much time thinking/planning/dreaming up scenarios there's no time for the doing bit.

Iamsparkly, I think you're my twin . Do you feel like you've held yourself back at all by being this way?

Totally get it. Totally. Not the specifics but the disconnect between who you want to be and who you are resonates completely. I've been pondering it a lot recently. Do I need to be who I think I want to, or stop at who I am being and accept it.

50s housewife and all the skills that go with it is a bit of a dream for me. I read the books on all the different breads to make and flower arranging and pantry organisation. I like to read blogs - generally small ones - that match in with this.

I don't get why people don't think I am real - it makes me doubt myself a bit and think that I should be out doing normal stuff and acting in a more normal way. I have never been rebellious at all - never wanted to be. It just has never appealed to me.

I just feel a bit out of step with people. Just today we were talking about television adverts at work and someone mentioned the Syria one and everyone was saying it was a ploy to get money or they should be helping themselves. That advert upset me - when the child was crying I started too. I just saw little children that had lost a lot and were suffering and it hurt. They saw a money making scheme and evidence of government corruption. Maybe I just see individuals.

it is normal, i think, to have this perception of self that you feel you don't fit.

It is possible to become that person. Set alarms in your free time, and when the alarm goes off get of FB and do something you actually want to do - like cross stitch projects (once you get going it can be easily done while watching telly)
write lists, but with goals - so in three months i'll be doing x and i'll set x amount of time or do y in order to achieve it.

I want to be a crafty arty baker who cooks fancy desserts and is well read in politics and 'good' literature. But I think the internet and trashy telly and crap detective novels. so for every two trashy books i read, i read one 'good' one, and one night a week i'll craft something

and i am slowly deciding maybe i can be the me i am, and the me i want to be, if that makes sense

i know the goal bit might sound phaffy and silly, but it works for me.

I guess it is time to decide whether to settle for what I am now or to set a proper plan to get from where I am to where I want to be.

It seems a bit shallow in some ways. All hobbies and shiny hair and figuring out how to keep my nail polish intact.

I have books about 100 food gifts to make and give and gifts from the garden. Things that I really want to do - to put the effort into making something beautiful in a sometimes painful world. Something non-essential.

I have a folder of magazines articles like Ladylike Chic, what is glamour?, 10 ways to transform from girl to woman, and (my favourite!) detonate your inner bombshell.

I just can't figure out what it holding me back from putting it all into practice and losing the weight, doing my hair, wearing pretty clothes, and trying with my domestic hobbies.

is it fear? fear that you may get to te person you want to be & either you'll fail in some way and not be 'good enough' or that you'll get there & not be happy?

sometimes it can be a lot easier to hide then to try. I know, I do it a lot with most things.

But if it is fear, it can be overcome.

I've been trying to fix myself for as long as I can remember.

Unicornspoo absolutely - I annoy myself with it. The few times I've put my mind to things and actually achieved something tangible I've been determined to repeat it, but then old habits kick in and it gets put on the list of 'things that could be'.

I'm pretty at peace with myself now though, I'm pretty much one of lifes true philosophers (i.e. too busy thinking to go and get qualified and get a job pondering stuff that I'll never do) there'll be books - that I'm to lazy to write myself -written about my theories I tell you

suchawimp I think in your Syria scenario you were just outnumbered by the people around you. I think both reactions are pretty common. Charities are founded on the kind of empathy you felt, and injustices happen because of reactions like those of your colleagues. Common doesn't = right in either reaction - it's just human.

I read Hadley Freeman's book (Be Awesome) and she says we subconsciously cast ourselves in certain roles (like being the side kick rather than the leading character, in the story of our lives) and it is really hard to break put of our self assigned roles. I think we maybe tell ourselves that we don't really deserve the lives we hankering after and so we self sabotage with procrastination or eating crap to wreck our diets etc.

Being 'feminine' is actually very time consuming and bloody hard work. It is quite hard to keep that up unless you are a celebrity, who can outsource all the real work that people have to do on a daily basis. It would be exhausting trying to be perfect ( whatever you define perfection as being) , which is probably why you can't do it.

You sound nice to me, and quite normal. I think a lot of people have this internal thing going on.

You can be whoever you want to be. You can wake up and change your look tomorrow. New clothes, hair and make up. Try a few different style and hobbies and be happy.

Why not try one different accessory and one different craft activity per week and build up to it? You could slowly transform your look by drip feeding and if you just tackle one of the craft projects that you already have until it's completely finished and don't worry how long it takes?

when I was having counselling years ago i got to the point where i knew i wanted to change but was scared to do it. I decide that i would take tiny steps. Part of it was doing courses to train as a counsellor. within the first year we learnt how it is ok to be cjel and that she is good a valid, the things she likes are ok.
Long story short I changed back to being me, my husband got a girlfriend so even though he did't want me to I left, carried on with my life and am so far d own the road to being cjel it is brilliant!!
Two quotes i find brilliant are ' its never to late to be who you should have been' by george elliot i think.
And St Catherine 'when you start to live as you are meant to be you will set the world ablaze'!!!!
If you are confused and there is this imbalance I would definately reccomend a shot course of counselling!!!!

when I was having counselling years ago i got to the point where i knew i wanted to change but was scared to do it. I decide that i would take tiny steps. Part of it was doing courses to train as a counsellor. within the first year we learnt how it is ok to be cjel and that she is good a valid, the things she likes are ok.
Long story short I changed back to being me, my husband got a girlfriend so even though he did't want me to I left, carried on with my life and am so far down the road to being cjel it is brilliant!!
Two quotes i find brilliant are ' its never to late to be who you should have been' by george elliot i think.
And St Catherine 'when you start to live as you are meant to be you will set the world ablaze'!!!!
If you are confused and there is this imbalance I would definately reccomend a short course of counselling!!!!

Maybe it is fear. Fear that I won't be able to change

And fear that people will notice me. They already think that I am a bit odd and I am a very dilute version of what I want to be.

there is a poem by williamson i think - I can look it up if you'd like = its about the fear we have is not of being incapable but of being successful and what that will do to the relationships around us

Maybe it is that while I am not trying I am not really failing but if I really put some effort in and people notice then I will look stupid when it all goes wrong and I have to back track.

To be honest I think people who are 'who they want to be' are few and far between. I feel a bit like you and know part of it that I have reached an age where I think I should have myself all figured out. However, in reality I know most people are just pootling about doing their own thing and worrying what everyone else thinks too. Isn't there a quote about not worrying about what other people think of you as when you are older you will realise everyone is thinking about themselves? Just try to be happy and if that means taking the pressure off yourself a bit then do - no one will notice! I decided to stop being quite so prissy about my cleaning (used to mop kitchen 5x a week and try to do hoovering every other day and clean skirting boards every week) as it was really me projecting what I thought people would say if they saw dirt. In fact even now I only mop once or twice a week my friend said to me last week about how clean my house always is...she hasn't noticed that for about a year I've let it go a bit. I have a lot more time and don't get as annoyed when something falls on the floor as I haven't just spent half an hour cleaning it I say embrace your inner sloven!

Perhaps up until now the lists and plans have been enough and you haven't actually needed to follow through with the actions.

Also, habits are really hard to change for example I'm trying to change my deodorant to one that you put on at night but my nighttime routine is so ingrained I keep forgetting to do it.

I agree with others posters who say try doing one small thing differently at a time. The change will be so gradual it wouldn't be so obvious to others.