Overstimulated: when life becomes white noise

2024 isn’t even at the halfway point, and already it has been a rollercoaster for me. Thankfully, my writing has been a source of calm in my life, and family time has provided welcome respite from pretty much everything else that feels like chaos swirling in my head. I’m not one for melodrama, though as an introvert, my battery gets drained to pretty much zero quite easily – and much has happened already in five short months to drain it.

In February and March, I had a health scare and was in hospital. While this was happening, there were issues with our house. Work stressed added another layer onto the above and I found myself served a giant turd-sandwich.

Bad luck comes in threes, supposedly. I’m not particularly superstitious, but I’ve definitely met my quota for the year so far, I’d say. As an introvert I tend to try and save my energy and avoid social situations, as much as is humanly possible. Around the end of last year, while having an introspective moment, I decided that I would make an effort to be more extroverted and reach out to make new friends. I became friends with a new person, who seemed to be sad and lonely, and an interaction that led to me feeling sorry for this person became the starting point of our friendship when I invited my new friend for coffee.

I am not a naive person. I have lived and worked in three different countries, so I have learned quite a bit about people – myself included. I consider myself a good judge of character and my first impressions are usually right. So, when I embarked on this new friendship, feeling sorry for the person, I can’t say why I chose to set my reservations aside. It isn’t something I’ve ever done before. I knew from the start that the relationship was imbalanced with this person – that they used me for free therapy more than gave anything back to me. I tend to assume the role of agony aunt for people I have relationships with, mainly because I’m a good listener, but this person was different. They drained me to the extent that I started to avoid being alone with them, as I began to think I was dealing with an energy-vampire.

If you haven’t dealt with an energy-vampire before, then you are lucky. When my energy-vampire cottoned on to the fact that I was politely distancing myself from them, they cornered me one day and gave me a full-throttle sob story, and a guilt-trip that worked temporarily – until I came to my senses, which thankfully was within half an hour – and made excuses to leave.

As with any covert narcissist, it isn’t long before other people see their true nature below the mask, and my until-recently-friend did something so devious and manipulative to another friend that they have now managed to alienate a wide circle of people. Karma is a bitch, I guess.

Still, for me, it was another horrible thing to add to an already tough year. To say I’m burned out is an understatement; everything at the moment feels like white noise and my concentration is non-existent. I’m looking forward to having some down-time over the summer to hopefully reset myself and focus my energy on the things that matter.