Life According to Nobody

I've been doing a bit of research into my personality type today and I learned some interesting things about myself. Obviously, I know that these tests aren't massively accurate. I've taken this particular test four or five times in the last 3 years and have been given a few different answers. This time, however, I was assigned the type "The Advocate" (or INFJ-T). I'll give you the summary that the website gives of this personality type to have a read before I go into too much detail:

"The Advocate personality type is very rare, making up less than one percent of the population, but they nonetheless leave their mark on the world. As members of the Diplomat Role group, Advocates have an inborn sense of idealism and morality, but what sets them apart is that they are not idle dreamers, but people capable of taking concrete steps to realize their goals and make a lasting positive impact." (Source)

Although I am very flattered to be considered "very rare", a lot of what I'm reading here doesn't immediately spring to mind when I consider myself. So, naturally, I read on. Beyond some generic looking descriptions of introverted people, the description of me doesn't seem to be getting to the belly of my personality. That is until I reach the section titled "Live to Fight Another Day". This part talks a lot about being over-empathetic and the notion of emotional burnout, which is something I relate to strongly at the moment.

There are a lot of people in my life right now who are going through really, really tough stuff. Some of the people I love the most in the world are at the darkest times in their lives many of them look to me for counsel and support. Don't get me wrong, I love knowing that people believe I can help and they feel safe coming to me with their issues and I would never dream of turning anyone away. That being said, my overactive empathy is so physically and emotionally draining that I find myself collapsing into bed at 3am, when all of my loved ones are finally soothed and asleep and just weeping. I don't blame anyone around me for the sadness I am feeling at the moment because I know that it is just a culmination of all of my empathy rolled up into one big bowl of sad, but that combined with my physical health being continually poopoo leaves me feeling constantly drained. I never feel like I can provide the support I want to to all of my friends and family which just leads me to get more upset and emotional. Once again, ya girl is in a spiral. 

I'm not eating much at the moment and the little sleep I do get is often interrupted so I can only apologize to those of you around me who may receive the backlash. I hate to be that dramatic bitch, but the metaphor is good; my soul feels like a bra you've had for 6 years, clinging on by one hook and straining under the pressure of all my emotional boob baggage. Enjoy that image.

Since the beginning of second semester, I've found a group of friends I feel I can be as close to my true self as possible with. Obviously, there I'm insecure and tend to hold things back, but I'm less inclined to do that with my current group of friends and I think that's because I've found such a diverse set of like-minded people and have surrounded myself with their positive energy.

Having so many energetic and creative people around me gives me a purpose and an inspiration and drive to take part in projects and activities and, for the first time in a long time, I genuinely get FOMO if they do things that I'm not there for. When I say FOMO, I mean fear that I could be there and having fun and being happy, rather than my old definition of FOMO where I would be n edge that if I wasn't involved in something, I would be forgotten and left behind and nobody would miss me.

Now that summer's rolled around, all of my Glasgow friends have gone home and that tight-knit group has disappeared and it feels a bit like I've lost a safety net. Combined with the stuff I'll mention later, I've found my mood is lower and, because the only people I really talk to now are the two flatmates, neither of which is very talkative, this seems like a downwards spiral.

I absolutely don't blame anyone but myself for the way I'm feeling. That being said, being around someone who actively takes pleasure in pushing my buttons and another who says little if anything is quite draining. Again, I want to clarify that these people are not behaving any differently than they were previously, and that it is my already lowered mental state that is making their behaviour frustrating. I do not blame them at all.

I fear I'm too far down the rabbit hole to pick myself up and seek out healthy companionship. I'm hoping that fixing some of the other aspects of my life will cause this to be less burdensome and hopefully this will resolve itself naturally.

I'm no angel. I won't pretend that I spent every day for the last 10 months at uni with my head in the books. I spent a lot of time lying in bed doing nothing. However, right now I'm working 3 half days a week and doing very little else. There's nothing driving me. I don't really have any goals. I sort of feel completely surrounded by void.
At the moment, I'm living day to day, I've stopped making plans for anything more than a few days in advance and the very few plans I do make, I regularly cancel. I think that having some sort of project or goal would make the days fly in quicker.
One of my flatmates explained to me that he enjoys doing absolutely nothing but it makes me more anxious than having a hundred and one things going on. Paradoxically, I feel a lot calmer when I have things to keep my mind active than when I'm sitting in bed all day.
I know I'm living in a city full of opportunity and there are thousands of things I could be doing to keep myself busy but I think its my mind that needs activity more than my body. I'm racking my brain to think of a long term project that requires a lot of thought that can be picked up and put down when I need it to help me de-stress but at the moment I'm drawing blanks.

I think that, come September, this was all sort itself out and I only have a couple more months of this to power through but I'm hoping that I can figure something out in the meantime because the Carrie I am right now is not the Carrie I want to be and I'm not the Carrie I was 2 months ago.