I think that maybe the disconnect I feel is between my new self and my AV.. causing me to feel less connected here on the forum I've spent so much time on.
I get on better with some folks now. My real life personality has caught up with my online outgoingness. I now click extremely well with both of my parents! I clicked with someone I had just met... actually, the woman I replaced at my current job, at the residence where I work as a caregiver, I took over for her when she quit on account of the insane family circus.
I noticed something today that I keep going back to... I now speak my mind with less of a filter. That is to say, I am appropriate to the situation or the topic. I can be firm and to the point. My tone today while talking to someone must have been so much of a departure from my normal sweet, nice, agreeable, cheerful tone, that her response sounded irritated.. I noticed enough of a tonal change to think that I had caused it. I likely did, although to me, I was complaining about a situation in a tone that was appropriate to how I felt about the situation...
What I'm getting at is that when someone you know has come to expect a certain personality from you, a certain easygoing tone.. probably bordering on airhead pushover, which I was.. Suddenly you being more stern registers to them as you being bitchy AT them.
Someone who met me now would know me as an outspoken person, and either feel very at ease with me because what you see is what you get, or feel ill at ease because I wasn't being kiss-assy. I want to be around the kind of people I can be real with and be respected for it.
It's just becoming increasingly clear I will continue to clash with the people I currently have relationships with.. Again, I am not being mean or inappropriately pushy! It is more that I am being clear about what I am thinking, and interceding when I need to (ie, safety), instead of being standoffish for fear of offending or upsetting.
Over the past year I split days taking care of this lady with another caregiver, older than me, who everyone thought was very pushy.. My new eyes can see that she was never that, she simply had self respect and backbone enough to do the right thing and not back down... She would speak her mind especially over the phone and smart enough to resist the urge to engage in an argument, would say her peace and then say "You have a blessed day, buhbye now" and hang up.. and everyone thought it was so rude.. it wasn't, she was really just wishing them a blessed day.... which was much better than arguing, cause face it, she wasn't in the wrong usually lol
I want to be that kind of person.. but it won't work where I am at and I gotta get out and move on.. I don't think I will get along with everyone I meet but I KNOW I will end up in ugly situations with these people...