I think I probably analyse some things too much.
Once, when I was a little girl, I cried all day for the attention. That same day, my brother fell off a chair and split his lip open, and a girl in my class convinced herself that there was going to be an earthquake.
I had cried for the attention before, but I would never tell anyone why I was crying. I was very shy. Silent, but always crying, and no one would know why I was crying. I think they worked out that I cried for the attention, so it never really worked that well.
However, this time, I actually had reasons to cry. They were not the reasons I was crying, but they were reasons enough to make everyone else think that I had justification for crying. And so they tried to comfort me. They tried to tell me everything was okay. There was no earthquake. My brother will be okay. It had never worked so well before.
Because it was working better than it had ever worked, I managed to keep the waterworks on the whole day. I didn't have to do any schoolwork that day. And the teacher made the class write "Get Well" cards for my brother so I could present these to him so that it might make me feel better.
It was one of the best days of my life.
The reason I'm telling you this story because sometimes I'm afraid I still do this. I don't cry, but sometimes I get into these weird moods and I say things that hint at something else, without actually saying it. And people ask me if everything's okay, and I say yes but make it sound like I don't really mean it.
And maybe it's not okay. That's the thing, I don't actually know. I am feeling down. I am in a weird mood. But did I make this mood so people would worry about me? Back when I was younger, I didn't realise the reason I was crying was for the attention. My justification for crying was because my brother didn't want to play with me that morning. (This was before the split lip.) So I used that as an excuse to cry. But that wasn't the real reason.
And I'm so scared that I'm doing this, and I feel so guilty, that I pretend that there actually isn't anything wrong, that I'm perfectly normal. So am I doing myself a disservice by trying to hold it in all myself, to not let others help me? That maybe someone can see this trouble, and they grow concerned, but because they are concerned, I pretend I'm okay because I'm afraid I might be causing them concern for no reason? Or is all of this in my head that my mind is setting up without my permission so I can hint but not say, to make people think about me or worry about me? To make people think I have a problem, but the problem is that I'm just a very subtle attention whore? I really don't know. And I feel guilty whenever someone does show concern for me.
I'm not sure if all that makes sense.