I’m wondering, if I allowed myself to be eccentric, would I be accepted by other people who also work in care?

That’s what I started wondering about after my training yesterday. There were only 3 of us and the trainer. The trainer was very energetic and passionate about what she was doing but also rather eccentric. And I started wondering, if it’s ok for her to be eccentric, can I also be eccentric and work in care or is that not allowed? Does being eccentric mean that I’m not caring or at least that’s how people would see it?

I remember how my mum used to say ‘why are you not like other kids? Can you not behave like everyone else?’ That meant that being different is not ok. Is being different the same as being eccentric?

On top of jobs that I managed to secure (subject to checks) yesterday I was also offered a job in a care home not too fat from where I live and I must say I really liked the hours: for 30h a week contract so I’d need to do just two 12h shifts one week and 3 the next to have 30h a week on average. However, I told them I need to think about it, and I will either refuse or just won’t contact them again. I feel that if I accept this job I will probably get stuck there for the convenience instead of looking for what’s good for me, plus, staying in the same place all the time would prevent me from trying all the personalities I didn’t try yet and see which one suits me best: if I stayed in one place I’d probably quickly end up ‘behaving like everyone else’, but it would never be good enough for others.

Did I ever mention here that I often feel like I don’t have personality? Personality is something displayed for the sake of others and I’m only truly myself when I’m on my own.

After we finished traing the trainer said to another person that she needs to discuss her application progress with office staff. Then, as she checked my test she said the same to me. Normally I’d be really stressing in similar situations but this time I didn’t. I’d stress because I worry a lot about ‘disturbing other people routine’ but as I was the second person who was told to do the same it meant checking the application progress is part of the routine, that’s why the situation didn’t stress me out.

It’s funny that I think this way though, ‘disturbing other people routine’ seems to be high on my ‘avoid’ activity list, but possibly other people are not at all bothered about me disturbing them.

One thing worth mentioning here is that this type of avoidance is usually explained by us being shy (I’m not!) or ‘not being good communicators’ which also doesn’t really apply to me, as I’m very focused on passing messages. I’m just really so focused on ‘other people routine’ that ‘shouldn’t be disturbed’ that I’d rather sacrifice my own routine or needs.