I've always had trouble talking to people. Not just shyness, but being social in general. I can't decipher whether someone is telling the truth or joking with me, and most people think I'm serious when I'm trying to be funny. I'm terrible at "sugarcoating" to spare someones feelings and unlike most people I usually cannot tell if I've hurt someone or not, often worrying if I have. So many times I've fell on my face when talking to people. Without any indication of gestures or emoticons, I feel helpless when chatting online as if I'm spitting into the wind, so friends may notice I use emotes more than usual just to be clear. Every message I write is edited and re-edited to make sure that my jumbled thoughts become clear, replacing or moving words or entire sentences all over the place.. and friends wonder why it takes me so long to respond. I still feel scared when messaging strangers for commissions or when typing to people in the comments area. I've a deep-seeded worry that they won't understand anything I've said or that I've overwhelmed them with words, or misunderstand my tone, causing them to reject me. Commissioning an artist stresses me out.

Unfortunately I don't feel confident when speaking face-to-face either. I am an self-diagnosed Clutterer (a disorder similar to Stuttering), and I also have an INTP-T type personality. That means that my mind goes 1000 miles a second, always in deep thought to decipher, decode, or analyze multiple things simultaneously from the moment I wake up to the moment I finally fall sleep, hence why I'm pegged as an insomniac. Since my mind goes so fast as an INTP, my Cluttering mouth often can't keep up (although it tries), and I end up feeling a major disconnect between my brain and my mouth, once I start to speak I forget the main subject and how the sentence should be worded. This results in messy dialogue riddled with interjections, revises, using umms/uhhs, using "things" or "stuff" as fillers for forgotten words, and sentences run together with shortened words. More on Cluttering: http://associations.missouristate.edu/ica/resources/what_is_cluttering.htm

I became an artist because it's the only thing I felt I could do without speaking. Cluttering doesn't get in the way of sketching and painting and viewers don't need words to understand it. I hope that maybe this helps you understand me more and learn about Cluttering which isn't as well known as Stuttering.