Connector

Ellie Zalick

Hi, I’m Ellie.

I consider myself an introvert and have experienced anxiety around social situations since I was seven. I feel like people often made assumptions about me. Some mistook my silence as rude and didn’t give me the space and time I needed to speak; others found it uncomfortable and labelled me as ‘weird’. Some thought it made me weak and an easy target for bullying; and others assumed I lacked confidence. And for a while I accepted these things, feeling I was socially inept, dysfunctional and believing I had to learn to be loud to be confident. But over time, I have learnt this isn’t true. I can be quietly confident, I can thrive in conversations when given the space and time I need, and I can challenge people’s perceptions of quiet. It is important to me that quieter people have a space where they can connect with likeminded people; where they feel accepted for who they are and comfortable in their own quiet skin.

Connector

Zoe Zalick

Hello, I am Zoe Zalick – Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), musician, teacher, voice coach, sci-fi fan and lover of cats, coasts and campervans. I spend most of my days using my voice and helping others to use theirs so people don’t always realise that as a young adult I was painfully shy and struggled to say anything at all.

I had a lifetime of school reports that said ‘should speak up in class’ as if it was a deliberate choice of mine rather than an anxious response to not being allowed time to think or space to be myself.

And when it came to people my own age – I could never work out what it was they wanted from me. Whatever I said was wrong and when I didn’t say anything that was wrong too. I didn’t understand the ‘rules’. I felt like an outcast. I turned to music so that I could disappear into my own world and not have to speak to anyone.

Ironically, that is when things got better for me. All the time spent alone, practising, meant that I got good. My music attracted an audience that actually wanted to listen to me. And then other musicians who wanted to play with me. And then students who wanted to learn from me. They shared my interests and often, my feelings about the world. We listened to and understood each other. Suddenly I had a social life. And meaningful work. So before I knew it I was singing and speaking on stage and in the classroom and feeling like a competent and confident human being!

Nowadays I am far more relaxed around people and comfortable with conversation in pretty much any situation – I would even go so far as to say I enjoy it! But I have not forgotten how it feels to be nervous, anxious and full of self doubt. I have much empathy, respect and patience for every individual who treads that path.

As a Quiet Connector volunteer at the Liskeard Meet Up, alongside Ellie, I aim to create a space which is warm and welcoming. Where you are valued and feel like you belong. Where you can make genuine connections with others who make an effort to listen and understand you.

I think quiet, sensitive and introverted people present only a small part of themselves to the outside world. Like the TARDIS, we are bigger on the inside. So much so, that sometimes we can get lost in there. It feels good to occasionally throw the doors open and allow a select bunch of open minded, non judgemental people, a tiny glimpse of who we really are.

This is what I think Quiet Connections is all about.