Trauma + deprivation = anxiety issues. (Or triggers. Or phobias. Or whatever you get paid to call them depending on your special field. Let's move on.)
I have anxiety issues around mail, phone calls, paperwork, people, and traffic.
Yeah. Not functional. Working on that.
But before we get to the Big Girl Panties part-- which is coming, I promise you-- I need you to think about cockroaches.
Yep, cockroaches. Plural.
Like that one box they have at the zoo, where for a second you just register a big box with dark walls and no animals in it, and then you realize... the walls are moving... the walls themselves are layers of living giant Amazonian cockroaches--
--are you there with me?
Okay, think about putting your hand into that box.
Ready? Three... Two... By the way, Amazonian cockroaches *bite*... One!Stick your hand in there!
Yeah. That box, is my mailbox to me. That's how it feels.
Making, or taking, a personal phone call, is like walking a tightrope for me.
You need my signature on something?
Traffic? Russian roulette. Every. Outing.
All of these fears are experience-based. Mail can contain nasty surprises that can rip life apart-- court notices, social service failures. Between my anxiety and my neurological quirks, telephone calls involve real vertigo, and eventual sensory shut down. Nobody likes forms or paperwork, but working with government assistance is like getting constant pop quizzes for which you can go to jail for getting an answer wrong. And traffic-- abusive behavior in the home often goes with reckless driving on the streets. I grew up with that fear. Besides, have you seen how people drive?!
And speaking of people...
I grew up in an environment in which social anxiety was taken for granted. For everyone in my household, anytime spent with anyone not of our household, was spent in a state of terror of doing something ruinously inappropriate in that act of trying to reach out.
I've been more lonely than I can say for most of my life.
I've worked incredibly hard for the people skills and community that I have.
That doesn't make being with people any less exhausting.
Even fun with friends can be hard on the inside.
And reaching out to ask for help, which can be scary for anyone to do, feels like this.
Now it is almost time for those Big Girl Panties.
But before I pull them on, remember:
I'm also low income, also partially disabled, also the caregiver of a toddler and the helpmate of a significantly disabled man. All that means it takes the vast majority of each day's time and energy just to make food and clean-up happen, AND I'm trying to inch my way through graduate school to build us a better future.
So, even with the Big Girl Panties on, I can only jump out of so many planes a day.
