Lately I’ve been thinking about how there are times that I have to make my anxiety adjust to everyone else’s schedule. It’s also possibly some of the ADHD that I thought I was done with as a kid, but is apparently still there and this is a whole other blog post I’ll work on eventually (this is a procrastination ADHD joke). Basically, when I get anxious about something, I want answers and plans immediately. I want to know what’s happening, what’s going to happen, and what I need to do.
These are often valid things to want. When I think I might feel a lump in one of my boobs, it’s valid to want that checked by a medical professional. What this looks like in the world of my brain, however, is walking up to every single person at work saying “I think I feel a lump in my breast” while kneading my tit through my shirt with one hand and frantically pulling up the clinic’s appointment request form with the other.
The most frustrating form of this for me is when it comes to my anxieties about people. Okay, I tried painting myself in a less stupid light for a second by saying people, but I’m a dick for lying to you and what I really mean is my anxieties about anyone I’m sexually and/or romantically interested in and/or involved with. It’s a character flaw built by various traumas I won’t bore anyone but my therapist with because the world doesn’t need more white women crying about problems that make you want to scream “GET A FUCKING LIFE AND SOME HOBBIES, JESUS.”
Recently, I feared I was being ghosted by someone. Someone I had gotten used to talking to every day really slowed down with replies and, most importantly, it just felt super different. I wanted to immediately be like “WHAT’S HAPPENING? DID I DO SOMETHING? AM I NEVER SEEING YOU AGAIN? WILL I EVER HAVE SEX AGAIN? WILL TRUMP GET REELECTED? WHEN WILL THE SECOND CIVIL WAR BEGIN? DO I NEED TO BUY GUNS?” Most of those are real to me.
But then I thought about what my doctor friend says whenever I text him frantically about having cancer or herpes: “I’m sure it’s fine, but if it still feels off in a week, get it checked out.”
Why couldn’t I also apply that to my human interaction psychosis?
Instead of: “My boob feels fucking weird, but boobs do weird things all the time. This is the first time you’ve noticed the lump so if it is something, it’s probably nothing and waiting one week isn’t going to give you full blown cancer out of nowhere” it’s “Sure, communication feels way different right now but we literally just saw each other 4 days ago. In a world without phones, that might qualify as still having a person inside of you.”
Did I wait a week? Of course not. As much as I want to be on everyone else’s schedule, that’s just a fucking impossibility. I dream of the day that I wake up and go “Yeah I haven’t heard from him in a week, he’s probably skiing.” WHAT?! I’m self aware but I’m not a goddamn saint. I’ve canceled and rescheduled clinic appointments upwards of 5 fucking times while arguing with myself over how long I should wait. I’m just a mildly crazy girl standing in front of her anxiety begging it to at least meet the world in the middle.
The hardest part about this is that people are always telling you to trust your gut, but when you have a condition that fucks with your thoughts, it can sometimes be incredibly hard to distinguish between intuition and extremely well dressed toxicity. Furthermore, for someone who values authenticity above all else, waiting to share your thoughts can feel like playing games. And that is the last fucking thing I want for any of my relationships with people.
This is where friends come in! It’s the happy part of the post. My friends are awesome. You should meet them. A note: this section does not apply if you have the shitty kind of friends who don’t partake in self reflection or have evolved thoughts on anything and will just say shit like “Just never reply to him and only post pictures of you sitting on other people’s faces.” I don’t know if anyone has ever said that, but this is what I imagine those kinds of people say.
I cannot thank my friends enough for helping me through these times. They tell me when I’m being crazy, they tell me what they think is valid, and they remind me not to take myself so seriously and to try to remember who I am.
Sure, it had only been a couple days, but things HAD changed and it was valid for me to want to check in AND I realized it was possible to do so while being my open, funny, charming self oh my god what??????
This is turning out to be a sloppy dismount because I had an argument with myself about whether or not to include more specifics of the exchange and I decided not to since that isn’t really the point of the post and also is maybe sharing too much. So give me a minute and I’ll come up with some sort of moral for us to end on.
Okay so basically, having anxiety is kind of like when you’re a kid and you’re so fucking excited to go downstairs on Christmas (sorry, Jews) you might fucking explode but your parents said “if you come into our room before 6 I will literally murder you” so you just sit shaking with anticipation for like 3 hours and then burst into their room. You wanted to start Christmas at 3 in the morning and they’d have loved to sleep til 9, but you all only suffered a little (or at least a little less than a lot).
Anxiety can be just as taxing on the people around you as it is on you. But you’d be surprised how willing the world is to meet you in the middle and open your anxious gifts at 6 in the morning.
Midnight Oatmeal 