Today's blog is about something that is actually serious and could be involved in a discussion.
I have suffered for many years with a form of Social Anxiety, and sometimes it has become a large burden in my life; I'm hoping to open up to ye 'normal folk' and try to explain certain things that I do and why I do them / how they make me feel.
Where to start?
I have had certain... Issues ever since I was young; although when you're a kid and you don't want to join in, people think it's normal. When you're 26 and don't want to join in, you're seen as a spoilsport or just simply no fun.
I would like to say that I have some very good friends (they know who they are) and they just take in all of the weird quirks as a part of me, I feel like I can tell them anything and that makes me really happy as I don't feel like I have to be false around them. Thank you guys and girls! On the other hand there are people that know me that have no idea about some of the weird things that make my palms sweaty and my heart beat faster than normal, and not in a good way!
Ok, I'm trying to figure out the best way to blog about this without it all amalgamating in one wall of text or becoming incomprehensible. I think I might go for a list - which in no particular order will catalogue some (as I probably won't remember all) of the things that I do to cope with anxiety, or things that cause me to feel anxious in the first place.
1. Walking through doors
Now, you may possibly be thinking, 'What the heck does walking through a door have to do with anxiety?' Well, I think at some point in my life, I must have walked through a door into a place that I didn't know and was expecting the person I was with to follow me - to find that they had been distracted or for some reason were no longer behind me, rendering me alone, and with no idea where I was or where to go. I must have been young when this happened - because I would now know to look for signs etc to find out where I needed to go. but even now, if I am having a bad day (stress seems to 'activate' these behaviours) I won't even walk through a door first into a place I know - no matter who the person is I am with, I simply don't trust that they will follow behind me and I will once again be left stood alone.
2. Having the right change
You know when you get to the till at a supermarket; there is a massive queue to be served, and there is that woman with the Mary Poppins handbag; that waits until all of her groceries are packed before even ATTEMPTING to look for her purse amongst the sea of handbag-crap? Well, do you remember how infuriated that made you? How you wanted to just pay for the shopping yourself to get the queue moving faster? Well I don't ever want to be the Mary Poppins lady. Ever. Before the times of paying by card, or the self service machines; buying stuff was such a pain for me. As soon as I picked an item up, I would make sure that I had the right change or slightly more in my hand; so that if I needed to buy my haul quickly I could just hand over the cash quicker than Usain Bolt and get out of there. Not holding the queue up, and definitely not being hated by my fellow shoppers. The first and only time I did not exercise this rule - I was trying to 'kick the habit' so to speak - I got to the til with about £50 worth of shopping. You got it, I forgot my flipping purse altogether and didn't realise until all of the shopping had be rung through and packed. I wanted the ground to swallow me up.
3. Justification of actions
This weekend I realised that I have some sort of issue when it comes to realising people are just pulling my leg. For years my family and friends have said things to me after I've done / said something 'as a joke' and I've immediately got offended and taken defensive action. The thing is though, I can't really tell when people are joking and it really bugs me. I would like to think that I can be quite a witty person - and the aforementioned friends understand my quirky and sometimes morbid sense of humour. But sometimes people will say things that hurt my feelings, or I feel like I should be guilty and they add 'I was only joking!' I thought maybe they just weren't funny, but then I realised that a LOT of people were doing this and I thought it weird. I'm making the people I know sound awful but I really don't think that is the case. As I said before this weekend I realised that it is actually ME that has the problem. I can't remember what the context was, but my 8 year old nephew said something rather harmless and I answered him in a little bit of a hurt manner and he just said, 'Don't worry Auntie Pan, I was only joking.' That was the moment that I truly realised don't actually understand people and the nuances that come with day to day playful conversation.
4. Sequences
I like things that go in order, whether it be alphabetical order, size order, or just plain old numerical order - I think it's because you can see if things are missing and you know where you are with your sequence. For example, I have been working in my current company for 6 years and as the information we deal with can be sensitive, we have to change our passwords every six weeks. I have had the same sequence of numbers since the day I started until now - but recently I made an error when changing my password. I didn't do it in sequence. 'It'll be fine!' I stupidly thought. I got a minute in and realised that I will forget my password purely because it didn't follow the sequence. It also pained me that I had already had this particular password. The palpitations started and the pain in my chest was increasing. So I had to tell IT that I had forgotten my password so that they would reset it and I could restore the sequence. Yes, I did that. Yes it made me feel better.
5. Touching metal
This one is a bit weird and not a lot of people know the true extent about it. In fact, I think only my fiancé really knows about this one. When I am having a really bad day stress / anxiety levels wise, I can't touch metal. The problem comes to a head when I need to open doors usually, as a lot of door handles are metal. I think the root of this particular behaviour comes from static shocks that I used to have allll the time as a kid. At my parents house we had a downstairs toilet, and the light switch was a lovely brassy kinda switch (no idea what the actual metal was) and I used to constantly get shocks from it. I can almost hear you say, 'I bet there was a wire short or some Shiz like that.' If that WAS the case, wouldn't everyone else who used the switch get a shock? Also, I get shocks from people, door handles, and cars. Regularly! And I'm the kind of person that gets stressed at the anticipation that I'm going to get a shock. So I will cover my hands with my coat / top before opening doors, only touch the windows when closing a car door and use paper to open doors etc when my sleeves aren't long enough. Like I said, it's a really strange one!
6. Sniffing crisps
Ok, I said the last one was weird, this one is probably seen as a little weirder... I only eat one flavour and brand of crisps. Walkers Ready Salted. (Lays if you're from anywhere else that isn't the UK.) and as I only ever eat one brand and flavour of crisps I can tell the difference in freshness, just by smelling them. I sh*t you not. This started when I was a kid, (I see a theme occurring here) and I remember the best packet of crisps I ever ate. I must have been about ten on a family trip to Drayton Manor Park in Tamworth, Staffordshire. My mom would always pack egg sandwiches, pork pies, scotch eggs and crisps. And I remember being sat next to the car on the grass with my family eating our picnic, and opening the pack to a waft that I really can't describe. But when I smell that particular smell (it doesn't happen very often) I'm taken straight back to that day all of those years ago. I try to only pick packs that have a lot of air in them, as they seem to be the ones that taste the best, the ones that have no air in them taste really stale and feel really hard and unappetising. This behaviour has even spread to a colleague at work now... And by the way, if I don't like the smell, I don't eat the crisps, I give them away untouched for someone else to eat.
7. Hanging out with friends
I love hanging out with my friends. I have grown up friends, chilled out friends, nutcase friends, gamer friends, hilarious friends and friends that just make me smile by playing pun games with me. But it's WHERE I hang out with my friends that causes me problems. If they come to my place, I feel safe, warm and it's my safe place. But I also understand that my friends can't always be expected to come to me as that's not fair. Go to a pub you say? Well I will agree to it, and even look forward to it, but then about ten minutes before I am due to leave I will get stupendously nervous and back out. But very persistent friends manage to talk me round! But yeah, meeting in a public place is really difficult for me - if I meet someone at their house or they come to mine first, I'm ok. But ask me to meet at a shopping centre or something and the anxiety sets in. I'm worried that what I'm wearing is not suitable (I'm overweight too which really doesn't help), that my friend won't turn up, that I'll bump into someone that i don't really know how to make conversation with, I worry that I will get lost or that people will jeer at me (which is a frequent occurrence, sadly). So, if you're a friend reading this and I've backed out of coming to hang out with you, I am so so sorry, but please don't stop inviting me, I will get there eventually!
I must admit I've been getting better at this of late, and I've been forcing myself to go to places - as you may have read in a previous blog, I made it from Birmingham to Tenby all on my own. This for me was a magnificent feat!
So there you have it, some of the things which make my life a little bit more awkward, and make people look at me strangely... I will add more as and when they happen to me and I think, 'Oh yeah! That's one of those things normal people don't do!'
Anxiety is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you very far. - Jodi Picoult, Sing You Home
