So this morning, my boss said something vaguely about wanting to talk to me for a minute when I had a moment, and added "nothing big."

And I promptly panicked. Clearly I was fired. Clearly something was wrong wrong wrong.

This happens to me ...a lot. I catastrophize. I borrow trouble. A few years ago, my New Year's Resolution was to learn that nothing is as bad as I think it's going to be. It sort-of took, in that I learned to remind myself that it -- whatever "it" was -- was survivable, and not that big a deal in the long run; it did not take, in the sense of freeing myself from the first horrible lurch of oh god what's wrong what did I do the world is sliding off its axis omg omg.

But a couple of weeks ago, I had a revelatory conversation with my therapist, where she pointed out that the guilt I was feeling about an ongoing thing in my life was incredibly disproportionate to ...well, reality. (That wasn't the revelatory part. I knew that.) And then she added that she thought that it was probably the feelings of guilt from my parents' divorce that I was actually feeling.

The next five minutes were me spluttering and swearing. Because holy what the actual fuck !!!!

She's totally right. Not just about that. I had honestly thought I had escaped feeling guilty over the divorce, because I read the books, all of which explained that children of divorce often blame themselves for causing it, or not preventing it, and I, being me, and a serious reader even at age six, decided that reading the books and the warnings therein, would protect me from falling into this trap.

Oh, brain. Oh, tiny elizabeth. The hind brain? Did not get that memo.

That worked out great, let me tell you. For the past twenty years, I have been constantly guilty, constantly afraid not of fucking up, but of having fucked up. Constantly hearing j'accuse! in every criticism, every request for a moment of my time. Let me tell you, this is exhausting.

(It absolutely baffled my mother, who has been asking why I have such a guilty conscience for years. I don't know if I'll tell her why.)

So this is where so much of my fear comes from. This is why I have such a hard time with people who have power over me asking me to account for myself -- not because I can't do it, because the six-year-old inside me doen't understand what is going on, doesn't understand that her world falling apart is not her fault, that she is not to blame. And so the twenty-five-year-old panics.

Ever since my therapist dropped that particular bombshell -- seriously, I never in a thousand years would have come up with that -- I have been able to defuse more than one moment of oh god oh god my fault my fault everything is wrong and I have to fix it but I don't know what's wrong and everyone is angry and it's my fault what did I do wrong oh god. I'm not saying they've gone away, those moments, I'm not sure they ever will -- twenty years have engraved that pattern deep -- but I know them for what they are now, at least a little. And that means that they aren't in control. As much.

It is amazing.

why yes I did wake up at 3:30 AM this morning because of hamsterbrain! how're you doing?

Low-level panic coiling in my stomach and making me clench my teeth. I know exactly why — I'm behind on a bunch of deadlines & tasks, exams are starting, etc., etc. Everything is going to be okay.

Things I am not going to do:

1. Livejournal cleanup


2. redesign my legal-name website's home page


3. apply for a freelance job


4. create a new design portfolio


5. knock myself out over dinner tonight or tomorrow


6. try to learn EndNote


7. read more fanfic than I know I should

::deep breath::

A phobia (from the Greek: φόβος, phóbos, fear or morbid fear), is an irrational, intense, persistent fear of certain situations, activities, things, or people. The main symptom of this disorder is the excessive, unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject. When the fear is beyond one's control, and if the fear is interfering with daily life, then a diagnosis under one of the anxiety disorders can be made.

The phone problem has escalated, in a sense; it took me a week to be able to handle a couple of calls about storing my stuff, and it has definitely gotten to the point of interfering with my life. Long past that, actully — always before it's been family, who are frustrated by my reluctance to pick up when they call or check my voicemail, but now it is costing me money and energy and this is not okay.

I just don't know how to fix it. No one in my life seems to understand that when I say I would rather have had oral surgery than make these phone calls, I am not joking; oral surgery involves sedatives and the pain from it (the once I have had it, admittedly) is simple and localized and easily dealt with. girlpearl gets it, I think, and copperbadge too, but it's hard to explain to my family, who seem to think it is a preference, or that I'm just avoidant. It is humilating to be twenty-two and to call my mother and ask her to make the arrangements for me to store my stuff, and my mother is almost the best person I have. My sister would be even better, but — I don't know, I am all kinds of jumbled about that relationship; I spent years trying to protect her from our father, and it turns out that she might not have needed it because she isn't affected by him in the same way I am, and now we can't talk about it, there are these huge elisions and gaps in our conversations, I love her more than I can express in words and yet I am a little afraid of her, I do not want to make her my caretaker, but I want to know I trust her completely, I want to be able to talk to her but I don't want to make her uncomfortable...

But at least I have been sleeping better the past few nights; the environment in which I sleep is becoming steadily more important as I grow older, especially when it comes to falling asleep and waking up. I need natural light to wake up, I need quiet and a firm mattress to sleep. My mental list of things that are non-negotiable for where I make my home (I swear to god, when I finish my degree(s), I am buying a fucking home and never moving again) is increasing. Which I suppose is good: self-knowledge is never wasted.

The only problematic thing about my next few weeks, which I am looking forward to a lot, is that they are another two weeks living out of a suitcase. I hate doing that so much — I am good at it, but I hate it, and it is not an ideal way to end the summer before the semester starts; early semester stuff is stressful for me, and I wish I could go into it rested and focused and without longing washing through my veins.

One thing I want to talk to my mother about, when I spend the last week of the summer with her, is a kind of three-year plan — I have two years of my undergrad degree left, and I want to think about getting an apartment my senior year. Moving this constantly is honestly just not good for me, and I bet that I could talk either D or G or S into sharing with me, maybe more than one, which would alleviate a lot of concerns, including financial and social. So I want to at least broach the topic.

Speaking of topics to broach, the last two sessions of therapy were mostly about the thing for which I do not use nouns; no conclusion has been reached, but it is really interesting that after the first discussion, I was expecting a flood of emotions and upset and that did not happen at all. Apparently my subconscious is not troubled by talking about this at all. And when Dr. L asks me questions, no matter how probing, my face just lights up, she says. So I am mostly sure that I will have the courage to go after it when it becomes more possible. Which is pretty much now. It still scares me, but oh god do I want it.

And now to do my damnedest to fix the mess the phone phobia has created.

Ways not to wake up: Having a bad dream about missing the bus to high school, getting lost in the car with your younger sister (who does not have a license and is not a good driver) driving, and bringing the car back home, to snap awake when your mother starts crying and yelling at you.

Not that this has ever happened to me, or anything.

*runs a hot bath and decides not to try to go back to sleep*

So apparently unexpected auditory input is not good for me. Never mind the Beatles-and-Johnny-Cash playlist that I use to drift off to sleep; that's comfort music.

At work today, I was testing a new program for my boss, and it was doing unexpected things, and making unexpected noises (and I couldn't find the volume off button) and it pretty much sent me into the beginnings of an anxiety attack. Which I haven't been able to shake off.

I have tea, I have familiar music, and I am going to do dishes and make stirfry, both of which are tasks I can definitely accomplish and be proud of. Other than that, I think I just have to wait this out. Anxiety isn't rational. I can't just take away the trigger and be okay.

Well, I have a goal for the next year, at least: not having a panic attack on my birthday.

People who've known have been very sweet all day, which is something, but I'm definitely on the edge here, that old feeling of the dangling misery in my chest. I've been here before.

Therapy Friday is going to be a nightmare.

Reposted from IJ, 16 March 2009