Anxiety

I find people scary.

I think those who know me in person might have varying opinions on my social confidence. Some may say that I am a shy, quiet person, others would say that I am a confident, talkative person. I would say neither of these really fit who I am.

For example, I am fine with having a conversation with a stranger but I get a room full of anxiety if there are lots of unexpected guests invited over. There's nothing wrong with my housemates doing that (it's their home, and they're lovely!) it's just something I need to get used to and learn how to deal with. I wrote about it in poem here.

When I am upset I could anaylse the cause of my anxiety by looking into past Tulin, but it's not something I want to carry accidently into present Tulin - like going into a dusty room and accidently bringing some of that dust back with you! I don't think understanding the past will help solve my problems, so better leave that one be.

In the most recent situation, the best thing I could have told myself was to relax. Chill. It's ok. At the end, what is this? The situation is that there are lots of people in the room I'm in. Ok, so just go upstairs. But I'm hungry. They'll be gone so. But what if they're not? Then what the heck, I'll buy chinese.

Mmm chinese.


I reason with the inner voice that is scared, like a big sister talking to a little sister. My method has been to try and find a logical short term fix to the matter at hand to help feel better. My creativeness tends to be good at this. It's just getting to the stage when the big sister can say what she wants without the little sister crying and getting upset with herself.

I'll work on it.

I can get nervous giving my opinion on something or talking about certain topics such as faith or health. It's hard to have this private, logical reassurance during this time. I'm still not too sure how to manage these things, other than not to talk about it. I end up shaking when I go to the doctors and I have 4 medical appointments up and coming. Perhaps I'll try to turn of some of the switches.

Have you ever been able to emotionally detatch yourself?

I've been able to do this both intentionally and unintentionally. Sometimes, when someone is hurt or there is danger, I can rely on reasoning and thought to deal with the initial situation until it is over. This has generally almost always been a benefit.

However, sometimes I've gone through days and wonder what's wrong with me. I feel like I've suddenly lost emotion completely. It's quite terrifying really, because I think usually I'd feel this, or feel that in certain events that happen and I just don't. I can be cruel and cold without feeling guilt during this time.

Perhaps if I could learn how I could switch this on intentionally when it's useful. It wouldn't work for avoiding guilt, but it might help lessen the impact when things go wrong or drama happens.

I could do with one for empathy too.
Oh? Despite occasionally cold I recieve others emotions?

It's not 100% but yes, I can. Sometimes to the extreme when it can affect my own emotion. If someone is angry, I can feel it, and I can feel angry too. Same with anxiety, joyfulness, sadness, etc. Luckily it doesn't tend to affect my mood too often unless it's quite substantional. This "empathy" has been useful and detremental in many ways, though I would say most useful. For example it can help me learn quickly whether someone is upset, or on occasion, when someone is about to have an epiletic fit. However, by learning there is something wrong, sometimes I can cause harm by directly asking that person and being concerned when they don't respond, or by over-worrying the possible loss of a friendship to a point where I actually do lose that friendship. I need to still learn when to act and when to wait for others to come to me.

How does this empathy work?

I don't think there's too much to it, other than being observant and recognising body language, voice tone, speech, and remembering a filter of how I and other people have behaved before and finding links. Sometimes I can't remember the evidence to why I feel someone feels a certain way, it's just a gut feeling.

Back to anxiety, empathy can make me feel anxious too, so I need to really try and get some kind of switch or fuse going on here. I don't have too much to say anymore, so I think I'll end this post here.

Until next time.