(Photo by dissent_is_cool)
One of the many things I hate: phone calls. I hate phone calls a ridiculous amount. I hate answering calls, I absolutely despise ringing people. The only person I can ring without panicking is my mum. It makes me feel pathetic. Scared of phone calls? How ridiculous.
My landlord frequently rings and I ignore it. I just tried to apply for a volunteering placement, but then I panicked and realised they had my number and would probably ring me to talk about my enquiry for the position, so I didn't apply. When I say I hate phone calls, it's because every time my phone rings I get a sinking feeling in my stomach, I feel like I'm going to throw up and sometimes I even get dizzy because I get anxious so suddenly. It's completely ridiculous and yet I feel completely out of control of it. In the past my mum has tried to force me to make phone calls because she sees it as me just being awkward, when in reality I honestly feel like I'd sometimes rather chop off my own leg than call someone.
I get pissed off with myself all the time because of it. There are certain situations which I associate with extreme anxiety, and they remind me that despite generally feeling free from anxiety since I started on anti-depressants, deep down I'm still very much a puppet to my anxiety. The hardest thing for me is the anxiety being internal - it's not something external that I can eventually work my way up to battling...it's basically me working myself up to confronting myself, and my anxiety itself has a habit of making me try to forget about things bothering me. So I get confronted with the fear, try my best to forget about it, and push it to the back of my mind. Then each time the anxiety gets brought up again it gets more severe and makes me feel even worse about myself.
So ultimately, at the age of 20, I still avoid phone calls as much as possible, which is really beginning to interfere with things. I struggle to ring my friends so I find it hard to stay in touch unless I see people face-to-face or contact them over Facebook or by text. I struggle to make doctors appointments and I just went a week without anti-depressants because I had run out and was so nervous about ringing up my doctor and changing my appointment to an emergency appointment that I simply didn't do it, and instead made myself ill for a week.
On the rare occasions when I absolutely have to make a phone call it'll probably take me about half an hour to prepare myself before I can even pick up the phone. I'll have to have the things I want to say written out word for word and I'll probably have to say the words over and over again until I'm absolutely positive of what I'm going to say. Sometimes I read over the words so many times that they lose their meaning and I end up mincing my words anyway. However obviously phone calls are not scripted, and so the more off track a phone call goes, the less prepared I am, and the more uneasy I start to feel. Without exaggeration, when I'm on the phone to someone I feel about as tense as if I was stood on the edge of a 50 foot building and could fall off any minute. It's an absolutely horrible feeling, and made even worse by the fact that I know it's completely irrational and ridiculous, and that because of this I'm constantly told to stop being lazy and just make the call. No one really understands that when I say I'm scared of phone calls, I mean I am actually terrified of them, and at the moment, as has been the case for many years, I feel completely unable to do anything about it.
When it comes down to it, I think the thing that frightens me the most about phone calls is an immediate worry about sounding weird/coming across rude or awkward/mincing my words. I've always been ridiculously shy, self-critical and very conscious of what other people think of me and I think that plays a huge part in it. Despite overcoming my shyness considerably in other situations, the fear of phone calls has always remained. The thought of coming across as rude whenever I'm anxious makes me worry, as I would end up feeling disproportionately guilty and due to anxiety, would think about it over and over again and end up feeling more and more guilty. The fact that I have nothing other than the sound of my voice to communicate panics me, as I can't use my body language or smile to communicate, and thus I feel like anything I say could be misinterpreted and reflect badly on me, or even offend whoever I'm on the phone with. It frustrates me that it bothers me so much, but I find it impossible to not worry.
The point is that when I'm anxious I feel vulnerable, and despite being 20 and supposedly independent, trying to overcome this has seemed like such a massive task to do on my own that I've simply avoided doing it at all costs. I feel like I would need someone to hold my hand the whole way, and yet to me it seems like such a ridiculous thing to be scared of that simply asking someone to help me to get through it would seem unnecessary. I think ultimately I won't try and confront this ridiculous fear until someone forces me too, or at least checks up on me and makes sure I'm actually doing it. I suppose I could start by ringing up friends and family and then work my way up to people I don't know, but the thought worries me so much that instead of wanting to face up to it, I just end up cowering away each time.
As for now, I'm stuck. At the moment I want to volunteer and yet the prospect of one phone call scares me so much that it's putting me off. It frustrates me to high heaven so I can only hope to somehow get over this damn thing. Until then I'm going to sit here on my arse and regret not doing anything about it. Hmph.
