Apr 23 2007
Humiliation
Okay, been thinking about being open and honest, and here is a post along those lines. It has to do with my anxiety. Mainly, I have social anxiety. It’s really hard to describe this to someone who doesn’t have it. It doesn’t really make any sense. And as I sit here right now, being sick and tired, I don’t really feel it. But I know that tomorrow at work I will feel it again.
If you’ve ever seen The Fisher King, it’s kinda like that. At stressful times it’s like I have this big red knight riding me down. It feels like it’s life threatening. It makes me procrastinate. I’m soooo good at putting things off. It’s a big red knight in my chest that is quite terrifying, and running away from it feels like the only thing to do.
One of the biggest things that causes this red knight to appear is situations where I don’t know what I’m really doing. My new job, for one. And dog training, for another. Those are the two big areas of my life where I deal with it. And in both, I feel a deep, horrible humiliation that goes with it. I feel like I am a true idiot if I don’t know how to do something, and that I will get in deep, awful, life-threatening trouble. Remember when you were a kid and something really embarrassing happened and you felt that knife splitting humiliation through the very core of your being? Well, I can get that feeling just by anticipating something difficult. Seriously. It’s a pretty awful feeling. I was watching a home movie from back when I was about 13.. years and years ago, and I remembered that time, and I knew I was feeling the SA at that time, too.
It’s a bad habit. It’s a deep seated learned feeling. I have been doing it all my life. It’s time to stop. When I was in my 20s I buried it in emotionally unavailable men.. I had no friends, no hobbies, no life. I could fret about whatever guy I was with at the time, and ignore my own feelings. Well, I have worked through a lot of that codependency, and now the SA stares me in the face and it is the thing I have to deal with now.
I’m working on it. I’m doing a couple of things about it. I hope it helps. But today, right now, I’m just tired. I have no appetite, and I want to go back to bed (it’s only 3:33 in the afternoon). Ugh. Well, at least when I’m sick, I don’t have to have any responsibilities, so I can basically relax. 
[tags]social anxiety, anxiety, humiliation, generalized anxiety[/tags]
Hold your head up and keep moving forward!
Hold your head up and keep moving forward!
I’m with you on our amazing ability to bury SA during the 20′s. I did that too. Isn’t it great to be in the next decade and ready to face it and deal with it? Maybe by the 40′s SA will be a just a memory.
I'm with you on our amazing ability to bury SA during the 20's. I did that too. Isn't it great to be in the next decade and ready to face it and deal with it? Maybe by the 40's SA will be a just a memory.
You are more honest with yourself than probably 99% of the population. In my very non professional opinion, you would have a good chance of getting beyond the anxiety, because you understand or try to understand why it happens, how it affects you, etc.
Hope things get better for you.
You are more honest with yourself than probably 99% of the population. In my very non professional opinion, you would have a good chance of getting beyond the anxiety, because you understand or try to understand why it happens, how it affects you, etc. Hope things get better for you.
[...] rears it’s ugly head even for simple things like washing my stupid clothes. I think I wrote in another post about how my anxiety is like the Red Knight in the Fisher King. Or a Red Demon, in my case. It is [...]