Old habits are hard to break

The Relief Society President just left. I made myself go through with the visit, despite my anxiety. That alone is a huge accomplishment for me and I deserve a pat on the back.

Instead of really focusing on talking about my anxiety with her, however, I inadvertently lead the conversation in a different direction. I'm so good at that. And even when she directly asked if I've suffered from anxiety in the past, I found myself saying, "not really", and explained that even though I'm more introverted, it hasn't been a huge issue and that I really wasn't sure where it was coming from (um, if you're talking about 10 years ago!).

Anyway, I did try to explain that it's hard for me to have one-on-one meetings with people and sometimes in groups and that right now I just can't do visiting teaching. As she listened, she tilted her head and tried to understand what I was talking about...and maybe that was my cue. It was at that point that I proceeded to update her about my husband's and my inability to have children. Nice transition. What?

And although it was actually really nice to talk to someone about our infertility struggles, and she was very kind and offered some good suggestions on how to cope, I had skirted the issue I should have shared. And with her limited information, she concluded that my anxiety was related to the stress of infertility. And although on some layer there's probably some truth to that, I know my social anxiety stems from my past and I know I've struggled with it for years. But knowing all of this, I think in the back of my mind I also knew, that such a discussion might be better suited for a therapist, rather than a relief society president.

Near the end of our conversation, she asked about having our home teachers and visiting teachers over. I wanted to laugh out loud. I guess my small, distorted way of describing my anxiety in 5 words or less hadn't done the trick. She still didn't understand that's what I wanted to avoid. And how could she, unless she's really good at piecing together mysteries or reading minds? So I reminded her not to worry about that because it wasn't something I could do right now.

So in the end, as I closed the door, I wondered to myself if it was the right thing to have given her something more concrete like infertility, rather than asking her to try to wrap her head around all that is social anxiety. Because in the end, if she didn't understand, I'd be back where I started. And then I realized that's right where I am because I didn't give her a chance to understand. I'm way too good at that. It's an old habit to break, living with excuses and skirting around the truth for a lifetime. At least she knows there's some reason visiting teaching is hard for me, even if it's not the right reason. Hopefully it will buy me the time I need to work through the things I need to.

It's time for my therapy CD. There's still much more healing to be done.