I have so many thoughts running through my mind that I'd better start spilling them out of my head so they don't start a traffic jam. There's only so much room in there.
Since I wrote last, I have since outed myself about my social anxiety to my RS president, and am of course, having 2nd thoughts about it. She kept calling, so I finally called back because we all know they'll just keep calling (or stop by. Eeeek! That would be much worse). And of course, once she and I began talking, all my fears came true when she announced that she had a newly revised visiting teaching schedule with my name on it. The nightmare continues.
I began my routine speech with, "Oh, I guess so and so didn't mention to you that I need to take a break from visiting teaching for a while..." Then I finally dropped the small talk and just came clean. Instead of tip-toeing around about feeling uncomfortable in social situations or telling her I'm dealing with anxiety issues, I just laid it out: "I have social anxiety, so vising teaching for me is a nightmare."
She said she was surprised that I had social anxiety because I was, in her words, "so cute and nice and seemed very outgoing." I figured as much. No one really guesses that about me. I always try to put on a happy face even when I'm dying inside.
What she said next actually surprised me. Her mother struggled with social anxiety for years and she knew what I was talking about.
What? Someone who actually gets it? I felt a huge relief that I hadn't shared my secret in vain. And I totally thought she got it! Her mom had it! She knew what it was like! She also said she had known someone in her ward who struggled with SA and helped her go to church bit by bit. First through the sacrament, then next through sacrament meeting, and so on.
But as our convo went on, I began to feel more like a project, as she told me about how she helped that other sister come out of her shell and begin coming to things. I wanted to scream, "This isn't about finding someone to help me "get over this" AND it's certainly more than just needing to come out of my shell!" I've always hated that phrase. It sounds so weak and timid.
And then I was all at once discouraged and embarrassed and wishing I hadn't even told her. I didn't want to be viewed as someone who needed a friend to sit by and an invitation to go to things so I didn't feel alone, in order to get-over-it. It's not about that and only someone with social anxiety can understand it. I told her I was fine and she said, "But it isn't good to be alone." She made me feel so stupid. She obviously had the wrong idea. I'm not a shut-in, timid, scared mouse hauled up in my house all day lady! I have a job, I have a family, I have co-workers and friends. I have a life. I just hate going to church because you people won't leave me the heck alone!
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Fast forward to today. This past post was written 3 weeks ago and it still enrages me.
Church has been HARD!!!!!
My old visiting teacher pretty much ran me down in the hall 2 Sundays ago to say, "Call me! We need to get together!" Obviously she hadn't spoken to the RS President who was taking me off her list, but I still said, "ok!" (forced smile)
The next week, that same visiting teacher saw me in the hall and looked the other way. I guess she'd heard the news. I'm off her list. Did she know about my anxiety issues? That's the danger of telling the RS president. You really don't know what she shares and with who. I felt even more stupid that she ignored me on purpose probably because she didn't know what to say. The visiting teaching game is so disgusting. "I'm totally your BFF while you're on my list but when you're not I forget I know you!" Which BTW, the other visiting teacher has ignored me to my face every single time I've said hi to her at church since our "visiting teaching walk". She's so dead to me.
And to top this all off with whipped cream and a cherry, they've started closing the overflow area to the chapel where my husband and I usually sit, making everyone "scrunch together" on the benches. I'm SO out-o-here!!
This makes me so mad that I probably sound like I need to attend anger management courses, but it's pushing me over the edge people! Not only do I A) feel controlled to sit where they make me, B) feel claustrophobic having to squeeze on a bench with random people but C) I have an allergy to perfume that makes me feel sick and the chapel is full of it.
Two Sundays ago we sat in the hall. That's fun staring at the carpet for over an hour.
The Sunday after that we had the primary program, so we only had to sit on the squished bench for a little while (I hated every second of it) and then I was up on the stand (where I had a major anxiety attack, by the way, and wanted to run out like my hair was on fire. I'll write about that later).
And this past Sunday we opted out of sacrament meeting and showed up for the 2nd half of church, so we don't know if it was closed or not. My bets are that it was.
It is so incredibly frustrating. I'm hanging on by a limb, barely making it to church and the shrunken chapel effort is pushing me further away. Any time they make people squeeze together and sit by each other (which they used to do in my old ward's Relief Society) it makes me livid. Let me sit where I want to sit! Why does everything have to be controlled? Unity isn't achieved by sitting uncomfortably close to each other!
And while I'm on a rant, our Home Teachers want to come over (no thank you), and there's a meeting for our primary this week and the presidency approached me asking if I was going to attend (again, no thank you). She made the mistake of putting me on the spot and asking me to tell her more about myself and I began turning red and choking out my answers. Now I'm A) for sure not going to the meeting and B) made a mental note not to ever talk to her again.
It is exhausting to feel this way. It's exhausting to fight all of this over and over again. I seriously need a sabbatical.
Tune in next time for: Panic Attack at the Pulpit (well, I wasn't really at the pulpit, I was by the pulpit but that was close enough!) Ha!
