This is Room #3 in my Social Anxiety At Home series. If you are new around here, you might refer back to the intro post, where you can also find links to the individual rooms as they become live.
The living room is the center of our house. Not just physically, but metaphorically as well. It’s where we all gather at the end of the day. After dinner, even if we’ve been scattered throughout the house the rest of the day, we end with time in the living room. Sometimes that means watching a show together. Sometimes it’s playing a game or putting together a puzzle. At the very least, after showers and teeth brushing, we meet in the living room for prayers.
The only TV in our house is in the living room. Granted, we all have mobile devices that we can use to stream shows, but the kids and I rarely do that (my husband is another matter). So if we want to watch TV and other people are home, chances are we won’t be watching alone. We learned early on that we couldn’t turn on the TV when the kids were awake if we didn’t want them to watch what was on the screen.
At night, after the kids are in bed, my husband and I like to watch TV together to wind down. Inevitably, the kids come out for a drink of water or to go to the bathroom. The way our house is set up, this means they come though the living room and we have to pause what we are watching. My husband always chooses the show. To be honest, I don’t even know what’s available to watch unless he tells me. There are shows he watches without me, but nothing that I watch without him. I don’t even think to turn on the TV unless someone else suggests it. I occasionally find out about a movie or series that interests me, but if it doesn’t interest anyone else, I just don’t watch it.
Back in January, just after Betty White died, I decided to listen to the audiobook of her reading her memoir If You Ask Me: and you probably won’t. In it, she mentions the show Hot in Cleveland quite a bit. One day when no one was home, I decided to give it a try. It became my guilty pleasure. Don’t ask me why I felt guilty. There’s nothing at all wrong with the show. It’s a simple comedy about four women that live together. It’s a whole lot like Golden Girls, to be honest. But I absolutely never watch it when anyone else is home. I can’t tell you why. Maybe I feel guilty for taking the time to do “nothing.” I’m not sure how that’s different from sitting on my phone playing solitaire, but I guess it’s less public?
It’s also come to my attention that I get major anxiety about anyone overhearing me or something I’m doing. If the phone rings and I actually answer, I always disappear into my bedroom to talk. If I’m playing a game on my iPad that has ads pop up, I keep the volume at zero so it won’t make noise unexpectedly. When I am scrolling through social media and a video comes along, I only watch it if there are captions and I can keep it muted. If someone sends me a voice message, I leave the room to listen.
My family is not like this. My husband will watch videos on his iPad while sitting in his recliner. My son will play video games while video chatting with his friends. My daughter sat on the couch yesterday listening to an audiobook while she worked on a craft. Noise is all around our living room at any given time. Yet, I feel like I can’t make any.
A friend to whom I’d confessed this anxiety suggested using earbuds. So yesterday I recharged the bluetooth earbuds I have and connected them to my phone when I saw that an IG account I follow had a reel without captions. I had to pause the video at least 5 times because my son kept interrupting. When I sighed after the 5th interruption he finally noticed. I told him I was listening to something and kept getting interrupted and he said “I didn’t know!” He isn’t very observant and probably wouldn’t have noticed even if I had it playing out loud where everyone could hear, but I felt bad anyway. Which means I’ll probably go back to not watching videos without captions unless I’m alone and/or hiding in the other room to listen. God forbid I take up space in my own house.
I know, that’s not a healthy way to think. And technically, I know it’s not true. I have every right to take up space. And yet, I feel like I don’t.
Another use for our living room is for family game nights. My husband loves board games and has had our kids playing strategy games since they were four. He hated Candy Land (says it’s not a game) and refused to play those types of games once they had mastered the concepts of taking turns and counting (which is the total point of those “games” in the first place). We have enough board games to set up our own hobby store because he’s constantly acquiring new ones. I play the games because he and my daughter love them (my son is hit or miss) and I like making them happy, but most of the time I do it grudgingly. I feel dumb as they explain the instructions and none of it makes sense. I usually just say “Let’s play and maybe I’ll figure it out. I never win anyway.” Which has them all assuring me that I’ll get it and not to say I never win because what about that time…. And it’s true. It’s not that I never win. I have on occasion. But it always comes as a surprise to me. I recognize that my minimizing cognitive distortion is at play here. My son gets upset when he doesn’t win, which is probably why he’s hot and cold on board games. If he doesn’t feel like he’s better than the other players, he’s not interested. My daughter loves them, though. Maybe because she is good at them. So when she asks to play a game, I suck up my insecurities and play anyway. Because it’s worth it to make her happy and after a few times around the table I start to actually get it and have a good time too. Even when I don’t win.
My son loves video games. It’s an obsession. It drives me crazy. I feel like a bad mom no matter how much screen time I allow or limit. We probably fall under the “strict” category. He gets 2 hours of screen time across devices on school days and 4 hours on weekend days. My daughter has the same restrictions, but rarely uses that much time. He rushes through all of his chores and homework to get to video games as quickly as possible and uses every last drop. And because he plays in the living room, we all get to listen to him play. He’s not a quiet gamer. He’s quite loud, especially when he is playing online with his friends.
He asks me to play with him occasionally. But if I feel insecure at playing board games, I’m even more so with video games. I do not have the hand/eye coordination or quick reaction times needed. The games I play on my phone are word games, solitaire, Ticket to Ride, and Disney Emoji Blitz (that’s as close to pressure as I want!). On the occasions that I do play video games with him, it’s usually with the whole family. If I get to pick, I generally ask for Mario Party because it’s a slower pace and a little like a board game. I’ve tried Fat Princess Adventures, Mario Cart, Plants vs Zombies, and some cooking game that I can’t remember the name of. But I can never figure out where my character is on the screen and I get completely lost! And then my family either grumbles that I need to keep up or they laugh at me. I try to make a joke out of it, but that’s only to cover up the fact that I feel dumb. I can’t help but overgeneralize that I’m not good at any video games, even if that isn’t completely accurate.
My son’s current obsessions are Fortnight and Colorful Stage. He plays Fortnight with his friends online and he doesn’t ask us to play with him because it’s not possible for two people to play on the same system. But he has asked us to all download Colorful Stage onto our iPads so we can play together. My husband and daughter both have and the last few nights they have played together for about 30 minutes before bed. So here’s where the anxiety conundrum comes in…. I feel anxiety about being the only one not playing and being left out, but anxiety about attempting to play and completely sucking and being laughed at. I realize there could be another option here in which I play and actually enjoy myself, but I’m not sure if I’m willing to take that risk. I’m not sure which anxiety is bigger, the fear of missing out or the fear of being laughed at. Right now, it’s the fear of being laughed at. Maybe this is the “Emotional Reasoning” cognitive distortion. “I feel like I’m horrible at video games, therefore I must be horrible at video games.”
I love my family and the time we spend together. I realize we are fast approaching a time in our kids’ lives where they aren’t going to want to spend time with their parents as much. As that happens, what role will I slip into? Will I continue to be the accommodating mom that only ever does what everyone else wants to do, or will I find what it is I actually like to do? Will I continue to feel guilty if I do something just for me, or will I learn that it’s okay for me to take up space in my own home?
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