Every Friday, WordPress offers up a writing prompt. You can see today’s right above this paragraph and the link will take you to other WordPress bloggers that have answered the question. I thought it might be fun to start answering these. If you have a question or prompt you’d like me to answer, let me know in the comments and I’ll answer.
Now, on with my answer!
Hoo-boy! This is a deeply personal one. Fear and self-doubt are my middle name. I doubt myself every single day in things as simple as what to serve for dinner. Of course, I get confirmation of my “wrongness” when one (or both) of my children reject what I make, so it doesn’t really ever go away.
But the question isn’t IF, it’s when. What do I do? Well, for one thing, I medicate. I’ve been on sertraline (Zoloft) for a few years now. I’m not saying it’s a cure all, but it helps me when I need to use my tools to get through the fear and self-doubt. I’m clinically fearful, so it’s not for the everyday kind of fear that everyone has.
Paired with the medication, I was in therapy for a number of years. Then my therapist went on maternity leave, and my fear took over and I never found another one. Oops. At least I still meet with my prescribing doctor?
However, I learned quite a few tools while working with that therapist that I still use. I had also been a member of a social anxiety group and learned a lot from the other members. First and foremost is a quote that I picked up from Sadie of Your Social Anxiety Bestie. “Show up scared, show up imperfect, just show up.” Basically, the quote means that you can’t wait until you’re not scared or until you’re perfect to do the thing. If you try, it will never happen. Because the only way to prove to your anxiety that you can do the scary thing is to do it. Not doing it reinforces the fear.
I’ve found that it’s easier to show up scared when I take the time to figure out what is actually scaring me about the situation. For example, why am I scared to make that phone call? Why am I scared to go to that party? Identifying the specifics of the fear helps me to reframe what my anxiety is trying to tell me. Most of the time, the fear will fall into one of the Cognitive Distortions that my therapist introduced me to. I actually have a tab to https://www.therapistaid.com/cognitive-distortions open on my phone at all times. When I can’t immediately pinpoint what the fear is, I’ll go through the list of cognitive distortions and ask myself which one fits the situation. Most of the time, this helps. Not always, of course.
When I’m too deep into the fear and self-doubt, I turn outward and connect with friends that get it. It does no good to go to someone who has no anxiety and says, “just don’t be scared.” That’s not how anxious brains work. But someone that also feels the anxiety and can relate is able to address the situation from outside of the fear. It’s a lot easier to identify from the outside when the fear has grown massive.
I think that’s why I needed Sage’s help to get myself to the finish line for publishing my book. Sage was able to dig under the layers of my resistance to the real fears beneath. I don’t know that I’ll never not need the help of others, but I am getting better. Last week I could hear Sage’s voice in my head as the fear of writing book two “wrong” grew. I only lost one day of writing. Should I have reached out to Sage instead of navigating alone? Yes, absolutely. But it’s good to know that when I slow down and look at the underlying fear, I can work through it. Is the fear gone? No. But I won’t let it stop me from continuing.
That brings me to another tool. Journaling. I frequently use this blog as a journal to work through my thoughts of inadequacy as well as recording my successes. Once in a while I will scroll through old posts and see how far I’ve come. That helps me to see that now is not forever. The fear I feel today may be completely gone tomorrow, replaced with something completely different.
But fear is meant to keep us safe. So dismissing fear willy-nilly isn’t a great idea. Instead, dig deeper. It’s when the fear becomes disproportional to reality that it becomes a problem. Find out what you’re really afraid of and name it. Then ask yourself what would happen if that fear became reality and/or how you can avoid that outcome or what you can do if it does happen.
As an example, my children both have a lot of fear when it comes to speaking with people they see as being an authority figure (which clearly doesn’t include me). Monkey started applying for jobs back in February because they are constantly wanting to spend money that we won’t supply. They applied online (no talking), then simply waited. When they didn’t hear anything, I suggested reaching out to the managers. That was a huge no. The mere thought was terrifying. Recently, they actually got a call from one of the places they’d applied to. The manager had left a message that needed a response. Monkey chose to email the manager their response (again, no talking). They wrote and rewrote their reply, reading it to me for feedback. Thankfully, managers these days are fully aware of the teenage propensity to use written communication instead of voice, so I’m sure they didn’t even bat an eye. Monkey did have to go in for a face-to-face interview. Thankfully, I was out of town and did not have to witness the mounting fear of the appointment (I’m an empath and when others are anxious, I feel it in my own body. I’m working on it.). The interview was all of fifteen minutes and they received an offer the very next day. You’d think that would be proof that speaking to someone in person is not so bad, but that would be discounting all of the times that Monkey had avoided it and stayed “safe,” reinforcing the fear. It will take a lot more than one encounter to erase all of the “proof” they’ve built up over the years.
Completing the onboarding forms and answering questions they didn’t understand became the next fear. Had they been open to discussing, we probably would have found that the real fear was around answering the questions wrong. I tried to reassure them that this isn’t a test and there isn’t a wrong, per se. I’ll admit that I turned them over to their father to finish because they tend to argue with me rather than listen (again, not seen as an authority figure). I’m sure that reinforced the fear, but I find that Monkey would rather listen to the fear than me.
Their first day of work approached and they got sick. Being employed in food service, it didn’t seem like a good idea to go in while coughing and congested. I told them to contact their manager. They emailed, asking me what to write and seeking reassurance. When they hadn’t gotten a response, I suggested trying to text (I knew that calling would be an automatic no). They argued that they didn’t know if the phone number they had was a number that took texts. I pointed out that if it didn’t, they were no worse off than before. We crafted a text. They got a response. So at least we’ve found a communication tool they are willing to use.
Today will be their first day to actually go in for work. The job will involve speaking to customers and taking orders. My hope is that the repeated interactions will begin to reinforce the idea that talking to others is not as scary as they think.
The truth is, I get it. I really do. I avoid making phone calls unless it’s absolutely necessary. My job occasionally requires me to talk on the phone to operators, and it used to break me out in a cold sweat. I still don’t like making phone calls, but it’s getting easier. I can only pray that it will get easier for my kids as well.
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