Designer of My Own Catastrophe in Current Events

According to Mel Robbins, I need to recognize my initial physical reaction to fear so that I can recognize when I need to assert control. For me, it’s in my chest. My heart will drop and then start to race. I’ll go into fight or flight mode and my instinct is to flee the situation. I’ve also come to understand what this reaction actually is. My body thinks that I am about to be attacked by a predator. My digestion floods with acid to shut down digestion so that I can fight or flee. I sweat to make my skin acidic so I don’t taste good if I get bitten. My blood thickens and coagulates to prepare for a bite from a predator so I don’t bleed too fast. My bladder and bowels want to evacuate to make me lighter on my feet. My body floods with adrenaline and cortisol to give me that burst of energy to defend myself. This response is great for when a sabertooth tiger approaches you but it’s kind of maladaptive when this is your response to inlaws, traffic, work and all of our other day to day stresses.

Anyways, the second thing I need to recognize is what I do next to make myself feel in control. She says that this the exact same response we’ve done since we were kids. Did you try and be perfect because your parents got mad at you a lot? Did you throw a tantrum to get attention? Did you mentally prepare yourself for all of the negative things that your parents could say to you? For me, in regard to my social anxiety, I tried to make my presence as small as possible. To not be singled out. When in high-stress situations I want to hide out in my room. I used to skip school to stay home and avoid that environment because it was not one that I could control. Mel explains that we trick ourselves into thinking that we are in control but it’s actually fear that is in control. Our fears boil down to just being afraid of not having control. Whatever the situation is that scares us, we don’t want to give up control so our minds find a way to create a false sense of control. That is the pattern we want to change. My pattern here is that I shrink myself, my surroundings and I avoid social situations that make me feel vulnerable.

She needs me to ask myself what happened to me? So that I can own my story. (She gave Brene Brown a shoutout at this point and now they’re best friends in my mind and that makes me so happy.) So where did my social anxiety come from? I think I figured it out. When I was eight years old I had transferred to a new school because we made a shift of residence. When I came home I was talking about how cute a boy was at school, I had a crush on him (He’s still cute 25 years later). I knew what homosexuality was, for the most part, because of my uncle. He is gay and that was not a secret and it was also not a problem in our family. My mother and my uncle sat me down to explain how ok it was that I had a crush on a boy but they also explained to me how society thinks and treats the gay community. They explained to me that people believe that I am supposed to like girls so they recommended that I keep this to myself for protection, for now. I was like, ok. That had a huge effect on me and I didn’t even realize this until yesterday. After that conversation with my mother and my uncle, I didn’t feel right. I didn’t feel normal. I didn’t feel like I was allowed to belong. We all have an instinct to want to belong to a pack for security and because I never felt like I could belong to one, I always felt alone. Not in a lonely way but in a vulnerable way. Going out into the world by myself makes me feel vulnerable and threatened. I don’t know how people are going to react and that disturbs me because I don’t have a pack. Now I avoid feeling singled out and exposed. I don’t have a backup, I don’t have security and I don’t have protection, in my mind. I’m a lone wolf. I was always afraid to stand tall, I was afraid to speak up because I had a gay voice, I was afraid to walk in case I walked gay. I tried to be a ghost because of all these little things that made me self-conscious about standing out.

Now I have to change my story. Hi, my name is Tom and I have a habit of hiding from social interactions and social situations as a form of protection. That has served me in the past and I no longer need to continue to do that. I want to thank my heart for serving me in that way in the past but it is time to let it go. I suppose that I need to let go of the belief that I have to be normal to be accepted. Mel also helped me realize that I overthink and create a long list of excuses to avoid leaving the house and she wants me to understand that it is my fear doing that. She wants me to forgive myself for doing that. To recognize my initial physical reaction to fear so that I can prepare myself for what comes next. To assert real control instead of the fake one I have been creating since I was a kid. Staying home, overthinking, being invisible etc. It’s going to suck pushing through that fear but I need to remind myself of how good it is going to feel after I conquer it. That it will get easier every single time. I need to “build muscle” to get control. She recommends that I give myself five minutes a day, to start, doing something that I don’t want to do.

I’m not finished with Mel’s audiobook but the coaching session I just listened to is the one that spoke to me. She was coaching a man who has a learning difference, dyslexia, and so he felt singled out and not normal but he handled it in the complete opposite way that I did. He made himself the class clown to get some control in his environment. He would pick fights with teachers to avoid having to read out loud. He became a pathological liar. He ended up feeling like an imposter in his life because of the character he created at school. The character that he created to hide how small he felt. Mel also grew up with the same learning difference and she became a pathological liar to get through school herself. She was an imposter so she was not able to maintain those relationships from those days. Mel’s son has the same learning difference and when he comes home he gets cranky and he complains and lashes out and his therapist told Mel to appreciate that he feels safe at home to do so. Mel knows that when her son is at school he is putting a lot of energy into being outgoing to make up for feeling stupid. When he comes home he is burnt out. Mel knows that she shouldn’t let her son play on his Xbox for as long as he does but she also knows that him playing his games is a space and time that he gets to be in control. She accepts his gameplay, within reason. My way of faking control is to stay home and clean and make to-do lists and do all of my chores and look at motivational quotes and TedTalks and I push away all of my problems and leave them for the next day.

I bring up their stories because I can relate to what she is calling the Imposter Syndrome. I created a character of myself that got me through my adulthood. I’m a classy honey, kissy huggy, lovey-dovey, ghetto princess. (Brownie points for anybody who knows that song). I came out of the closet again when I turned seventeen and to feel like I belonged I turned into that sassy glam queen that every twink tries to be at least once, I assume anyway. I was Johnathan Van Ness realness honey, yas! But that’s not who I am. I don’t even feel like I’m the same person that I was just seven months ago. I’ve been saying that I feel like a stranger in my life right now but that is because of two reasons.
1) Everybody else still identifies me as “the old self”.
2) I haven’t fully embraced “the new self”.
It’s just another identity crisis, no big deal lol. I’ve been purging a lot of beliefs and behaviours and emotions that no longer serve me and I’m struggling to relate to my current group of friends. I’m slowly getting in touch with who I really am. Not this fear-based acid junkie college flunky dirty puppy daddy bastard that I created to make people like me or whatever. That character I created so that I could like me anyway. That character was my response to fear. The imposter I created to get me through my adulthood. I have quite a few comfort zones to break out of here and I know it. A lot of other fears that I need to ask the question, what happened to me? But I also have a million external problems that I created because I am the designer of my own catastrophe. I created problems that I can fix so that I can be in control, maybe? Nah that doesn’t sound right. I did put myself in this mess though. I made a million little choices that took me far off track because I wanted to feel in control. Fear was in control this whole time. Mel’s audiobook is called Take Control of your Life and she is talking about taking control of your fear because it is fear that controls a lot of us.

In other news, my sister surprised me yesterday and ordered a vegan pizza. However, there was some cross-contamination on a bigger scale than I am used to with dairy. The IBS was so severe last night that I couldn’t even move my legs. I haven’t suffered from IBS since I quit meat consumption four years ago and even then, it was never this bad and it only happened when I strayed from poultry. So today I woke up with an ulcer in my mouth, a stuffed up nose and my skin and hair feel filmy and I stink. I’m looking forward to cystic acne tomorrow… and I ouch, I just found one while scratching my back. Yeah, this is a pretty dramatic reaction to dairy and I remember when I used to think that all of this was normal. This is basically an allergy at this point. I should have offered to make our pizza instead lol. Mine is so much better anyway. I get that sauce on it. O put on a small layer of spinach, then vegan cheese and my toppings are tomatoes, red onion, artichoke, mushrooms and kale. The kale I massage with oil and salt so it gets crispy and tastes smoky. I stuff the crust with more vegan cheese. So good… wow, I need a life.

Last updated December 07, 2019