Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Lectorog]

I'm sad because my cowardice/meekness has cost me an opportunity to possibly make some really awesome friends. There's a much longer story, but it can be brought down to that. Now all I have is a picture - I didn't even talk to them.

Also, due to unelaborated points of the above tale, I was trembling all day yesterday and part of the day today, and can't stop listening to pirate metal.

[Bohandas]

I'm just hoping that the whole 2012 thing doesn't cause riots or anything such as that. Sure enough there will be enough people around that believes in the end of the world in 2012 prophecy that there may be looting, suicide rates going up dramatically, and riots as an effect of grief from deaths and stocking up combined.

Like in one of those ancient Greek stories where the attempts made to avert a prophecy wind up causing it to be fulfilled...

[RedKing]

But every fiber in my being that I don't have any control over sure as fuck wants to give up and hide from the phone, and it's really really hard to do anything but listen.

I sympathize.  I've always been afraid of phones, but a year ago it was so bad that I pretty much couldn't make any calls to anyone.  So, ah... hope you feel better, soon.

Ditto. I fucking HATE telephones, and I have one strapped to my head every single day at work. At least there it's them calling me, although in some ways that's just as bad. If I'm calling them, I can prep in my head for what to say, how to approach an issue, etc. Incoming calls...you never know what kind of crazy-ass shit you're going to get asked (or yelled at you).

[Bauglir]

Pnx: Good luck, buddy. Don't worry about being pathetic - it's not as if you're any less strong a person than others because of agoraphobia. You've got a problem most people never have to deal with, and you face it down every time you step outside. That is tough! Take pride in overcoming it when you're able to, and don't feel as if you're less of a person when you're not. From the sound of it, it'd be the very-rough-equivalent for me of walking across a rickety bridge over a chasm every time I want to get groceries, and I am not sure if I could do that without going mad.

As for phones... Kinda, yeah. I've always got this nagging "Get this done as soon as possible" and a faint dread leading up to making a phone call, but I'm not sure how this compares to what's being brought up here. I've definitely never had to deal with doing it all day, so I don't know how rough that gets.

[Vector]

Ah, no.  For me, it's "put it off for as long as humanly possible" and a generalized feeling of terror/"oh fuck how do I do this I can't remember how to talk," but that's improved super-much recently.  I used to have the same fear of emails, haha.

... And just communication in general, I guess, but somehow I find it easier in person, when you're constantly getting feedback.

[SalmonGod]

I also hate phones.  I go out of my way to avoid talking to people on them.  If I can, I'll tell people to get on a chat client or just send an e-mail instead of calling me.

It's nothing to do with any sort of social anxiety... I can't seem to function properly through them.  No matter how loud and clear the phone is, I never feel like I can actually hear and understand what the other person is saying.  I get so focused on trying to make sure I hear the other person properly, that I don't spend any time formulating my own responses, and my participation ends up very clumsy.  Any other noise or distraction in my environment enrages me when I'm on the phone.  I have to lock myself in a dark room.  It just doesn't work for me.

[Bauglir]

In person is definitely easier. I can be quiet in person, but if I'm talking to someone over the phone if there's no talking there's no communication so I start to feel guilty because I'm on the phone so the whole point is to communicate. And what's worse, it's costing money to not talk! That always occurs to me about 30 seconds into an awkward silence and, by Vectron, does it not help matters.

[Vector]

I think the worst thing about email is that you can never tell if silence is intentional ("let me just let you think about that for a while") or accidental ("whoops, I have an email address on that site?  Huh, I forgot").

[Aqizzar]

It is generally harder to lie to people in person, but if anything, it also magnifies my problem with the cold-calling.  They can see my face, and I can't just hang up leave then.

I know everybody seized on the phone part, and that's cool and all.  I just want to make it clear that my apprehension was about unsolicited solicitation, not really the phone itself.

[SalmonGod]

I think the worst thing about email is that you can never tell if silence is intentional ("let me just let you think about that for a while") or accidental ("whoops, I have an email address on that site?  Huh, I forgot").

I actually like that.  I don't have to worry about it.  Communication can happen completely at its own pace, just like on a forum.  There are minimal expectations regarding the timing of your response.

[Bauglir]

I think the worst thing about email is that you can never tell if silence is intentional ("let me just let you think about that for a while") or accidental ("whoops, I have an email address on that site?  Huh, I forgot").

Yeah, that, if it's not business-related (I prefer email for non-casual stuff because it minimizes the extent to which I'm butting into whatever somebody's in the middle of working on). Also, text undermines my major way of saying things I'm anxious about. I can't trick myself into a situation where I have to just spit out whatever it was that was on my mind because that really only works in conversations where you don't have an opportunity to edit something into a coherent whole. This doesn't sound like it'd come up often, but I constantly agonize over whether what I'm about to say (no matter how innocuous) will be offensive or otherwise off-putting, whether it actually matters or even if I know the person is almost certainly going to understand what I meant to communicate.

A side-effect of this is that such emails will often seem both rushed and rambly, and in severe cases end with me typing out something like, "I'm going to just click send now before I change my mind".

I know everybody seized on the phone part, and that's cool and all.  I just want to make it clear that my apprehension was about unsolicited solicitation, not really the phone itself.

Ah, right. Telemarketing is a thing I could never do, because I'd feel guilty every time I dialed. Likewise, door-to-door work.

[Vector]

I have a professor who does the purposeful silence thing.  It's driving me up the wall.  I keep on having to send emails saying "no, wait, that isn't right..."

My doing things that any other person would appreciate turn into insults, and I'm starting to have anxiety issues focused around this particular course.

[SalmonGod]

I really never occurred to me that might cause anxiety for some people   

[hector13]

A lot of people don't like the phone. Any of you considered looking for a cognitive behavioural therapy course online? Useful stuff, I can tell you.

The only unfortunate thing is it tends to need some motivation to keep at it, which can be hard to come by if there are other, underlying reasons for things.

[Heron TSG]

I'm apparently iron deficient. Due to the intensity of my training for cross country (as hard as I can go, all the time.) my muscles have been using more iron than I have been taking in. This will kill my performance for at least a week, probably two. I'll be starting to treat it today. How?

By eating nails for breakfast!
By cooking meals in cast-iron pans!
By eating more red meat!
By ingesting raw iron and various acids!

But seriously, this sucks. I have none of the energy.