The Great Distraction

Or .....

How I would do anything not to talk on the phone.

I have had to overcome many fears over the last few years, fears which came about with my breakdown.

I'd been pretty bomb proof before my breakdown, I could go to work, to a pub, shopping, away for the weekend, out with friends. All the normal things everyone does on a day to day basis.

When I had my breakdown suddenly 99% of life experiences scared me to death. I couldn't go out, I couldn't sit by the window, I couldn't go near the front door. I was a useless, fear frozen mess barely able to overcome the fear enough to go downstairs every day. I literally jumped at shadows.

It's not a place I want to go back to.

Through therapy, and because I had no one else to do it, I've managed to overcome most of those fears. I'm still not 100% and doubt I'll ever be but by using coping techniques and not pushing myself I can pretty much function, even if it means doing the task as quickly as possible. I don't even need medication anymore.

The one thing I can't do is answer the phone. I have no idea why I fear the phone, I don't know if it's connected to any abuse. I do know that every time the phones rings I jump out of my skin, I feel sick and I want to cry.

I think it's to do with having someone talking in my ear, it's obviously to do with having my abuser do that to me. Whispering in my ear, even thinking about it makes me cringe and my skin crawl. It makes me feel sick.

I don't know how to get over this fear, this issue. I really, really can't cope with phone calls. Some days I'm glad I don't have friends as they'd want to call and that would keep triggering me. It's not a normal trigger, there's no image or flashback, it's just a sensation of dread.

The only way I've found of getting around it is by missing the call, calming down and then phoning them back using speaker phone. This I can cope with but then I still can't make calls of my own back. I can't just phone someone I'm acquainted with and make up chit chat.

This I think stems from my family, from them either constantly calling or being funny if I called them.

I know I need to leave them behind but it's really difficult. These are the people I've known all my life and none of them want to have anything to do with me. That hurts too much. It makes the non abusive parts of my childhood seem worthless. It makes me feel like I have no base, no foundation.

I have to make my own foundation but the older I get the harder it seems.

Everyone has their own foundations, built with their own friends and family they've known for years. The desperate stranger hanging in the wings is invisible, not in a nasty way just that peoples lives are already as full as they need or want and I just feel stupid for trying sometimes.

I need other people though, I think. Maybe I just need the parents I didn't have, maybe I just need someone to have my back once in a while, to moan to when life's grim, to laugh with when life's good.

Maybe there's a lot of people out there who don't have it but do have a masquerade of having it.

Maybe my next post will be about loneliness.