I realized that I can’t even wear a new hat without putting myself in other people’s shoes, without stressing about their reactions to my sudden (very stylish, might I add) change in casual head gear.
I had a week off for thanks giving, and during a visit to the Salvation Army I picked up one of those old 90’s ball caps with the plastic fitting mechanism in the back, branded with some forgotten tool company logo on the front. I really took a liking to it, wearing it forwards or backwards, either way, it looks pretty great on me, it really does. I enjoyed it until I got back to work today. I don’t feel like you can just become a hat guy over night, people really notice these things, at least I notice this crap. I feel like a fraud of sorts, I find myself adjusting it, worrying if it seems off, that somehow if it were in the perfect position that it may pass off as natural enough to seem like I was a hat guy all along.
I am going to suffer through it, I will prevail a seemingly natural hat guy, and I will diversify my style, but until then I will face great inner turmoil.
I just think about this tiny change, how dramatically my fears effect my thoughts and behaviors, and it’s utterly maddening. The cliche emphasized by every person you explain neurotic thought to is, “people really only care about themselves.”, and I genuinely believe this to be true, that I make little impact on the thoughts of other self absorbed people. Despite this, I have this inner story being told through some omniscient narrator who constructs my reality based off of my fears and neurotic baggage.
Generalized anxiety is an evil scummy *****.
8 comments
Possible reactions:
Someone who knows you well: “You got a new hat? You never wear hats. I like it.”
Someone who doesn’t know you that well: “Hi Anthrophobia. I like the hat.” (Or, if they don’t like it or don’t notice, they won’t comment.)
Coworkers: “Anthro is wearing a hat today.” Or, “There’s Anthro” (while not noticing your new headgear).
One can always change their style, all it needs is YOUR confidence about it first of all. Do you like it? Then go for it. (This can be applied to anything that’s relatively harmless and doesn’t hurt other people.) If YOU are confident about your decisions, then nothing that anyone says will bother you or change your mind.
* Anthropophobia (typo)
anxiety – And the crazy hat guy — ? Something so silly as worrying about how others Might see you — And your asking yourself if that’s insane as well as telling yourself it is .. I got that going on too .. Not on a hat level , But that same reasoning over every decision or thought . it is true that “people really only care about themselves.” . If someone gives ya shit about your personal preference about ANYTHING you just got learn to snap it back at them .. Don’t like my shit –FUCK OFF … The best thing could be somebody saying Nice hat lets go .. Probably last about 1 second .. But you would move on to your next mind freak I guessing .. Anxiety Aahh – good times .. NOT …………. hang in there .. MM
Man, I get what you mean anthro. To me it’s a very involuntary anxiety that happens automatically. I get anxious around people and I try to tell myself who cares what they think, just be yourself ect. But honestly that doesn’t seem to do any good because the physical anxiety response is still there and just overpowers me. It actually can cause me more anxiety to try to force myself to be less anxious. All I can suggest is if you do regular exercise and regular meditation you can eventually get your baseline anxiety levels lowered and then it should hopefully be easier to relax.
Indeed that “self coaching” thing doesn’t really work. I am getting my meds revised thursday perhaps some change will come out of it. I don’t want to go up on the antipsychotic, I feel like it saps my creativity enough already, but perhaps an increase in depakote levels will do me right.
I definitely get not wanting to go up on an antipsychotic. With the risk of tardive dyskinesia on top of the side effects, energy and creativity drain. Those are probably my least favorite kinds of meds. And SSRIs seem to all basically do the same thing. What about trycyclic antidepressants? Those have always helped me more than SSRIs because they seem to help with anxiety, and obsessive thoughts as well as depression and not only feeling depressed like SSRIs do.
I do take a tricyclic antidepressant for sleep, it’s called remeron/ mirtazipine, I take it at bedtime. I have found that if I take a dose before a stressful situation it is effective, but has the side effect of wiping my memory clean.
Ah, gotcha. I’m on Remeron too is why I said that. When my dose went from 15-30 my energy actually increased, sedation decreased, and obsessive thoughts improved. It’s a quirky med where a low does is a horse tranquilizer and a higher dose is a mood and energy booster.