News release: Social anxiety causes impasse.
Or that’s what my internal news header would read if I had one. Think Inside Out kinda world going on (now I need to watch it again).
8 days and I haven’t heard back via email from my Pastor. AND I’ve been doing my ERP therapy, which is me sitting outside the church, end goal is to go in, so I can sit inside and pray… and the past 2 mornings there has been no one there.
The reason that needs mentioning, every other time there has always been someone there. Of course, I panicked and drove by when I did see a bunch of cars. But yesterday I was actually determined I was going to go in, hope that the Pastor was in, and talk to him. I’m at breaking point and actually wanted to just talk. Then, when I finally have gotten up the gall…there are no cars at all?
I’m like, wtf?
Who is messing with me here? God, Satan, some in between sideways being?
I thought a lot after yesterday. After reading a very enlightening post about Rumination, I realized that’s what I spend a lot of my time doing (since childhood). Especially on my “compulsive music drives” as I guess I’ll call them. But the ruminating always leads me to making decisions or realizations.
I’m taking no response as rejection because A. that’s how I always take everything, B. that’s how I always take everything else.
I have received a couple friend requests from lady church members. It is just slightly possible, just slightly, that I am not in fact being rejected. It is possible that he is giving me space and time because he thinks that’s what I need.
I get it. I wouldn’t know how to handle me either, I don’t think.
He has no idea my history, just that I’ve admitted to suffering from Religious OCD and struggle with thoughts when I come to church and social anxiety issues. So, if I’m to consider our line of past correspondence, there are more possibilities than rejection.
I knew that when I was upset the other day and wrote all about it. Today though, I actually have absorbed that perhaps my initial response and feelings of rejections are not accurate.
Impasse
So what now? I’m too scared to email him and be all like, “Uhm, hey…I haven’t heard from you, do you hate me? What about those questions?”
I’m also kinda scared to actually go back to church because a part of me still feels rejection. There is a voice in my mind that says he has not written back because I am too much, too crazy, a burden, not important, some weirdo, the list goes on. I feel Judged. With a capital J.
So I sit and wait.
I was blessed with the patience of a saint, as I’ve said before. It’s how I can work with animals and handle my autistic son with extreme calmness. That said, my patience extends only so far in the realm of waiting. Because as I wait, I still do suffer from mental illness. My mind repeatedly tells me I’m a horrible human being and I hate me.
I’m horrible, I’m horrible, I’m horrible. I catch myself quietly verbalizing my intrusive thoughts out loud, they have gotten so bad this week. I have to catch myself before an employee hears.
I know I’m not – that thought is just a result of trauma. But the anxiety of not knowing what to do, who’s thinking what, what actually is happening on the other side of the impasse…it’s made my mind just…
I wish I could just send a psychic signal telling him distance is bad. Yes, I do indeed have social anxiety and people scare the hell out of me, but I reached out for help because I am at a point where I need others.
But I can’t. I’m not psychic. Despite my stint as a phone psychic for Miss Cleo reading Tarot Cards. Yes, I was a heathen for a short while, and it was awful.
So, I will sit and quietly pray for God to just do what he will. Hopefully not obsessively. But I know me.
It’s either that or I’ll go on one of my drives and ruminate for hours.
The Obsessively Anxious 