Anxiety Background

I'm going to try something new. I've kept myself from writing here for a long time...well, I think it's time I started again. I read that anxiety can be conquered by trying to figure out why exactly my body is responding that way...and one of the only ways I know of to try and accomplish that, is by writing. I can probably trace back my first real panic attack to marijuana I smoked (I smoked a lot, but I refer to a specific instance) during my senior year of highschool. I think there was a lot of fear that came out that night - fears that were never overcome, of course. Like going off to a four-year university (never happened.) Moving out (should happen...sooner more than later...it really needs to. For my own sake. Even if it means being alone all the time.) Parental overseeing (they always were a bit overcontrolling, and hey, they're still involved in my life on a level i'm becoming less and less comfortable with.) I'm very mature and adult in many respects, but I still haven't taken that final plunge. It's one thing I have to do, and I know that. It's for my sake. No matter how much I love my parents and want to be there for them.

These are the primary reasons I can identify. Others were probably very circumstantial - for instance, the way people treated me because I dressed gothic. If I had never done that, it is entirely possible I would have never developed social anxiety on any level. In some ways, I hate that I did it. I know i was expressing something very real...and in truth, I still feel that in my self...but I can't put it out there for people to see, can I? The effects will linger probably the rest of my life. Of course, yes, I had a fucked up childhood - I was ridiculed and beaten up emotionally and mentally for years and years. Until I dressed gothic. And then, I just had to deal with complete ostracization. Which...I guess was "better" in a way. After all, I wasn't being picked on/abused anymore. I was just left out then - and I was always left out. And here I am - still ostracized by 99% of people, even though I dress "normal" again, and have a good job, and actually have become a rather capable musician. It just isn't enough, is it?

Another major "point" I recall is my first girlfriend. She broke up with me after two weeks. It slung me into a fit of depression I'm not sure I really ever dragged myself out of. That's really when the "goth" phase started. She left me for someone who I felt was inferior (and he always was, kinda, intellectually, in physical appearance - but guess what - he was popular.) So it was strange to me - here I was, smart, tall, fit. Not popular. No girls wanted me. Fucked up. Now of course, I still perceive the same patterns. If you have a lot of friends, it doesn't matter how much of a disgusting, alcoholic, jobless loser you may be - you're an "alpha." Because people surround you. Because you have this little "clan" of people. That makes you a fucking Alpha in this modern world. Even if you have nothing else to show for your life. That's all that matters now, at least in my age category. Social. Maybe that changes some day, but I have a feeling by the time most of these ladies figure this shit out, they're way beyond repair after having been abused and used as a result of their own stupidity, or biological wiring. However you want to see it. The alpha/beta concept is ludicrous in the first place, but it does apply in some regards. The real issue is, that I refuse to be a beta, and because of that, I am instead a lone wolf. People don't latch on to me - they never have. People don't follow me - they never have. Even though I'm smarter, and more capable than they are in many cases. And yes, I'm getting egotistical. Because I fucking know it's the truth. But hey, they probably don't want to be the betas either. Everyone wants to be top dog. It's just that in these little clans or social groups surrounding certain individuals, all of the guys aren't thinking about how the ladies there perceive them. They're thinking, yeah man, I can get with that chick. When in reality, the chick just wants to fuck the center of the party, even if she's dating someone else. This is my thought process on these little mini dramas I've seen over the years. The girl, once fucking that guy, seems to improve her self esteem as a result - but I'm thinking it's an endless cycle.

Another part of it, I think, was how condescending many of my friends were to me, even when I considered them "friends." I can't come up with specific instances, but I honestly allowed myself to be the center of distaste. I never fought back. I never held up my values or my morals. Only recently did I finally say what I was thinking to a long time friend - and it probably was the nail in the coffin. But I'm fine with that, because - we had basically nothing in common, and he was constantly scraping up girls who were barely legal age and getting them drunk at his lame ass "parties" whilst driving about the countryside drunk doing 120mph. I no longer have any respect for him as a person. Not only has he never had a real job, he attracts all manner of good looking young girls (and yes, even some older ones) to his doorstep. He's the "alpha" but he would never stand in a fist fight or a fight of minds. He's just excellent at social manipulation and making himself look like an idiot. Ladies love that, don't they? The thing about it is, I had another friend who is basically the same. The difference is, he has a girlfriend and a child, and he's too busy ruining her life and cheating on her to give a shit. No, I wouldn't touch her with a ten foot pole - or the girls the other ex friend has seen. They obviously are fucked up in the head. But the point is, this kind of shit is systemic in this culture and I'm becoming fed up with it. Is this a source of my anxiety? Probably - because I'm a nice, mature, caring guy who's actually getting his financial life completely straight, and starting to truly be the definition of an "adult." Meanwhile, the dating scene is ridiculous and what I have to offer isn't enough. Because I'm a lone wolf.

And returning to a former point, on the concept of Alphas. I have knocked heads with a lot of these alcoholic losers who have new chicks hanging on them left and right at bars, both in bars, and at work, and even at parties. The thing about these guys is, they want me to be their friend - they want me to be a beta in their little group, a groupie so to speak. The reason they want it so badly, I believe, is because they know I'm a bigger and better Alpha than they are. My friendship makes them look even better. I actually exude those attributes full force, both in physical apperance, dimension, and mental capacity. So they try to fight me - they try to get me to hit first - they go to the only place they know they might have a chance at winning to prove they're the alpha. It's fucking sick. And it's one reason why I push myself to weight lift and work out. If I do buy my own house, you can bet there'll be a 200lb bag and a weight bench. (I used to love hitting the bag, but I grew a bit too tall to use it in the basement of my current residence back when I was still a teenager. It was one of the best ways for me to get my aggressions on the world out.)

Reading through some of this, I see some of that "catcher in the rye" style freewriting going on. It's not a bad thing, but I apologize for the disconnected ideas. I've always had an issue with this. I'm not "trying" to write formally, I'm just letting it out of me however it wants to come out, whatever comes to mind. Not that anyone reads this anymore, anyway.

Returning to the main point of this, Anxiety. The above is mostly the backstory - what I perceive are the primary reasons for my anxiety to exist at all. But I'm still not sure -why- it does. From now on, I'm going to write about instances I experience anxiety, because I'm hoping by writing about them in retrospect, I might be able to learn from it...see things I didn't see...maybe even conquer it...figure out the message it is trying to send me, and has been for a long time.




 

Anxiety I

"The Control Room"

I was a substitute operator at a Fluid Catalytic Cracking unit for about a year. I was making $30/h. Rotating shifts - first, then third, then second, repeat. Eight days on each, counting the two days off that weren't really yours because you had to "swing" to the next shift. If you didn't, you were screwed come your "monday" - which changed every week. You might get six real weekends off a year, or so.

I experienced severe anxiety around these guys. Being in a small control room most of the time (because there simply wasn't enough work to do outside) around two-three other people constantly was insane. Everyone was watching everyone else closely. Everyone was chatting. I of course, have always been rather quiet. Even when I tried to quip in, most of the time it was quelled - chock it up to the mentality of the union, that if you haven't been there as long as the other guy, you've got nothing worth being heard. Rather, you're going to be the butt of everyone's jokes, and they're going to treat you like shit, because that's the hazing ritual. They were very neurotic people in general, and the attitude and discussions that went on in there went far beyond "shop talk" to the level of complete "dehumanization"

I can't remember very many specific instances. Most of the time it was on days with the foremen - I'd experience it, sometimes while writing my numbers in, or when being put on the spot to answer a specific question, or being watched while I performed some operation out in the unit.

This is a repeating pattern, too. "On the spot" anxiety. Performance anxiety. Yes, I even have it in bed when I'm still not really comfortable with someone yet. Can't keep it up. It's not erectile dysfunction. In the case of the bedroom, it's a combination I think of not really trusting the person I'm with, as well as my own insecurities - besides never having an ideal location for it, yet. No bachelor pad. But, I'm not really into casual sex as it is.

Performance anxiety, however. Starting at the refinery was very difficult. Everything you did, everyone watches you - because there's usually not enough work for everyone to do. I get terrible attacks while being watched (if I know the person is watching to see how/what I'm doing, measuring me up, whatever. I don't want to fuck up.) And here's where some clarity comes into play. Anxiety as a biological response actually has some benefits. Adrenalin gets going, making you stronger/faster. I can't say it makes you smarter, because I'm pretty sure it doesn't - it's too much of a fight or flight response to allow for complex mental activity, which is why social anxiety is so destructive. Even mild social anxiety can leave you feeling like you have nothing to say, when you should, or leave you wondering what to do next - you should just say what's on your mind. But the biology stops you. I can't tell you how many times in a given day at work, my mind just goes blank. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to "shoot the shit." This isn't because I'm incapable of it - people I've known for awhile, I get to be pretty good at it with. But in these cases of social anxiety, where the mind blanks - it's almost hard to define it as social anxiety. It leaves you feeling inadequate and weak. It leaves you feeling boring and makes you look like a "downer." And that's disappointing. But the biological response of anxiety, as I said...it does have benefits. It shows that I care -so much- mentally about performing well, doing well, being perfect, that my body at times literally produces a physical response to my mentations. It is an amazing thing, but at the same time, it obviously is causing a lot of problems. And drugs are not the solution long-term. There has to be a better answer.

"Dec 3rd"
The first example of anxiety was one I haven't had in a long time. Tina, who's one of the long-time Warehousemen, got me a utility knife to use (I suggested the utility over the pocket, because I feel a lot more comfortable and safer using them. Long razor blades that are hard to return to safe-keeping freak me out.) Like your standard utility knife, when it's fresh out of the package, you have to remove the screw holding the body of it together to get a razor blade out so it can be placed in the adjuster. I didn't have a quarter on me, so she handed me a penny. I promptly bent the penny into oblivion trying to open it, so she got me a screwdriver. At this point I'm already pretty "anxious" because I couldn't do it with the penny. Yeah, I know, I bent it - that's actually pretty interesting seeing as how I saw myself as relatively weak. Bending it with two fingers in a screw head shows some strength. But because of the anxiety - and this is actually a first in a long time - by the time she handed me the screwdriver, my hands were shaking. My hands haven't shaken from anxiety for a -very- long time. So I fumbled around for about two minutes, and finally got it open. It would've been easier had I sat the damn knife down and held it against the top of the filing cabinet, but I was too flustered to think of that. I held it in one hand (no stability) and unscrewed it with the other. I was very embarrassed but tried to ignore my hands. Of course she noticed - of course she wouldn't say anything. Nobody does. I see a lot of people with shaking hands...some of them I'm sure because they are alcoholics, others because they are socially anxious. But it's one of the worst symptoms and most horrific for me to experience. I'm not sure what I should take from this experience...but it needs to be here.

The other example is running the forklift out in the units. There's a lot of traffic on the in-plant roads - so, of course, I'm pressured to move quickly (because of my anxiety) even though I'm relatively new at at running it. I've had like three days of a couple hours at best experience. So I'm prone to fuck ups, and once I get anxious, it takes me forever to get something picked up correctly and to get out of the way. If there's something I can take from this, it's maybe that I should give a fuck less about what other people are thinking. I'm carrying chemical totes and drums sometimes worth in excess of $25,000 a piece. You can't rush something like that. It doesn't matter whether I'm new or not, or good at running the forklift yet or not. I should care about doing it right...not getting out of the way for someone who's going from point a to b in the plant, and can wait a few minutes if they have to.

This applies outside of the plant, too. I get anxious driving.