It’s now been three weeks since restarting work. By jumping back into this kind of social grind I’m asking for confrontation with those elements in me that I don’t want to face. In fact, I’ve been avoiding them for all of my life in both conscious and unconscious ways.

What do I have to lose now by facing these? Last week I felt like quitting - not only because of the social stress but also quite frankly I’m not sure I’m able to even successfully do the job for the client in the small amount of time I’m given. But I’m deciding to hang on, even if I have to do so by my fingernails. I owe it to myself just this once in my sorry fucking life to open myself up to the scrutiny, criticism, and whatever the hell else may come my way from others. Just to see what happens.

Because you see, this is what I’ve been avoiding all my life. It’s the ultimate denouement of a life of pure loss. Or rather loss of opportunities and satisfaction. A life of always hunkering down and running away. I’m firmly in the middle age of my lifespan, so what do I have to lose now?

The day-to-day

On a day-to-day level here is what I go through. First, I undergo all the familiar anxiety the night and morning before starting the job. I work in this room packed with other people whom I’m only just getting to know. It’s also a competitive atmosphere where you’re judged by how well you perform. The other consultants watch your body language and everyone tries to show competence. It’s somewhat of a pressure cooker, where the stress is palpable and while there is a sort of camraderie in common suffering, you shouldn’t think of the other guy or girl as your friend.

So much for external realities. Inside, it’s both fascinating and horrifying to witness what’s going on in my mind. I’m glad I’m finally able to look at it directly, or about as directly as I’ve ever been able to, since trying to understand myself was always a little like trying to stare at the sun.

If I told you it was all about avoidance, you probably wouldn’t be surprised after reading the title of this blog. But why? Let’s break that down.

There’s “why” as in “what’s the reason I want to avoid all uncomfortable situations, and, even my own thoughts to the point of escaping relationships and reflexively numbing my feelings.” To be honest, I will never know the answer to what ails me. What single event in my life bent me to become misshapen? Was it just one event, or many? Is it also because the canvas on which my personality is painted is flawed (genetics)? If we look at events, I’m told that soon after I was born I developed some disease that made me yellow and impeded respiration, so I spent several days or weeks under an incubator and my mother returned home without me. She said they thought I was going to die. Then there’s my father, an indifferent man who avoided all emotional intimacy with us.

There’s also a host of other external factors that I’ve already written about. That’s as far as I can follow this thread though, as nothing in my experience provides an objective break between “normal” and “abnormal.”

Secondly, one could look at “why” in more concrete terms… what exactly am I avoiding? Here, things get interesting. It’s the pattern that plays, and has played itself out, over and over again for the past 46 years. It’s all too familiar and yet surprisingly alien, as it goes against my own social instincts. You see, my instincts are actually healthy. I mean, the way I react to people and a lot of my behavior feels natural, or can be natural when I’m relaxed. It’s when I’m anxious that things go south.

Getting to the crux of the matter

For starters, the one thing to take note of, the elephant in the room, is the overriding fear of being exposed. That’s it; yes, it’s that simple. But let’s dig deeper. “Being exposed” means, a deathly fear of being judged by others. I noted here once, while taking a trip by myself on an airplane, how strange it was to take notice for the first time that the reason I’m uncomfortable around people, and particulary strangers, is because I think they’re out to get me. Yes, all those human figures I’m not focusing on, dark shadowy figures of people I “see” in my almost unnoticed, peripheral vision, are dangerous, and it’s actually an unconsious awareness. Let’s imagine you, the reader, are any of a number of people surrounding me in an airplane, seated a row in front, behind, or even in my row. As I don’t know you, I naturally assume, or rather I project on to you, that you reprsesent a kind of danger for me, and I need to get away.

Over my lifespan I’ve learned to get along with you, and if I get to know you to any extent, it already makes me feel better about you. But my first thought in your presence is that you will harm me. In what way, you ask? I know all this sounds nonsensical, but I don’t think I made such counterproductive rules all by myself. The rules feel like they were just always there, and I’ve trained myself in life to just cope with the danger. As I get older and more experienced, I feel marginally more relaxed in social situations. But I also see how avoiding all those situations has brought me to a place where ironically I’m less able to cope.

There’s no white knight who’s going to save me from all this, or from myself, so I might as well go all the way now and endure the pain of telling the rest of the story. All those dark, shadowy figures will harm me in some unspecified, but painful way.

Rejection? Social humiliation? Thundering judgement? Bodily harm? A little bit of all, I’m afraid. It’s all a big, black hole of pain and misery that I would do better to avoid. And avoid it I have, from concentrating on my own qualities (how great I am; how attractive or smart I am to assure myself that no one will reject me), to putting down people in my head (look how ugly she is; he must be dumb and worthless, etc.).

It all sounds pretty warped and ugly doesn’t it? It’s all meant to confuse myself into being able to stay physically present in scary situations. If you think this confusion sounds bad, you should have seen the shitshow going on in my head when I was younger. How I ever got anything done in the presence of others is a real miracle, but I was a confused motherfucker.

The unknowable origins

Of course it would really help to know what caused this issue so I can get over it (heal) but of course some things aren’t meant to be. Every day when I head into that consultant box (our shared office, which is really just a meeting room reserved for “externals”), I have to steel myself into saying, “I will not walk away. I will not walk away. I will stay mentally and emotionally present despite risks of rejection or even harm.” All my life I followed another pattern, trying not to be mentally and emotionally present and quitting at various junctures.

Now my life is a mess, so as I said earlier, what do I have to lose by undergoing the potentially real harm and pain of social interactions?

Staying put

The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life is to simply stay put in some situations. That is, stay present both physically and mentally. What’s so simple for the unafflicted masses, who have been able to gain their experience by undergoing significantly less pain than me in uncomfortable situations, is for me scary and very, very difficult. To remain true to myself and stay honest when the perceived risks are so high, is what forges character in a person. But this is why I have little such stuff. It’s also why they nicknamed avoidant personality disorder the cowardice disease.