Letting My Crazy Hang Out

You know what’s a great idea for someone with social anxiety?

Get dreadlocks.

Yeah, cause now I’ve got a conversation starter right on the top of my head. There’s nothing quite as fun as having random people suddenly approach you to talk every five minutes. Oh boy, I love smiling and nodding and looking pleasant while my chest is on fire, my stomach is aching, and I can feel my blood pressure my rising to make my head throb.

Every. Five. Damn. Minutes.

Yeah, should have thought about that when I decided to do this.

Oh I can fake it. I’ve been faking it for years. I used to work at a travel stop on the highway for crying out loud. I can be totally pleasant and have a 20 minute conversation with you without ever letting on that on the inside I’m near hysterics. That is, unless you know the signs.

When I touch or play with my hair repeatedly, I’m nervous. The more I do it, the more nervous I am. If I stand there the entire conversation with a smile while my hands are furiously trying to make my hair lay down flat, you can probably assume I’m going to cry about you talking to me later.

And it’s got nothing to do with you personally, or even the topic of conversation. It’s just that I don’t know you, you’re in my bubble, and my brain is trying to override common sense and set off the “fight or flight” response.

I don’t touch, or hug. I can touch Michael, I can touch my kids. I have friends that hug and I can resist the urge to claw and scratch to hug them. I can even logically talk myself down from the ledge to hug a semi-stranger if the moment calls for it. But I don’t like it, it bothers me.

I don’t even hug my own mother. I remember taking a class with her when I was 15 with my mother after getting into trouble for something. Everyone was required to hug after the class before we could leave. We were there for at least 5 minutes after everyone else had left. The counselor and my mother both assumed I was just being a bitch, but the fact is I needed to mentally psych myself up before I could get into that space.

I just … don’t touch me.

When I went to BlogHer last year, for every 5 minutes I spent out mingling, another 10 was in my room crying/ranting/pacing. I thought that I could keep myself maintained, but it seemed the massive amount of strangers was really too much for me. And I lost it, frequently.

The people that know me online, know me as brash and opinionated and mouthy and loud. And I am, from the safety of my space. I can shut the computer down, walk away, breath. You’re not here, in my bubble, face to face. So I can let me come out, say what I want to say, talk to anyone. This is who I would be more often, if I weren’t hyperventilating.

I’ve lived like this long enough to self-regulate. I used to do that by drinking or taking drugs, now I breath and talk myself down in my head. I can appear perfectly fine on the outside, no matter how I feel on the inside.

Until I get home, shut the bathroom door, and let it all out.

Tags: crazy hang out, social anxiety

Summer is a freelance writer and mother of 3, searching for herself amongst the Legos and blocks. After moving a couple hundred miles away from home, and fighting a few dragons, she's figuring out that she needs to be her own biggest fan to get through the world.


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