Today I had a busy day. Days like these leave me feeling completely drained. I was ready for bed at 8 pm, unfortunately my kids were not, so here I am, writing.
We had to go to a doctor office to get my younger son a blood draw, pick up his meds, and then get him to school.
In the school I talked with 2 other adults, not too big of a deal.
Then, I had to go to a VA hospital with my husband, talk with his doctor about all of his things going on.
While there the phone rings, my son had a seizure at school. Spoke with two adults, one I had spoken with earlier, and now his teacher. I’m up to 4 people, now.
2 strangers, 2 known.
We leave that hospital to go to another hospital so I can get my ID renewed.
By the time we park the car, I’m already starting to feel weak.
My anxiety starts to literally make me feel tired and sore. Yet, I’ve not done anything too strenuous.
Clearly my body is telling me I need to rest, but I can’t. So I push on.
In we go.
We enter the small room, made even smaller by cubicle walls.
The man behind the counter snaps, “Why are you in here?!”
I know why, but my mouth won’t speak.
My husband answers, he signs me in, and rings the bell.
A woman comes out, snatches the papers and id’s out of my husband’s hands, “What do you want?!”
My husband clearly baffled by everyone’s general gruffness, stutters and says, “we just need to renew her ID card.”
She sighs, then sees my daughter with us and snaps she can’t come back. I am forced to go into a small office with a woman that seems like she’d rather be anywhere else, with anyone else.
She’s very grumpy in her office, I hear that they’d been having trouble all day, so I try to put myself in her shoes and just make some small talk and be as respectful as possible.
She’s not really responding, which makes me feel more anxious. I can feel my heart racing, and it feels like my lungs are closing.
I spot this sign that makes me giggle.
CARDS WILL NOT BE REDONE SOLELY BASED ON THE CLIENT’S DISAPPROVAL OF PHOTO.
As I’m giggling, the lady looks up from behind her screen, just staring.
I asked her, “Does this actually happen a lot?”
She read the sign and says, “more than I’d like to admit.”
THEN SHE SMILED!
Boom.
Instant anxiety relief.
From that moment on she was much nicer and her whole demeanor changed, drastically!
I get my new ID and leave.
Total now: 2 known, 4 unknown
We then go out to lunch and we had a hostess seat us, and a waitress.
I can talk now, but eye contact is incredibly hard. I’m avoiding eye contact at all cost.
Not to be rude, it’s just too much.
I still say please and thank you, and I talk respectfully, I just cannot give more than a glance of eye contact.
My total is now: 2 known, 6 unkown.
After lunch we made a quick stop to the pet store, only social interaction was with the cashier. Besides thank you, there wasn’t much else said.
Picked up boys from their bus stops, and then went to the grocery store, ran into 2 friends and had short conversations.
Then my son while walking with me through an isle says, “mom I have a secret, you’re the best mommy in the whole world! Don’t tell anyone!”
Two strangers overhear him and look at him and smile, I smile at him also and ask, “well, if I can’t tell people I’m the best mom in the world, how will they know?”
To which the man says, “I already knew!”
While the woman on the other side of the isle laughed.
My grand total: 4 known, 8 unknown people I had a social interaction with.
A whopping total of 12 people I’ve spoken with has left me feeling exhausted.
It really isn’t a lot of people, but, to me it felt overwhelming.
Living with social anxiety makes doing such mundane tasks as getting a new ID, feel as though I’ve run a marathon. (I admit I’ve never run a real marathon, and never will. But I imagine it’s exhausting afterwards!)
If you see me at the end of the day, or the start of the day after a busy one, and I don’t make a lot of eye contact, or I just start rambling, please be patient with me. If I’m talking at all, you should be pretty impressed. I’m probably at my fill of social interactions for the next week, but I still want to make time for you!