All the brain-weasels

[bladespark]

I always knew I was weird, but I never thought it was in an ADHD-Autism-Anxiety way. In a plural way, sure, in a nerd way, in an artist way, but...

Thing is, that I didn't recognize the other things because however it happened, as a child and teen I built a stack of coping strategies that managed them super well.

This last year, though, I have had to admit to all of them, because no matter how well they work, coping strategies take extra mental energy, and this past year? Yeah. I am down to the dregs every single day. No spoons to spare.

My car battery died in the parking lot today, and I waited an hour for JJ to come jump me because I couldn't bring myself to approach strangers about it. Social frigging anxiety. I was a Mormon missionary! I've done sales my entire life! "Approach strangers" has been basically my job description on multiple occasions and I did fine! Except it took a lot of mental strategizing and structure to do fine, and today I just sat in the car and tried to keep from crying and that was all I could manage.

I used to get so MAD when people called me shy. I wasn't *afraid* of talking to people, I just like solitude.

Well... *sigh* Shy still isn't quite right, but, yeah. I am afraid, just a little. And a lot of other things I never used to admit to, because they didn't bother me, because I had them managed. And now I don't.

Ugh.

Comments

[thesebonesaregood]

I don't know if this makes any sense, or helps in any way but I understand. Thi last year has been a real test for me and my agoraphobia. Not leaving the house much, or interacting with a select group of people has really cut down on my ability to cope. I stopped practicing how to be a person at strangers and now, when I do have to do that, I'm a floundering mess of anxiety and neurosis.

As draining as being a person at strangers was, I had to do so more often than I do now and I feel like i"m...out of practice, in a way.

[bladespark]

Yeah. Strategies often require practice. If you don't keep them up, you have to rebuild them.

[sylvanwitch]

It's been my experience that anxiety I easily managed when I was in my twenties has gotten far less manageable as I've gotten older *despite* having developed new/better coping mechanisms. I think there's an age-related variable here. (I know I've seen this in my mother, who has a host of untreated mental illnesses, all of which have only gotten much, much worse as her age has entrenched her behavior, if that makes sense.) All of this is just to say that I both relate and empathize with what you're describing here. It's so hard when you think you've figured out a work-around and then the thing you're trying to get around gets bigger or more difficult to circumvent.

[the_siobhan]

I think as we get older there are just more demands on our energy too - if school is your main job you can focus on the strategies to get through school and also family interactions. Twenty years later it's family, job, maybe still school, maybe kid(s), maybe kid(s) teachers, maybe partners family members - thirty years later now I'm now *also* dealing with being the main support for an elderly family member, I'm more senior in my job so I'm training the new people and How Is There Still Frigging School.

I know a lot of my coping mechanisms for anxiety are just overwhelmed through the sheer number of things they've been asked to do.

[thearistocrats]

Oof, mood. I'm not shy really at all, but I also have social anxiety. It takes a lot of brainpower for me to Do The Social correctly.

-Ryn

[frith]

Dead car battery is not fun. My car battery died this month, I was not keen to call the garage to give me a boost so I could bring it in.

[adafrog]

{{{{hugs}}}}

[erulissedances]

I think we all are stretched in ways we never anticipated this year. Everyone has a trigger point - often it's totally unknown and just takes that one more straw to break. I think you did fine, actually. You managed to get the help you needed and you didn't completely fall to pieces.

- Erulisse (one L)

[batrachian]

((()))

[silveradept]

The additional energy demands of the last year have wreaked havoc with what were things that would work in a year without those stresses. There's also something about how life in the US is normally stretching people to their breaking point in multiple fronts and we're all desperately hoping The Big One happens when we've got slack in some other place so we can adjust, but there hasn't been slack in anything for decades now.

(And also, in a pandemic like this one, strangers aren't safe any more, so helpful brains might be giving us hlepful ideas about what we can and can't do.)