Social Anxiety Disorder.

In early college, I was diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder: An irrational fear of what other people are thinking, so strong that it interferes with daily life. One of the criteria is that the fear is so strong that the person realizes it is unreasonable. Have you ever had someone pass you giggling and you wonder if they are laughing at you? Imagine that everyone you fear that everyone you can see--regardless of their expression, of if they are looking at you--imagine that same feeling of, "Why are they laughing at me," amplified. That was my life. When I was diagnosed, my whole life suddenly made sense. It wasn't that everyone else was regularly more courageous than me or something, I just had some issues to work out. The treatment was simple. The doctor showed me that my fear was unreasonable and helped me realize why I was afraid. This, more or less, solved my problems.

However, I believe that my social anxiety caused my family some concern and confusion in my early life. They did not understand why I acted so unreasonably. There was a phase in middle school where I refused to go to ANY store with my family. Restaurants were entirely out of the question. Thus, I would like to post an insider's view into the thoughts of someone in middle school.

Imagine that you are a 14 year old girl and your mother is taking you grocery shopping. You don't want to go, but have to because it's on the way and she's not going to leave you sitting in the car that long. You walk into the store.

Oh no, why are there so many people here? Who wants to go shopping on a Tuesday afternoon anyways? Why are they looking at me? Oh, gosh, they must think that I look like an idiot. I wish I wasn't wearing a blue shirt--Mom, what are you doing? DON'T WALK TO THE CHEESE SECTION, MOM, PEOPLE CAN SEE US... oh crap, she's looking at the cheeses.. WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK? Don't pick it up, please... DON'T ASK ME! STOP TALKING SO LOUD! PEOPLE CAN SEE US! They're going to think we're the silly people who have to discuss cheese choices... Maybe if I fold my arms tighter they'll stop looking at me. I wish I could just fade into invisibility... I do NOT like grocery shopping. AGH MOM STOP ASKING ME ABOUT BREAD, LETS JUST GO!

That was a regular day inside of my head. Here's another example. You're 18, in New York for the first time with your family, and your mom sees a little local breakfast shop and takes you all inside. You are asked what you want to eat. You stare at the guy taking your order blankly.

What do people eat in New York? Bagels? I've never really had much experience with bagels.. how do you eat bagels? What do you put on bagels? I really want pancakes. Nobody is ordering pancakes. I guess people don't eat pancakes in New York... If I order pancakes, will they think I'm fat? Can they tell I'm a tourist?

"Andrea, are you going to order?" asks Mom.

Oh, no, Mom, please don't ask me that, I just don't know.. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO ORDER BAGELS PROPERLY.

This story ends with Mom telling me to just go outside since I've become mute. I left the restaurant and cried. I intended this post to be humorous, a way to laugh at my past, but the more I write, the more serious I feel.

It's also strange because there are certain times or people that grant you immunity. Whenever I was with Dustin, for example, I had immunity. This was because, in my mind, nobody would judge Dustin poorly. Being with people like Dustin, Trish, Leah, or a few others, granted you so many cool points that nobody would think badly of you. It's strange how irrationally this fear works. Also, there were safe places. The choir room, for example, was somewhere that I was as outgoing as I wished. This was because I excelled at choir and everyone knew it. In that domain, I was on top, so there was nothing to fear. The rest of the world was full of terrifying strangers.

The therapist, a nice young grad student, helped me through my problems. She taught me to analyze my thoughts. Why do you think people are judging you? Do you judge everyone you see? Do you even pay attention to them? She even took me on a trip to the library where I followed her from a distance and acted ENTIRELY ridiculous, doing silly things like dropping her keys and asking for books and a turning point occurred in my life. Despite her ridiculous antics, nobody noticed. Or even cared.

It's funny to see the changes in my life. I can go shopping now. Do you realize how strange that is? I can go into a store and pick out clothes that I think are legitimately cute, not just clothes that I think would fade into the background. I can purchase these clothes. At restaurants, I don't get the most "normal" choice, I get what I really want to eat. I sometimes still have troubles going into new stores or trying new things, and sometimes it can be difficult for Mike and I to try new things, since he also suffered from Social Anxiety Disorder. But we help each other through it, and overall I'm much cured from where I was. I guess it was convenient that the solution was as simple as allowing someone else to help me reason through my thoughts. I wish all problems were that easy.

Half Awake.

I am a morning person. Especially after my year of World of Warcraft, mentioned in previous blogs. After spending nights playing games until 8 am and sleeping through all daylight, I feel a little queasy if I sleep in past 9 am anymore, though I can sleep until 10:30 on really special occasions. Usually, I'd prefer suffer through being tired than sleep in so late anymore. Anyways, now I make it a point to be up as soon as I wake up the first time since I can no longer stomach waking up so late.

Unfortunately, even though I love the morning and being as the sun rises, my brain seems to function quite differently than the rest of my body. In the mornings, I don't think my brain fully becomes conscious for quite a few hours. I will text a friend, write an email, or even this blog, only to read it at a later date and say, "...What?"

So here I am, drinking my coffee on a partly cloudy day, waiting for the day to really begin. I actually just got off of theknot.com, where I'm following their wedding checklist. I am at 60 days to go! Thinking of my wedding caused me to reminisce about Leah's wedding, which made me realize what a different person I have become. First of all, I can no longer deny that I live in Tallahassee. All college, due to dorm life forcing me to Deland in the summers, I always felt mixed about where I lived. Now, having not lived in Deland for about a year and a half, I clearly live in Tallahassee. Also, I realized I am undeniably an adult. I know that all of my peers and I constantly talk about how we still don't always feel like "grown-ups." I guess, what with there always being someone older out there, we never really will. But here I am, 22 years old with a Bachelors, engaged to a man with a Bachelors and a real job, realizing that I am an old, grown up adult. It happens so slowly that it takes me be surprise. I can't see the day to day changes, but I compare myself to just a few years ago, and I can tell that I've changed, little by little.

And it scares me to know that I'm going to keep changing, keep growing, for as many years as I have left. When I was four, thirty minutes felt like such a long time. When I was a teenager, thirty minutes didn't feel nearly as long. Now, an entire day can pass by and I've barely noticed it. The older I get, the more time is speeding up and taking me along with it, faster and faster. I grow older and older before I've had time to appreciate the changes, until one day I'll wake up after years have passed, with a whole lifetime to look back on. I'm excited for the future, of course, but I'm scared of the time that has to pass to take me there.

This post has taken some interesting turns. I'll stop writing now, since I'm sure I've already thoroughly perplexed a more awake version of myself who will read this later.

Presidents.

This is in no way an offensive post. So I hope. Let me also add, before anyone thinks that I'm a heathen, that I believe completely that Christianity is the way to live my life religiously. Additionally, I have done absolutely no research and this article in no way is referring to anything about my voting. I'm just elaborating on a thought. Now I am going to speak politically.

I've started doing this thing where I work out in the mornings before work. It has the advantage of giving me more time to do nothing in the afternoon, though I go to sleep earlier. During this workout time, I've decided to start watching the news. I'm killing two birds with one stone.. Although the news isn't really improving my brain. Especially the 6:30 news. I'm pretty sure the 7 am news called dibs on the good stories, and we're left with things that are so breaking that they will shock you every time, or things so mundane that you don't know why you're watching the interview. I also read my Discovery news app while eating breakfast, which is much more interesting and much less relevant to anyone's life.

Anyways, today there was an interesting comment. Apparently, there's all these people who want to be president. One of them is Mitt Romney, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Then there are some other people: someone who owns a pizza shop and someone who doesn't like Mitt Romney. I only vaguely paid attention. Now, this one guy decided to remind us all that Mitt Romney is a Mormon, which must mean he is part of a cult, and is completely unfit to run our country.

Now, I am not a member of the LDS church. My best friend, Jess, is. I've met plenty of "them Mormons," in my time. And I want to tell all you Romney-haters out there something. If you want to dislike him on some sort of political grounds or something about the way he feels about running the country, I don't care. However, I see no reason to hate the guy for being part of a church. Firstly, it's not a cult. There are some sects that aren't part of the church, but he shouldn't' be affiliated with them. I'd certainly hate it if anyone affiliated me with any Baptist person who ever did something insane for the sake of religion. I think most people get freaked out cause the Mormons believe in things with which they aren't familiar. Well, to a complete outsider, we'd look pretty odd closing our eyes and raising our hands to a piece of cross-shaped wood with a dying man attached. And don't tell me I'm being sacrilegious with that comment. To us, it's sacred. To an outsider, it might be bewildering. So don't give them crap for having different traditions. (Note: I would have a problem with a religion that involved live sacrifice or arson or something. However, that is most definitely not the case here.)

That aside, what is wrong with the Mormon people, exactly? I've met them. They're awesome! They're one of the most open, welcoming religions I've met. They're kind and friendly and pretty straightforward. If anything, they are more accepting than any other church about the fact that I'm not one of them (Note: I am making no statement about their beliefs or how I feel about the Mormon beliefs. This is because I feel that their beliefs won't hinder them from successfully running a country.) And when it really comes down to it, I think our country could use some of that (among other things.) We need to get out of this idea that Christianity is "the" religion. We all have freedom of religion. We all have the right to choose whatever religion we want. That right gives us the option to be any religion and worship freely, be it Christianity or Islam or Judaism or Atheism. The fact that our country has long had this idea that "Christianity is the only way," is stifling one of the core freedoms that built our country. The fact that someone is using another person's lack of Christianity as a flaw in an attempt to jeopardize his campaign is appalling.

Why is it that the majority always has to hate the minority? We hated the African-Americans. We hated the Native Americans. We hated the Irish Catholics. We hated the Japanese during WWII. We then decided to be more open minded and judge people on their chosen beliefs rather than their genetics. So then it was Islam that we hated. Now, we target LDS. We, the Caucasians, the Protestants, the majority in America, feel the need to hate anyone who is different than us, especially when we feel our majority-ship is being threatened. Have you heard the statistic that white people won't be the majority as of 2020 or some such year? So, what? What difference does that really make?

If you don't want to vote for Mitt Romney because of his political beliefs, that's fine. If you don't want to vote for him because you feel, as a Christian, it's not the right thing to do, I understand that, though I don't agree. If you choose to proclaim to everyone else that he's unfit to be a politician because of his religious beliefs, then I think maybe you need a better campaign argument.

Jess, may you and your fellow LDS people know that you are admired and loved.

Relativity.

So, this morning I was sitting at the table, eating my oatmeal, and reading my Discovery News app on my iPhone. Typical morning. Discovery News is much better than real news, because it's only related to science and technology. Why would I want to know about politics and people when I could read about the dinosaur skeleton found in Washington, the fact that male sea squids are bisexual, or that the relationship between galaxies and black holes is still confusing to scientists? If you don't have this app, I recommend you download it.

So this morning, I see a new story. Apparently, scientists have found that neutrinos can travel faster than the speed of light.

My first question was this: who is paying someone to spend six months blasting subatomic particles in a 70 km tunnel under Europe and measure their speeds to the nanosecond? I guess some rich Europeans. Secondly, how accurate can that machinery be to see that a particle that is so small that we originally didn't believe it even had mass? And then be measured to ridiculous specifications of speed?

Anyways, apparently this messes up Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity. Not that it's completely wrong now, just that he said the speed of light in a vacuum was the fasting anything could ever move. And now we have these tricky neutrinos making him wrong. I wish I had taken some science besides Astronomy and Physics and Technology for Future Presidents in college. The first class was wonderful, but not in depth, and the second wasn't really physics. It was more of a seventh grade science class. Now, I am unfortunately a college graduate with no idea of relativity of theories of Einstein, and when I try to read the Wikipedia article it is most unfortunately over my head.

What's going to happen to the science of our time? We always thought of Einstein as a genius, but will future generations think of him as an interesting guy who was wrong? Like Ptolemy? Or just an interesting guy who discovered something useful, with a few kinks, that led us to more important discoveries? More like Galileo or Newton. I'm more familiar with famous mathematicians than scientists. But what will future children be learning? What have I learned about the universe that is false? What exactly is relativity??

It is too early in the morning for me to be pondering all of this. It's making my head spin.

On another note, according to my news app, Neil Armstrong thinks it's disgraceful that we aren't going to the moon or local space anymore. News flash, Armstrong: we went there, didn't find anything helpful or interesting, and are currently just putting billions of taxpayers dollars into an industry that honestly isn't promoting the bettering of humanity. All the space program did, at this point, was give select few individuals the opportunity to hang out in a gravity free environment and chill out on the moon. We weren't learning anything, we weren't accomplishing anything, and we already stuck the US flag on the moon and stole a bunch of rocks. What else do we need? Besides, we're now planning on visiting asteroids and Mars instead. At least that's new and exciting. Another app, however, said that extended time in space causes serious eye troubles.

I'm mostly interested in the articles about space. I definitely don't want to go to space; I'd be too claustrophobic.

Far Too Long.

It's been quite some time since I posted. It's honestly been quite some time since I've had time to do anything. This summer, I'm working two jobs. I get up at 6 and leave around 7. I teach from 8-1, then have a break where I either go to the gym or plan my lessons for the next day. At 2:45 I arrive at my other job, a customer service representative answering phones all day for a company that does photographs of graduations and marathons. At 9, I drive home and arrive at my apartment about 9:20. I have about 40 minutes left to myself before I need to go to sleep in order to be fully rested for the next day. Fridays I only work one job, and I have to work some Saturdays and Sundays. However, July 4th I was lucky enough to not work either job.

I want to talk about my jobs today. I've been working at the customer service job since May. It's an interesting place--there are 60 of us in cubicles in a room. I have no idea who anyone is save the 6 or so people who sit around me. For a month, until the second job started, I worked the morning shift. My three coworkers became some sort of friends to me. Meaning that we all stand up and tell the other three whenever we have an extremely awful or wonderful customer on the phone. I even hung out with one of these people outside of work once. And plan to again, she's awesome! Every morning, before the phones start, I would have her tell me about this guy with whom she's getting closer and developing a relationship. We don't have much time to talk about it during the day. Any conversation is disjointed and broken. As soon as a phone rings, the speaker has to finish the last sentence before the phone reaches the fourth ring and the supervisors ask you why you aren't answering your phone. Anyways, summer school started three weeks ago and I changed to the evening shift. At first, I felt lonely and resentful. I was surrounded by a new group of strangers, two of whom were incredibly good friends outside of work. However, the necessity to be sociable overcame me holding on to some idea that I didn't want to talk to more strangers, and I began standing up to tell them the same ridiculous stories. Thus, I know a total of 6 people: The three people surrounding my cubicle in the morning shift and the three in the evening shift.

At 9 pm, I walk outside to my car. The sun has set, but the sky isn't dark yet. There's still some light to the west. I pull onto the interstate, roll down the windows, and blast music from my iPhone to try not to feel sad about the days that I'm seemingly wasting. Money is a necessity, I tell myself. I need money for grad school. I need money for the wedding. But I still can't shake that feeling that I'm wasting my time. I feel emotionally drained and lonely. The summertime was always a time of fun for me, especially the evenings. As a child, twilight is the time of day that I remember playing outside with Dustin, not noticing the gradual setting of the sun until it was too dark to see ourselves on the trampoline or throwing the football or whatever other activity we had partaken in that day. The past four years, my summers were spent in Deland, and I spent evenings with friends, mainly Jordan (one of my bridesmaids.) Now, I spend evenings answering emails and phones for minimum wage, and drive home looking at a sky that forces me to recall fun, sociable times. I make it home barely in time for sleep, only to wake up the next morning and leave my house at a time after sunrise that reminds me of camps and mission trips and adventures. I keep reminding myself that two jobs are only for six weeks, but I have this gnawing feeling inside of me that life is slowly changing for good, and the times of recreation and socializing and fun are over with forever. With my B.S. Degree, I earned myself a certain amount of adulthood, and with that achievement I must sacrifice other elements of my life.

I think if I didn't have Mike always ready to talk to me, and Leah just 50 yards away, I might go crazy with loneliness. As it is, I'll just cling on to my work ethic to make it through the next 3 weeks and see where I end up then.