Too busy planning for later, to think about right now

[title inspired by the least important line in Streetlight Manifesto’s ‘A Better Place, A Better Time’. The rest of the song is incredibly beautiful to me, too, but for entirely different reasons. Do me a favour and read the lyrics, alright? Whether or not you can connect the dots, I think you’ll get something out of it.]

        I read something in my psych textbook last year that’s really stuck with me. It was a single-line comment, something a good student knows they won’t be tested on, along the lines of “people with anxiety disorders often feel more in control of their lives when they worry about things.” I can guarantee that if I ask the people I know who’ve taken that exact same course, and read the exact same textbook, most of them wouldn’t even remember that part. What I can also tell you is that it’s more like a subtle reassurance than some sort of powerful feeling of controlling your own destiny. And that it takes a hell of a long time to think about the worst things that might happen, and debate how I should react or whether it’s worth the risk. It doesn’t feel good to take three hours working out a 30 second conversation; but think about what might have happened otherwise! I have to keep doing it, making mental conversation trees, guessing at people’s reactions, because to do otherwise is to give up the illusion of control, and risk facing problems I might not be prepared for.

        As you can probably guess, spontaneity isn’t one of my strengths. Makes me a terrible role player, too.

        The unfortunate problem is that I habitually use most of my downtime to think about these sorts of things. Worse still is the fact that trying to fall asleep is essentially infinite time to worry about things. Lifehacker posted an article this summer about dedicating time to worry - and not doing it during the rest of the day. It’s easier said than done, especially when you have a lot to do (and worry about), and when you’ve spent years replacing sleep with worrying. But it’s definitely something I need to work on, because it’s a big part of why I have trouble with people. Even though I know it’s true, I kind of have to remind myself that nobody is going to remember that time I said something dumb (even if I remember it forever), or expect me to be perfectly eloquent all the time (even if I regret not saying X for days afterwards, and why didn’t I think of that at the time!?). It’s a lot harder to carry on a conversation when I’m trying to keep all those things in mind. And it’s not like I often manage to map things out and predict how someone is going to react. It’s just a reassuring habit I fell into years ago.

        From the outside, you probably can’t tell how hard it is to break out of this pattern. It’s incredibly powerful, and incredibly pervasive. The associations get so strong that relapse is completely inevitable. Years of an almost ritualistic reliance on a seemingly harmless activity don’t go away overnight. Maybe you don’t want to see the harm it causes, or you can’t quite connect the dots. Either way, it sometimes seems a lot easier just to work around it rather than try to change.

        I’ll do it, though. I’m tired of being paralyzed as I hover over the send button, wondering whether I could improve the message (text, IM, e-mail) that I’ve been writing for 5-50 minutes. I’m tired of being tired, because I tried to go to bed early, but instead stayed up for two hours worrying, then woke up in the middle of the night and worried for another hour before falling back asleep. Tired of psyching myself out to the point where I can’t even talk to people, or talk in the presence of people when it comes to class discussion. It might take me six months, or it might take me two and a half years. But I’m tired of not being able to explain this to people, leaving them guessing as to what the problem actually is. I can take care of that problem now, while I work on the rest.