deborahscinder said...
I avoid calls from everyone except my husband. I'm known in my family as not answering the phone. I know how it started, I avoided the phone for three years when my mother was harrassing me. Now everytime my phone chirps I get anxiety, I literally cannot talk to anyone on the phone especially my mother. Just hearing her voice causes me anxiety, she is always upset or depressed about something and it drains my energy. [img]/community/emoticons/confused.gif[/img]
That last part official makes you my clone!! It was like reading a page out of my own life.
My stomach drops when my phone rings...texts are ok because mom doesn't know how to text!
When I had to take care of her by myself (stinky brothers...) She called constantly ...my work phone, my cell phone...if I wanted to stop somewhere after work just to sit and have one moment my phone was blowing up with "where are yous and where is my cheeseburger!" No joke...I was her fast food dealer since I drove everywhere. I would turn it off sometimes and be afraid to turn it back on because it would have 25 voice mails.
I hate having to avoid her but I can't combine my depression and anxiety with hers on any given day. It would drive me to madness!! I have to have her in small controlled doses. She doesn't like it but I explained it to her as nicely as I could. She doesn't have my number anymore but she has my work number and my dads number if it is an emergency. But after seven years my phone ring still caused my heart to leap for some reason.
Working a job that requires me to do phone calls ( a lot of times with strangers) has helped me a lot. Kinda like treatment by baptism by fire. I used to hate it and stutter and mess up but now my brain switches to a different person (even a different voice) when I answer or make calls for work and I breeze through it like a memorized script
(not as creepy as it sounds I promise lol) The voice change is weird though, my professional voice is high pitched and no one recognizes me when they call me at work. Weird!