I have a pretty big problem with the phone.

I am not sure when it started. I certainly don’t recall having any phone related issues as a kid.

In fact, like a lot of kids, I found answering the phone when it rang to be fun. It was exciting and sudden and I got to be all adult and ask who’s calling and if they wanted me to take a message or not.

This often confused the people on the other end of the line, because I was clearly a child and yet I talked like an adult and seemed quite self-possessed. So sometimes they would insist I hand the phone to “am adult” (grr) or “my mommy or daddy” (GRR!), and I would be miffed.

I’d do it, of course. But I’d be miffed while doing so.

But other times, they would accept that I was not an imbecile and ask for a specific person, and I was all too glad to go get that person because that was part of the game, as it were.

Taking a message was always tricky for the other person because of that whole “kid who talks like an adult” thing. They never knew what words I knew. But I always did my best to take down the message correctly and make sure the right person got it.

Occasionally, someone would be so bemused by my apparent age dysphoria that they would talk to me for a while. I was so-so on that. I am always more comfortable when I have a role to play, and so just plain talking with adults often made me nervous. For one thing, they talked to me like they would talk to a normal kid my age (understandably) and that always bothered the hell out of me because to me, they were talking in a weird and creepy and over-familiar and exaggeratedly gentle and slow way.

I mean, my parents sure as hell never talked like that!

Also, despite my precious perspicacity, I was still a kid, and they would talk about things for which I had no frame of reference and that made me very stressed out as well.

I know I keep saying this, but I was quite the handful back then. Through no fault of my own, I was hard to handle because I sent such confusing signals to people. Do I treat him like a kid, or an adult, or…?

So anyhow, I had no problem with the phone back then. But at some point, the phone became a problem for me. It ringing started to frighten me, not because I thought the phone would physically hurt me, but because it was so jarring and sudden and socially demanding that I developed the very bad habit of letting things go to voice-mail.

And even that wouldn’t be so bad, but then the phobia attached itself to the voice-mail too, making it hard for me to every check it because for some reason, that made me almost as anxious as answering the phone did.

I think part of the problem is that it is, on a simple-minded level, a problem that goes away on its own. The voice mail gets it. And if you live with others, they will eventually check the voice-mail and tell you about it in a warm, friendly, non-threatening way that does not provoke anxiety.

Obviously, I am not claiming this is right or noble or even in my own best interests. Phobias are never pretty. But in order to be overcome they must be brought into the light and confessed to, and that is what I am doing here tonight. As in :

Today the phone rang. I totally could have answered it. There was a phone not three feet from where I was. I could have just reached over and answered it. But I was scared. It startled me and I knew that if I answered it, I would have to socially engage with a random stranger (every social phobic’s worst nightmare) and so I just let it go to voicemail.

I am not proud of that. I am not enormously ashamed of it either. Lots of people let things go to voicemail all the time. As social crimes go, it’s fairly minor.

What bothers me is that it makes me impossible to reach in realtime, and that is just plain not good. It leads to great frustration amongst those who know me (who are the last people I want to hurt) and causes me to get information rather late, which can cause real problems.

So I do have legit reasons for wanting to correct this problem of mine. In this age of text messaging and ubiquitous
Internet, it might be a tad archaic to worry about the regular old telephone, but it concerns me.

And it doesn’t fit with the new image I am fashioning of myself where I am strong and independent and competent and all grown up. I will always face some troubles when it comes to dealing with reality simply from my physical problems, but there is no reason to take that to mean I suck at life and completely incompetent and will be forever the oldest and most helpless of tadpoles.

And if I am going to grow into this newer, bigger, better shell, I have to get rid of a lot of the petty bullshit in my mind. The stuff that has been holding me back for decades while I kept my head low and hid from reality.

I have nothing to be ashamed of. Depression had a hold on me for a long time, but that’s the past, which means it has passed. There is absolutely no reason the future has to be anything like the past. Every moment in time is a doorway to an infinity of possibilities, and if you don’t like where you are in life, MOVE, god dammit.

I’m getting good at this macho pep talks!

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.