How our anxiety-induced hypotheticals affect how we see ourselves.
Double Standards:
Duality and it’s unreality has been a theme over the last year or two that I’ve noticed, but I think the first time I noticed my own personal double standards for how I treat myself and the treatment receive from others was at the Amazon Warehouse when I was doing dispatch.
I was speaking with a colleague about my anxiety towards our copy/paste end-of-shift message, and that it might come off as condescending. The message began, “Great job out there today!…” and continued on with instructions regarding return-to-station procedure. Because it was the same message every day, to every staff member, I was concerned that it would taken poorly. Throughout the discussion, I noted that when I received the message from dispatch when I was delivering, I never once interpreted it that way. Strange, how I fear that interpretation when I’m the sender, but had no reason to expect that response.
I think there are a few causes, and I’ve narrowed it down to one for today:
The Danger of the Hypothetical
It’s well understood that if we have a difficult conversation we need to have with someone or a pending confrontation that we’ll spend some time in our head imagining what they’d say, what we’d say, the bones of the interaction. Justified as preparation, this is often unhelpful in the end, as we end up experiencing the anxiety/stress/betrayal/anger of each hypothetical as though they were really happening. Our body struggles to tell the difference between the fantasy confrontation and one actually happening.
All that being said, this is something those of us with anxiety disorders do a dozen time or more each day. If I allow myself more slack in my fantasy than I might in reality, I might lash out, throwing out insults, even being the aggressor in an escalation to violence. Intellectually, I know that’s absolutely inappropriate in reaction to someone not saying thank you when I held the door for them, but in my mind, I can do what I like. My body feels the sudden rage; my face turns red, my whole body warms up and my shoulders go back, but the rational me retains control and I walk to my car and mutter “what a dick” under my breath.
Consider that from the body’s perspective. It being a today-realization, I’ll need to do some mindful observation going forward, but it sounds like four distinct emotions would be happening, chemically speaking:
- anger and violent behavior are related to norepinephrine and adrenaline
- some hurt or disgust at disdain for social norms and courtesy
- suppressing the initial reactionary response
- self-disgust that I had such an inflammatory response
- etc.
If unchecked, that feedback loop can cause havoc when left running. Slowly over time, those loops erode our genuine self-image by layering our residual self-image with a reaction we don’t genuinely identify with, then stripping that layer off with a tiny bit of what was there at the start. I’ve recently had a few people tell me that I project competence, confidence, and self-assuredness. I see myself as a chronic nervous wreck, constantly seeking validation, craving attention despite not wanting to be the center of attention, etc. All of the hypothetical interactions or experiences I build and play out in my head have impacted the way I see myself. My self-image is awful, but in what’s possibly the best possible outcome, I’m exactly who I want to be, I just didn’t see it.
