More on "freezing"
Oct. 11th, 2004 02:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beandelphikiThis evening as dinner came to an end, my mom looked at the time, and swore. "Shit, if I'm getting to the airport on time to pick up your aunt-" (nope, don't remember where she's coming back from) "-I had better leave right away. Can you kids clean up the kitchen and put everything away?"
And I felt this brief, but sharp bolt of terror. But I couldn't possibly let on - not even to my mother, who doesn't seem to want me to move out in a timely fashion, and doesn't seem to care if she drives me everywhere, despite her words to the contrary - that I was scared of such a simple task.
Clean the kitchen. Put leftover food away. Load the dishwasher. Conclude the meal.
So simple. You'd have to be a complete fucking idiot to screw it up; even a non-domestic guy like me should be able to handle this. Could you admit to being scared?
So I said:
"Sure, Mom, I'll do it." Because, realistically, my sister wasn't going to help much. "No problem."
"Great, thanks. I'm just going to go upstairs and get ready, and I'll be leaving in a minute." And with that, she zipped up to her bedroom and shut the door.
I finished eating, reflecting on my fear. Maybe it was because of that "paralysis of the will" post I so recently made, but suddenly the whole thing seemed very clear:
I was afraid I was going to "freeze" again when I saw the trashed kitchen and the (relatively minor) amount of work I would have to do to clean it up. I would find some little thing to do "first," end up completely distracted and then totally forget about the kitchen.
(Sometimes, I think I really forget things like this, and other times it's a symptom of the freezing. Either way, I've been yelled at many times by my parents, who simply can't believe that I really "forgot" something that they told me to do, "ONLY 30 SECONDS AGO!")
I was scared that if this happened, my mom would go out, and come back and discover the still-messy kitchen, and the half-finished meals congealing on plates, and then I would be Completely and Utterly Exposed as...what? A total failure? A lazy slob? A bad person, really.
And why shouldn't I feel like a bad person, like a failure? The "paralysis of will" thing...this is not simply restricted to not doing my taxes. (Which is irrelevant at the moment, because I've never managed to get a "real job.") This shows up in nearly every aspect of my life. Minor examples (I'd rather not go into major ones just now):
-I come home from shopping for new clothes, and instead of taking the tags off and hanging them up or washing them, new clothes end up on the floor until I'm out of clean clothes. I know it's a simple, almost totally painless task, but I can't do it.
-I can't send mail. I can't. Ask![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
siegeengine - he knows I managed it once. Oh, and once I sent a letter to Santa as a child, and once a letter to a "penpal" I never replied to again. That brings my grand total to three.
-It can take me hours to respond to people on a day when I know I need to call them and tell them that I'll either be or not be at some party or gathering. The only thing that moves me in this situation is knowing how selfish it is to sit and stare at the phone, never moving, and letting the other person wonder if they'll ever hear from you. Of course, I frequently just plain forget there was a party/gathering at all, which is even worse.
Several months ago, I bought a wipe-able whiteboard for my bedroom. I was absolutely thrilled by this purchase - I'd never forget to call anyone again! I hung it with exquisite care on my wall, making sure it was perfectly straight, and put several differently colored whiteboard pens in a plastic container nearby, with several pieces of tissue. I was so proud of myself the first handful of times I carefully wrote reminders to myself on the whiteboard. Finally, I'd found a solution to my horrible memory for things I had to do.
Then I started to forget to check the whiteboard.
I know people have mentioned coping strategies, and I want to try them and see if they work. But I'm such a results-oriented person. I despair that there's no step-by-step, infallible solution. I hate myself for this, and I want it all to change, solidly.
After Mom went upstairs and I'd finished eating, I gathered my dishes and took them to the side of the sink, then stood at the counter for a moment and surveyed what had to be done. I was just scared I couldn't keep it together long enough to get things finished, even if I could get them started.
I went and stood by the table, trying to determine what should be thrown out and what should be packaged up. Part of my problem is that I'm not familiar with the decisions Mom makes in this regard, and I wanted to do it like she would. (I'm thinking the obvious solution here is to start helping out in the kitchen a lot more and learning how she does it, so I'm not wondering what the method is to her madness.) She came downstairs at that point, and I asked her.
Once she had pointed out exactly what needed to be packaged up and put where, things were much easier, and I got it all done after she left.
I'm thinking one of the biggest problems I'm having is the perfectionist indecisiveness about how to do things, which just invites a freeze-up.
And I felt this brief, but sharp bolt of terror. But I couldn't possibly let on - not even to my mother, who doesn't seem to want me to move out in a timely fashion, and doesn't seem to care if she drives me everywhere, despite her words to the contrary - that I was scared of such a simple task.
Clean the kitchen. Put leftover food away. Load the dishwasher. Conclude the meal.
So simple. You'd have to be a complete fucking idiot to screw it up; even a non-domestic guy like me should be able to handle this. Could you admit to being scared?
So I said:
"Sure, Mom, I'll do it." Because, realistically, my sister wasn't going to help much. "No problem."
"Great, thanks. I'm just going to go upstairs and get ready, and I'll be leaving in a minute." And with that, she zipped up to her bedroom and shut the door.
I finished eating, reflecting on my fear. Maybe it was because of that "paralysis of the will" post I so recently made, but suddenly the whole thing seemed very clear:
I was afraid I was going to "freeze" again when I saw the trashed kitchen and the (relatively minor) amount of work I would have to do to clean it up. I would find some little thing to do "first," end up completely distracted and then totally forget about the kitchen.
(Sometimes, I think I really forget things like this, and other times it's a symptom of the freezing. Either way, I've been yelled at many times by my parents, who simply can't believe that I really "forgot" something that they told me to do, "ONLY 30 SECONDS AGO!")
I was scared that if this happened, my mom would go out, and come back and discover the still-messy kitchen, and the half-finished meals congealing on plates, and then I would be Completely and Utterly Exposed as...what? A total failure? A lazy slob? A bad person, really.
And why shouldn't I feel like a bad person, like a failure? The "paralysis of will" thing...this is not simply restricted to not doing my taxes. (Which is irrelevant at the moment, because I've never managed to get a "real job.") This shows up in nearly every aspect of my life. Minor examples (I'd rather not go into major ones just now):
-I come home from shopping for new clothes, and instead of taking the tags off and hanging them up or washing them, new clothes end up on the floor until I'm out of clean clothes. I know it's a simple, almost totally painless task, but I can't do it.
-I can't send mail. I can't. Ask
siegeengine - he knows I managed it once. Oh, and once I sent a letter to Santa as a child, and once a letter to a "penpal" I never replied to again. That brings my grand total to three.-It can take me hours to respond to people on a day when I know I need to call them and tell them that I'll either be or not be at some party or gathering. The only thing that moves me in this situation is knowing how selfish it is to sit and stare at the phone, never moving, and letting the other person wonder if they'll ever hear from you. Of course, I frequently just plain forget there was a party/gathering at all, which is even worse.
Several months ago, I bought a wipe-able whiteboard for my bedroom. I was absolutely thrilled by this purchase - I'd never forget to call anyone again! I hung it with exquisite care on my wall, making sure it was perfectly straight, and put several differently colored whiteboard pens in a plastic container nearby, with several pieces of tissue. I was so proud of myself the first handful of times I carefully wrote reminders to myself on the whiteboard. Finally, I'd found a solution to my horrible memory for things I had to do.
Then I started to forget to check the whiteboard.
I know people have mentioned coping strategies, and I want to try them and see if they work. But I'm such a results-oriented person. I despair that there's no step-by-step, infallible solution. I hate myself for this, and I want it all to change, solidly.
After Mom went upstairs and I'd finished eating, I gathered my dishes and took them to the side of the sink, then stood at the counter for a moment and surveyed what had to be done. I was just scared I couldn't keep it together long enough to get things finished, even if I could get them started.
I went and stood by the table, trying to determine what should be thrown out and what should be packaged up. Part of my problem is that I'm not familiar with the decisions Mom makes in this regard, and I wanted to do it like she would. (I'm thinking the obvious solution here is to start helping out in the kitchen a lot more and learning how she does it, so I'm not wondering what the method is to her madness.) She came downstairs at that point, and I asked her.
Once she had pointed out exactly what needed to be packaged up and put where, things were much easier, and I got it all done after she left.
I'm thinking one of the biggest problems I'm having is the perfectionist indecisiveness about how to do things, which just invites a freeze-up.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-12 05:07 pm (UTC)Just a thought.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-13 01:39 am (UTC)But the issue I had putting food away...
No disputing that I'm very afraid of failure. But it's not so much external consequences I'm afraid of (in the sense that other people will punish me - I don't think my parent's punishments for things I said were mistakes were ever really bad) it's just knowing that I have a less-than-illustrious history of fucking up. And also, this rather self-destructive perfectionism.
I don't know if I'm going to put you to sleep here, but basically, people have been telling me that I'm "really bright" or "gifted" since I was little. And it's pretty official - IQ tests, that kind of crap - but it never did anything for me. I missed two chances to get into a gifted program, and ended up being a pretty good student, but nothing outstanding. Yet people kept saying it, that I was smart. It fucked with my head, getting no amazing achievements out of it, and thinking I wasn't allowed to screw up anything at school, or I'd "out" myself as actually stupid, and that "gifted" kids never had trouble with anything school-related.
...Holy shit. I just realized, as I was writing that...that belief, that I had to do my schoolwork "perfectly" was the one thing that functioned as some sort of external structure (without which, I can't function, really). Without it, I probably never would have finished any of my schoolwork.
*speechless moment*
Anyway. Like I said, that's part of it, and it's also knowing that I have this horrible tendency to forget things, to wander off and start doing something else, or "freeze." I freeze because I'm afraid I'll freeze, it's a vicious cycle.
Like...once my mom told me to take something out of the oven "in twenty minutes" because she was leaving to go somewhere. I said sure, but after she left, I picked up a book and started reading. I got about two chapters into it, and feel asleep. Four hours later, I woke up, wandered downstairs, remembered I was supposed to take something out of the oven, FREAKED OUT...
And discovered mom had already taken it out and packaged it up, just before she left. She changed her mind about letting it cook for 20 more minutes, because she knew she couldn't count on me not to space out.
-_- Like that.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-13 08:00 am (UTC)The possibility of which I spoke is that there is a level of IQ above which a person becomes almost intellectually disabled. I've heard of so many people with their IQ's in the 190's who can't perform simple tasks. Usually, they excell in certain areas or in a certain thing, but are otherwise either normal, or debilitated.
It's entirely possible that you could be too smart for your own good, which would be no fault of your own, of course, but only a cruel twist of fate that seems to befall a certain class of intellectual.
If I ever get my head together, I'll look up some info on the sources of the phenomenon I was talking about.
Actually, now that I look at this, this sounds rather depressing and hopeless... but maybe it's not. Maybe there are other things that can be done to help... like what you said about external controls. Maybe you can develop more of them somehow, that will help you. I'm not sure.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-13 07:00 pm (UTC)But my testable IQ just isn't that high.
I'll try to clarify:
Basically, people told me I'm "gifted," but no one ever talked with me about what that meant, and no one ever gave me a realistic idea of what my limitations should be. Whenever something went wrong at school, it was, "You're smart, you can do better than this!" I thought smart people never made mistakes. I thought that someone had made a huge mistake ever deciding I was smart at all, and I was scared people would find out that I wasn't.
I really, really need external structure. I need someone telling me what to do and when to do it by. I struggle even when I don't have someone standing by my shoulder saying,
"Keep going!" This is why I never want to, say, run my own business.
One of the things that functioned as an external "coach" telling me to get moving was the terror that people would find out that I was really a big dummy, that anything good I did was a big fluke.
I don't know if I can make it clearer than that. :(
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-13 01:43 am (UTC)What I guess I should have said is that you have a point, and I think you are at least partially right, and thank you for this. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-13 08:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-16 07:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-16 07:18 am (UTC)My thing with parties is they can wear me out so completely. People make me so tired! Your parties are much better than anyone else's, because I know everyone, I'm comfortable with everyone, and I know how your parties "work." But at nearly any other kind of gathering, I just shut right down.
If someone else can do it I can't.
...Because I'll do it wrong! This should be a sign on my door, or something.