Friday, June 8, 2018

I'll Just Text

It's been a very long time since I posted.  It's not that things aren't creeping me out lately; it's that so many things are creeping me out that I am making like an ostrich with my head in the sand.  Still, this I felt I could write about.

I've started experiencing a trauma-related, PTSD-esque reaction to talking on the telephone.  Not to people I know with whom I have a good history.  But strangers, people with whom I don't have a good history... The idea of getting on the phone with these people fills me with dread and that special mix of adrenaline that feels like tiny sparklers igniting in your core.


It started out as merely an aversion.  "Do I want to talk to a stranger on the phone?  How about this person I don't really get along with?  Nope.  I do not."  But it's progressed.

The aversion probably comes from not being able to predict how an encounter will go.  Most people take those moments of talking over each other, silences, or disagreements in stride.  Me, I find the former frustrating to the point of wanting to claw my eyes out, and the latter paralyzing so that I can't think what or how I want to respond.

I have dealt with these when I need to, at work for example.  Lately though, my aversion has grown like a Peep in the microwave.  I didn't notice it until today when I was negotiating the final sale of some glass end tables we were selling.  I'd told the potential buyer I could be available at 2pm.  She prodded me into an earlier time, asked if I could meet her somewhere, persisted that she really needed the tables, then said her son was going to come get the tables.  I'd like to say that I shouldn't be afraid of a strange man coming to my home in the middle of the day when it's planned, yet I am.  She asked for my address, then what area I'm in, but then told me I had to call her son to give him directions.  I offered to give directions over chat, but she declined, asking me to just call him, again and again.  And I froze.

I think this all started a few weeks ago with my brother-in-law.  He always wants to be helpful.  He offered some help one night with some antiques I'm unsure how to sell.  The next day, he said we needed to talk on the phone.  I didn't have the energy and asked if we could do it through email.  He agreed but didn't email.  Then, I asked for some help he'd previously offered with a housing thing.  He insisted on talking on the phone, which I refused.  The other day, it happened again, insisting that I call a relative of his -which I didn't do.  Happily he's left these situations alone after I simply refuse to comply.

These sorts of coercive conversations follow a pattern.  I think things are set to proceed.  I'm told by the other party they are not, and we have to talk on the phone to move forward.  I offer an alternative, which is rejected.  And then, in the case of the table buyer, I'm subjected to statements that I must talk on the phone, pleading, guilt, reasons why this is in my best interest... My objections are dismissed; my discomfort not nearly as important as the other person's need in the moment.

Most people will not find it difficult to relate this to other coercions we're subjected to on the regular, and particularly coercion about having sex, except that threats are also often part of those conversations.  I wish I could say that realizing this will help me control my engorged Peep of phone phobia, but I don't think it will.