It’s the day before Thanksgiving and all I feel like doing is crying. I’m beyond devastated.
My brother had to cancel plans to come up for Thanksgiving this year. I completely understand why, and actually I’m kind of glad he did because he wanted to go to the one restaurant in town I haven’t been to yet. I haven’t been there because the place fills me with intense anxiety.
Meanwhile I received a wonderful invitation to spend Thanksgiving with a lovely family I would like to get to know better. What a great opportunity. I really wanted to go. I have prayed at length about it. I have searched for inner strength. I have tried to find some tiny bit of confidence. Anything that would enable me to do this. But there is nothing. Nothing at all, save anxiety and self doubt. I turned down the invitation.
Isolation breeds isolation. After a while one has no idea how to be anything else. I believe in many respects a person is the sum of their life experiences. I have no life experiences, at least not social ones. What does that make me? Nothing?
I can read about table manners, etiquette and so on but I can’t build experience or confidence from it. What if the books and web sites have it wrong? What if people here do things differently? What if I make a mistake? What if I offend someone? What if I get laughed at? What if I panic and just freeze, unable to speak or move? What if I pass out? I have absolutely no experience that would serve to allay these fears. It doesn’t seem likely I will ever gain such experience. It’s not the sort of thing I can learn from my social workers.
Isolation. I hate it. But I have absolutely no idea how to escape it.