Slippery Mind

[lillibet]

miss_chance has famously said that, despite having done a lot of physical labor in her lifetime, the heaviest thing she's ever lifted was the telephone receiver.

I had a phone call to make that was difficult for me. Not the call itself--I knew I'd just be leaving a message--but the symbolism of doing it, the ball that it would start rolling. I had it on my to-do list today. I told Jason that I was going to make the call. I made the other two related-but-easier calls and then I paid some bills and started playing a computer game. And then I caught myself--none of your tricks, now, brain!--picked up the phone and made the call.

Call made on the first day I intended to make it, FTW!

Comments

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

GOOD JOB!!

I have similar phone-troubles. And avoidance mechanisms. Do something to reward yourself!

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

I seem to have rewarded myself by doing laundry and cleaning the refrigerator down to the bones, with the company and increasingly able assistance of Alice. I am amused that this seems to be my reward--perhaps that phone call was blocking more than one process.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

Weird. I needed a night off desperately last week, and what did I do, once I took it? Clean the refrigerator down to the bones. It really was its own reward. I wanted that thing clean and cleaned out and it meant not pursuing any of my "real" goals to get it done. Being a grown-up is WEIRD.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Oh, but it feels so good...when you open the door and everything's clean and you know what it all is and how old it is and that there is nothing lurking in a puddle under the rotter...ooooooh!

[skreeky]

I have actually considered going back into therapy for the sole purpose of figuring out why theoretically simple PHONE CALLS are so difficult for me. Because I have no idea.

Text messaging has probably saved my career.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

Congratulations. And I'm sorry that you had such a difficult call to make in the first place. I know you are not usually phone-adverse, so it must have been a doozy. :(

Good for you for catching the brain at its tricks and working with it. Sometimes when something is really scary for me to do, what I want to do afterwards is something that puts things back "under control" or reasonable illusion there-of. So I can see how laundry and fridge-cleaning could be really soothing. I hope everything works out.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Thanks--we'll see how it works out.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Good job of convincing your inner self to do the thing it needed to do.

Weird about the after affects, though...

[muffyjo]

Excellent! And good catching of self! Kudos duly awarded!