mf

So I'm experiencing fear.

My new therapist has given me exercises for identifying emotions, and I think that's what I'm feeling right now: fear.

This fear is a response to an email notification. I have not looked at the email yet. It is from the parent of a student. That student should not, in my professional opinion, take violin lessons anymore. Things have gotten weird with the family.

I am afraid that my work, my competence and/or my intentions will be dismissed, invalidated, called into question, or just plain erased. I am also afraid that the feelings of discomfort, distress, confusion and sadness I have experienced over this violin student's lessons will be dismissed. In fact, I think it might be the dismissal of my feelings that I fear the most.

I think my fear is disproportionate. No that's not right - I know that it is disproportionate, in the sense that I know that it is not exclusively in response to this specific situation. I think it's - I think there are certain kinds of social or workplace misadventures that make my head go to a fear place, and this is one of them.

Sometimes people say things that I suspect they shouldn't say, or they do things I suspect they shouldn't do. And sometimes, when that happens, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Or say. Or not do, or not say.

When a bad thing, about which I do now know what to do, happens, I... I just... I don't... Ok. I almost feel like making a flowchart.

Because at that point, it's like my head turns into white noise and I use a kind of back-up system that's so lo-fi that it can run on like 0.0001% of my brain, and it is basically flowchart. It boils down to: (1) can I risk, without consequence, appearing rude? if no -> (2) do I know someone who can help me navigate this and also reacts with little or no surprise when I am completely inarticulate? if no -> (3) can I choose passiveness and hope future!me knows what do to? if no -> [system error]

When I get to the system error, that's when all the options come with a fear response.

But I feel like I'm getting off-topic, weirdly enough. I feel like - what I'm trying to say is that I think I've I figured out what this fear response pattern is based on? It's like - you know when you're a little kid, and some school friend or neighbour or maybe even a teacher makes you feel bad? Like maybe your teacher said you copied your test answers on someone else when you didn't. Or your classmate did the thing where they pretended they couldn't hear you when you asked if you could sit with them at lunchtime. Well, when I was a kid, if I tried to ask my parents what to do, they would say stuff like "I'm sure your teacher had their reasons" or they said "I don't know why you would want to be friends with that person" or "why are you making such a big deal out of this" or "you're so dramatic." (I could... go on. It is disturbingly easy to come up with dialogue for them.) Which was unhelpful, sure, but also an erasure of my feelings. I think the erasure of my feelings is the scariest thing? Somehow? I don't know, I think I've used up all my self-awareness and articulateness energy for today because I don't know how to better describe this. kid!me looked at my parents's unhelpfulness tried to apply competence, credibility, and performative good intentions to the problem, like if I worked enough and got praised enough and looked good enough then they would take me seriously when I asked for help. It didn't work. The erasure of kid!me's emotions didn't really register at the time so I think that's why it sort of... stayed in the shadows and became more of a monster?

BUT EMEF, you're surely asking at this point, WHAT ABOUT THAT EMAIL NOTIFICATION? Yeah, about that. So I think things have gotten weird, in part, because I had a fear response to this family right from the start, so I avoided them. I suspected (accurately! so accurately! I should always pay attention bad feelings when I have them!) that no matter how competent and polite I was with them, they would only ever be communicative and reasonable if it suited them and would absolutely throw me under the bus if they felt like it. Which was scary, but more importantly, it was something I assumed, because of prior experience, I would never get any help with. And it was something I assumed I could see, but that I thought other people wouldn't see, and wouldn't believe me when I told them.

Which can sometimes be true! Sometimes people don't want to see your problem, and don't want to hear you when you tell them about it. But it is not always true.

Anyway I will now go read the email. I will tell myself that my work, my competence, and my intentions might be invalidated by this email, but that does not mean they do not exist, and I my feelings are real, and I deserve help and care. And I will read the email.

Thank you for reading! Also - again, like with my entry from a few days ago, if this has a worrying vibe, let me reassure you: I'm ok! I'm genuinely ok. I actually kind of feel like there used to be an acid reaction going on in my brain and I just finally found the right substance to neutralize it.