What’s Normal, Anyway?
Things being so very upside down
these days, I wonder, if I were to
have an occasion in which to interact,
would my social anxiety be noticeable
at all? Would it be noticed? As an ex-
trovert with what has always felt to me
to be pretty severe social anxiety – for
as far back as I can remember – it seems
from all that I can glean from those with
whom I have been while interacting with
others, that I have generally come across,
apparently, as quite at ease with being social,
it has on numerous times been further suggested
by those with whom I would occasionally pal around
that being amongst folks in happenstances social may
well be my natural habitat. When I began to comprehend
the severity of what anxiety would do to me, when I first
began to call such issues anxiety, I started addressing
it with doctors and therapists and began, thanks
especially to them, to address the illness with
medications, prescriptions, began at least
to realize the discrepancy between the
conflict that I would feel within myself and
any given social situation, how much an effort
it would take in order to either force myself into
the social, so that I might in some way fulfil that
extroverted need to interact, embarrassing and
awkward as it might each time feel, or how
much easier it would at any given time be for
me to, as soon as the time came for such, as
soon as the lights went up after the
reading was over, for example, that
decision would truly only then be made,
and quickly, whether I was going to interact or
whether, instead, I would swiftly lift myself
out of my sitting position and at a quick
enough pace and with my head held
steadily down at a gaze toward the
ground a bit in front of my feet,
at a pace that could not have
looked at all natural, I would
glide to the entrance of the room
and on out the entranceway, and
no looking back right out of the
building and then at the same
pace I’d keep walking for a block
and then another block until I knew
that I was no longer at risk of having to
interact. I became astonished to learn,
to hear from one person after another,
from people who’d know, from the
closest of my supposed friends
or boyfriends or the like, that
they’d no idea I’d any anxiety
at all, at least not of the social
variety, that I was – to them –
well, oddly enough, I was that
insect which would veritably fill
my gut each time I made the effort
or found that I was trapped into an
awkward state wherein I felt I had to
Things being so very upside down
these days, I wonder, if I were to
have an occasion in which to interact,
would my social anxiety be noticeable
at all? Would it be noticed? As an ex-
trovert with what has always felt to me
to be pretty severe social anxiety – for
as far back as I can remember – it seems
from all that I can glean from those with
whom I have been while interacting with
others, that I have generally come across,
apparently, as quite at ease with being social,
it has on numerous times been further suggested
by those with whom I would occasionally pal around
that being amongst folks in happenstances social may
well be my natural habitat. When I began to comprehend
the severity of what anxiety would do to me, when I first
began to call such issues anxiety, I started addressing
it with doctors and therapists and began, thanks
especially to them, to address the illness with
medications, prescriptions, began at least
to realize the discrepancy between the
conflict that I would feel within myself and
any given social situation, how much an effort
it would take in order to either force myself into
the social, so that I might in some way fulfil that
extroverted need to interact, embarrassing and
awkward as it might each time feel, or how
much easier it would at any given time be for
me to, as soon as the time came for such, as
soon as the lights went up after the
reading was over, for example, that
decision would truly only then be made,
and quickly, whether I was going to interact or
whether, instead, I would swiftly lift myself
out of my sitting position and at a quick
enough pace and with my head held
steadily down at a gaze toward the
ground a bit in front of my feet,
at a pace that could not have
looked at all natural, I would
glide to the entrance of the room
and on out the entranceway, and
no looking back right out of the
building and then at the same
pace I’d keep walking for a block
and then another block until I knew
that I was no longer at risk of having to
interact. I became astonished to learn,
to hear from one person after another,
from people who’d know, from the
closest of my supposed friends
or boyfriends or the like, that
they’d no idea I’d any anxiety
at all, at least not of the social
variety, that I was – to them –
well, oddly enough, I was that
insect which would veritably fill
my gut each time I made the effort
or found that I was trapped into an
awkward state wherein I felt I had to
interact – they would actually say that
I was a butterfly, a social butterfly. It
always stopped me dead to hear that,
and yet to this day I appreciate such
an incorrect assumption, the error
of it, of course, but also the pride
at passing, for real, I fit in, it was
not at all apparent what a wreck
I often felt I was, that ease which
I so wanted, that ease it seemed
to me so many had that for me
was only an impossible thing
that I could only envy.
Well, that was quite some time ago.
There’ve been a few important events
and circumstances that have transpired
which have impacted me and my so-
called social anxiety. The biggest of these,
I do believe, would be that, due to a few
related extenuating circumstances over
the past half a dozen years it has become
more and more rare that I might even
find myself in a situation wherein I might
interact. And when those moments happen,
I still most definitely feel the tension, feel
the conflict in my gut, but whereas in the
past I would pass as being quite at ease,
to my mind, granted, with almost no
additional perspective, no pal around
who might could tell me differently,
I would have to say that what might
have been seen as ease by all those
others way back when would today
be seen as quite a bit more rickety
than that; in fact, I’d bet my anxiety
would much more likely than not be
pretty clear to most anyone near.
Why so different now? For one thing,
having lived so long in ways that
were so very unfamiliar to any life
I’d ever known before, like, for ex-
ample, there was the six months I
spent living on the street during
evenings and nights while playing
business casual in a cubicle during
“business hours,” or that entire year
spent living in a shelter, or now, and
thankfully, approaching three years
living in my own small place, but
all the while without a familiar soul
around me, and rare at that to even
have people in my vicinity. And need
I even mention that all this isolation
has been further propagated by the
not insignificant amount of enforceable
mitigation thanks to a lengthy pan-
demic? And while I would not exactly
say that this pandemic is exactly reason
for this more identifiable anxiety, it cert-
ainly has exacerbated it, now that I have
spent a full year and a half in almost
complete isolation in the very same
room with less and less steps made
outside of this small living space,
and when I do cross the threshold
between in and out of it, times
that seem more and more rare,
these but few excursions involve
less and less distance and have me
masked, head down gazing in front
of my feet again, barely speaking
with a soul, much less acknowledging
others’ presence. So, truth be told, it’s
been so long, this isolation, that I might
say that it is the routine, even if it hasn’t
quite become comfortable, a thing I am
aghast to think. But what I really mean
by this is that it’s quite become already
plenty routine, such that it’s now incorrect
to call a thing like isolation abnormal, unusual,
anything but just another day from which
I sit atop my bed some mornings and
some afternoons, some early evenings or,
like right this moment, some dark hours
which, were the times a bit more ordinary
now, I might just call ungodly, writing
sentences like this, one on top of yet
another, that I build like so until they,
put altogether, become a something that
I might so package and then load into a
laptop like so, until, voilà, I pull a trigger
that then shoots it out into the atmosphere
in hopes it might reach someone,
anyone who’s of a mind to read.
Hello. Good day. How are you?
Are you there? It sure is nice
to think so, I must say, but
thank you, thank you. I’m
not for sure you’re not a
figment, but just in case,
I wonder what you’d see
if you were to look out
a window, perhaps?
I’d love so much to
know just what you
see. As for me, and
here, where dawn is
finally breaking, it looks
as if it’s going to be
another gorgeous day.
of it, of course, but also the pride
at passing, for real, I fit in, it was
not at all apparent what a wreck
I often felt I was, that ease which
I so wanted, that ease it seemed
to me so many had that for me
was only an impossible thing
that I could only envy.
Well, that was quite some time ago.
There’ve been a few important events
and circumstances that have transpired
which have impacted me and my so-
called social anxiety. The biggest of these,
I do believe, would be that, due to a few
related extenuating circumstances over
the past half a dozen years it has become
more and more rare that I might even
find myself in a situation wherein I might
interact. And when those moments happen,
I still most definitely feel the tension, feel
the conflict in my gut, but whereas in the
past I would pass as being quite at ease,
to my mind, granted, with almost no
additional perspective, no pal around
who might could tell me differently,
I would have to say that what might
have been seen as ease by all those
others way back when would today
be seen as quite a bit more rickety
than that; in fact, I’d bet my anxiety
would much more likely than not be
pretty clear to most anyone near.
Why so different now? For one thing,
having lived so long in ways that
were so very unfamiliar to any life
I’d ever known before, like, for ex-
ample, there was the six months I
spent living on the street during
evenings and nights while playing
business casual in a cubicle during
“business hours,” or that entire year
spent living in a shelter, or now, and
thankfully, approaching three years
living in my own small place, but
all the while without a familiar soul
around me, and rare at that to even
have people in my vicinity. And need
I even mention that all this isolation
has been further propagated by the
not insignificant amount of enforceable
mitigation thanks to a lengthy pan-
demic? And while I would not exactly
say that this pandemic is exactly reason
for this more identifiable anxiety, it cert-
ainly has exacerbated it, now that I have
spent a full year and a half in almost
complete isolation in the very same
room with less and less steps made
outside of this small living space,
and when I do cross the threshold
between in and out of it, times
that seem more and more rare,
these but few excursions involve
less and less distance and have me
masked, head down gazing in front
of my feet again, barely speaking
with a soul, much less acknowledging
others’ presence. So, truth be told, it’s
been so long, this isolation, that I might
say that it is the routine, even if it hasn’t
quite become comfortable, a thing I am
aghast to think. But what I really mean
by this is that it’s quite become already
plenty routine, such that it’s now incorrect
to call a thing like isolation abnormal, unusual,
anything but just another day from which
I sit atop my bed some mornings and
some afternoons, some early evenings or,
like right this moment, some dark hours
which, were the times a bit more ordinary
now, I might just call ungodly, writing
sentences like this, one on top of yet
another, that I build like so until they,
put altogether, become a something that
I might so package and then load into a
laptop like so, until, voilà, I pull a trigger
that then shoots it out into the atmosphere
in hopes it might reach someone,
anyone who’s of a mind to read.
Hello. Good day. How are you?
Are you there? It sure is nice
to think so, I must say, but
thank you, thank you. I’m
not for sure you’re not a
figment, but just in case,
I wonder what you’d see
if you were to look out
a window, perhaps?
I’d love so much to
know just what you
see. As for me, and
here, where dawn is
finally breaking, it looks
as if it’s going to be
another gorgeous day.
