Trauma: Fear of calling
Core wound: I will be rejected, I will be betrayed
My dad would hide behind those words whenever I’d call him (after I’d ignored my panic attack), and asked him why he didn’t pick me up.
I now understand why I’ve been so afraid of using the phone for so many years… It hit me hard recently, when a friend and I talked about how they’d feel anxious about using the phone. I’d be sort of okay coming to the phone when someone wanted to speak to me, but I’d have a meltdown (I always made sure my meltdowns were quiet; no one ever knew the better) whenever I needed to call someone.
Because of my anxiety about using the phone, I’d end up in heavy emotional arguments with my mom whenever she’d notice I’d shy away from making a phone call. Until she had basically bullied me into making the call anyway.
It all started with me being anxious about calling my father when I was a young child.
He’d left us before I turned six, and initially the deal was apparently that I’d be picked up every week, and my two siblings joining every other week. I have no recollection of that period at all, but my mother told me that this only happened a handful of times, before he’d stopped picking us/me up.
The next few years, I’d only be picked up for christmas; which meant “spending time with him” while he and his new wife going to his siblings’ birthdays (between the three of them, they shared two birthdays, only a few days apart). The better wording was, I tagged along and got to meet some of my fathers siblings and their families, none of which had any children remotely my age, so I was usually ‘all alone’ among adults I didn’t know. I have one recollection of one of those visits; I got given a Rubik’s cube by one of them. I’m holding the Rubik’s’ in my hand as I am writing this, for inspiration, for connection.
At random intervals throughout the year, I’d miss him terribly, and I wanted him to just come and pick me up. At first, my mother would make that call on my behalf, but at a certain point, she started telling me I had to do that myself.
I think my fear of not seeing him, made me get really careful with what words I’d use to try to get him to pick me up, scared he’d reject my appeal if I’d use my words incorrectly or in the wrong order/way.
That mechanism has since become my way to talk with people. Especially the ones I loved. Always afraid that if I said a single wrong word, one word too much, one word too few, I’d be left, deserted, betrayed. Because I was not good enough. Not heard. Not seen.
What I realise now, is that – probably with the right intent “you’re old enough to ask him to pick you up yourself. It’s your father. You can pick up the phone, and ask him.” – my mother basically bullied me into getting in a situation I felt deeply unsafe and insecure in; but in order to not upset her (and lose her as well, like I’d lost my father before), I swallowed my own pain, and did as she asked me to.
That’s basically my mom knowing (or claim innocence for being blissfully unaware) I’m having an anxiety attack, and then bullying me to traumatise myself by picking up that phone, understandably afraid of being about to be traumatised some more by my father.
The way I tried to tackle this anxiety in the moment, is in a similar way that my friend told me about. We ended up talking on the topic, and then it came back to me in Technicolor detail.
I’d try my very best to work out a decision-making tree to be prepared for each possible answer, and then have the best (least bad) response to not call it an instant loss. And each time, my mom would admonish me for that: “You can’t possibly know what they’ll answer, stop trying to have the conversation prior to having it! Just make the call!” Way to support your child that’s clearly dealing with anxiety (and rejection sensitivity that devel[ed)!!!! It wasn’t until I was in my mid 20’s that the anxiety about calling someone faded enough for me to “just pick up the phone and call”.
Except with my mother. That never faded. And may never fade. We just stopped calling. Soon we retreated to emails, and that soon became text messages.
