Okay, I'm supposed to be reading this book on chairman Mao. However, Mao is not only dull in book form, but the writing sucks. It keeps making references to his "hooded eyes surrounded by shades of grey beneath the swiftly falling rain" or some such lyrical crap.
Oh yes, crap.
Why must I read this in an academic setting? If this were personal I wouldn't touch it. I would instead take the steaming pile of bad book to the used book store and trade it for the Rape of Nanking (which I wouldn't read because the photos make me throw up, but at least it would be a better textbook on China).
Instead I wandered around campus talking to people and working on being more socially open. This of course implies that I am usually not. Which is true-I like people and I like to hang out with them, but sometimes when I try my heart rate jumps and I experience the thrill of deep anxiety. I can't meet anyone's eyes, I stare down, I don't smile, I get nervous and babble, I respond to "how are you" with a strangled grunting noise. I've been this way since I can remember. It isn't a side effect of some horrible mistreatment-it's just me being me. It used to annoy my socialite wannabe mother way before I accumulated baggage. She would demand that I go out to the livingroom and do something cute for the company and I would hyperventilate, cry, or grab onto sturdy furniture and hang on (you haven't lived until you've seen a woman in pearls with done up hair try and pull a hysterical four year old off of the base of an enormous oak table-and I was a biter). Nobody started talking about social anxiety as a disorder or anything until waaaaay later (last five years or so); probably its what I would be diagnosed with, but my Mom couldn't know that.
I force myself to shake it off; I make myself talk to people, I make myself ask about them, I force a smile. I even made myself take drama, storytelling, and public speaking. I have a pretty wide circle of friends back home, but it was easier there because I could meet people through someone else, which helped because I could skip some of the preface bullshit I'm no good at. Here I only loosely know a few people. Recently it occured to me that my aversion to eye contact probably communicates a lack of interest in people-not true at all. So I walked around today practicing eye contact and smiling (which I don't do anyway; it just never occurs to me).
I hope I didn't creep anyone out.
It is aggravated by my personal baggage, like I have some kind of underlying suspician that I'm not as good as everyone else and that I'm not good enough to talk to them, but this is a problem of its own. And has an easier solution-smile, smile, force, avoid cringe, smile. Sometimes I don't pull if off, and people DO get creeped out. Sometimes there's even still hyperventilating. But if I let the anxiety win my social life whittles down to my WOW addicted couch ornament of a boyfriend. No thanks.
Smile, smile, smile..........
Ouch. Cheeks burning like flabby arms after pushups....
Recovery. Smile.