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Today’s tiny personal triumph
Short version: I was anxious about calling my doctor about a minor-ish thing and then I figured out that this meant that the thoughts I was having about why I shouldn’t call were not actually true and I needed to call despite being anxious. So I figured out what I needed to say and then this morning I CALLED THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE, YAY ME.
Ridiculously long rambling version:
So I have been realizing lately that I have The Social Anxiety in some mildly quirky ways (more anxious around people I know and like or who are very important to me than strangers, except when they are e.g. my doctor’s office and the Fear Of Bothering People kicks in). I started going to therapy three weeks ago today for this, and my therapist is lovely! And so conveniently located! Only five blocks from where I live!
So going to therapy is a walking type activity–the first day I went, I wanted to print out the history and consent forms beforehand, so I walked first to the library to print them and fill them out, then to the therapist’s office, then home. I was wearing my kinda battered sneakers that I also wear to the gym, and I gradually noticed, as I walked around doing all these things, that my right foot was hurting more and more and whoa, WHOA, that REALLY HURTS and long story short I was LIMPING by the time I was walking home, so… that seemed bad.
I blamed my shoes and took some Advil and iced my foot, and skipped going to the gym the next morning (my exercise routine = walking on a treadmill while playing games or reading fic on my phone) and then it was Labor Day weekend and then I got sick in this stupidly draining way and spent the next two weeks kind of laying around not doing anything except going to therapy a couple more times, mainly because I didn’t manage to cancel 24 hours in advance and figured if I had to pay anyway I might as well also go talk–mostly about feeling bad about not getting anything done.
Going to the gym at the start of the day is how my Daily Routine works, so when I was too tired (and coughing too much) to do that, everything just kind of fell apart. On the Friday of the second week I was finally determined to get my shit together. I was feeling better from my cold, my foot had pretty much stopped hurting from that time when it hurt real bad, and I went out and bought new walking shoes so that I could Start Fresh on Monday.
So of course, on Monday, I went to the gym, walked for 35 minutes, and discovered that new shoes or not MY FOOT STILL HURT REAL BAD WHEN I WALKED ON IT A LOT. I iced it and took Advil and promised myself a day off from the gym on Tuesday. When Tuesday came, walking around my local Whole Foods in search of Clif bars turned out to also be enough walking to make my foot hurt real bad, and I finally got serious about googling What The Hell Is Wrong With My Foot and realized that it was probably a tendon strain and I probably needed to actually rest a lot and let it heal.
UNFORTUNATE TIMING: I was supposed to drive (700 miles round trip) to see my family for assorted family birthdays, including my dad’s 70th, this weekend. When I begged off, my mom offered to FLY me there, which would still involve walking around a couple of airports that are, um, bigger than a Whole Foods. So I declined, feeling like The Worst–and canceled this week’s therapy appointment because Too Much Walking–but also realized that having an actual medical opinion on this might be… important, for reasons beyond just having something authoritative to tell my mom.
Unfortunately, ha ha, Bothering People At My Doctor’s Office is an area of my social anxiety! So I put that off for a day, and then articulated to myself this morning (thanks, Shyness and Social Anxiety Workbook!) that
a) I was Avoiding Doing A Thing because anxiety
b) I was having Anxious Thoughts about the thing: “It will be awkward to explain”, “they’ll think I’m a hypochondriac”, “I’ll just freeze up and not say the important stuff”, etc.
c) The solution to this was to plan what to say so that I could get my point across clearly and then make the damn phone call despite the anxiety.
AND THEN I DID. (”I’m not sure whether I need to make an appointment or if I could just talk to someone on my Care Team, but I hurt my foot a few weeks ago and it hasn’t really healed and still hurts whenever I walk on it.”) AND IT WORKED FINE! NO ONE WAS AWKWARD OR TOLD ME I SHOULDN’T HAVE CALLED!
And, uh, now I have managed to write this entire rambling summary of MY TRIUMPH while waiting for the nurse to call me back to figure out whether I need to go in or can just get some medical advice over the phone. COME ON, PHONE NURSE! DON’T MESS UP MY TINY PERSONAL TRIUMPH BY MAKING ME WAIT FIVE HOURS TO HEAR BACK FROM YOU!
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Ridiculously long rambling version:
So I have been realizing lately that I have The Social Anxiety in some mildly quirky ways (more anxious around people I know and like or who are very important to me than strangers, except when they are e.g. my doctor’s office and the Fear Of Bothering People kicks in). I started going to therapy three weeks ago today for this, and my therapist is lovely! And so conveniently located! Only five blocks from where I live!
So going to therapy is a walking type activity–the first day I went, I wanted to print out the history and consent forms beforehand, so I walked first to the library to print them and fill them out, then to the therapist’s office, then home. I was wearing my kinda battered sneakers that I also wear to the gym, and I gradually noticed, as I walked around doing all these things, that my right foot was hurting more and more and whoa, WHOA, that REALLY HURTS and long story short I was LIMPING by the time I was walking home, so… that seemed bad.
I blamed my shoes and took some Advil and iced my foot, and skipped going to the gym the next morning (my exercise routine = walking on a treadmill while playing games or reading fic on my phone) and then it was Labor Day weekend and then I got sick in this stupidly draining way and spent the next two weeks kind of laying around not doing anything except going to therapy a couple more times, mainly because I didn’t manage to cancel 24 hours in advance and figured if I had to pay anyway I might as well also go talk–mostly about feeling bad about not getting anything done.
Going to the gym at the start of the day is how my Daily Routine works, so when I was too tired (and coughing too much) to do that, everything just kind of fell apart. On the Friday of the second week I was finally determined to get my shit together. I was feeling better from my cold, my foot had pretty much stopped hurting from that time when it hurt real bad, and I went out and bought new walking shoes so that I could Start Fresh on Monday.
So of course, on Monday, I went to the gym, walked for 35 minutes, and discovered that new shoes or not MY FOOT STILL HURT REAL BAD WHEN I WALKED ON IT A LOT. I iced it and took Advil and promised myself a day off from the gym on Tuesday. When Tuesday came, walking around my local Whole Foods in search of Clif bars turned out to also be enough walking to make my foot hurt real bad, and I finally got serious about googling What The Hell Is Wrong With My Foot and realized that it was probably a tendon strain and I probably needed to actually rest a lot and let it heal.
UNFORTUNATE TIMING: I was supposed to drive (700 miles round trip) to see my family for assorted family birthdays, including my dad’s 70th, this weekend. When I begged off, my mom offered to FLY me there, which would still involve walking around a couple of airports that are, um, bigger than a Whole Foods. So I declined, feeling like The Worst–and canceled this week’s therapy appointment because Too Much Walking–but also realized that having an actual medical opinion on this might be… important, for reasons beyond just having something authoritative to tell my mom.
Unfortunately, ha ha, Bothering People At My Doctor’s Office is an area of my social anxiety! So I put that off for a day, and then articulated to myself this morning (thanks, Shyness and Social Anxiety Workbook!) that
a) I was Avoiding Doing A Thing because anxiety
b) I was having Anxious Thoughts about the thing: “It will be awkward to explain”, “they’ll think I’m a hypochondriac”, “I’ll just freeze up and not say the important stuff”, etc.
c) The solution to this was to plan what to say so that I could get my point across clearly and then make the damn phone call despite the anxiety.
AND THEN I DID. (”I’m not sure whether I need to make an appointment or if I could just talk to someone on my Care Team, but I hurt my foot a few weeks ago and it hasn’t really healed and still hurts whenever I walk on it.”) AND IT WORKED FINE! NO ONE WAS AWKWARD OR TOLD ME I SHOULDN’T HAVE CALLED!
And, uh, now I have managed to write this entire rambling summary of MY TRIUMPH while waiting for the nurse to call me back to figure out whether I need to go in or can just get some medical advice over the phone. COME ON, PHONE NURSE! DON’T MESS UP MY TINY PERSONAL TRIUMPH BY MAKING ME WAIT FIVE HOURS TO HEAR BACK FROM YOU!
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via IFTTT
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