Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

This actually might contradict Monday’s post. But it’s time for me (and maybe you if you’re like me) to become comfortable in being uncomfortable. With my level of anxiety, it’s really, really not easy. Sometimes, I’m having anxiety about something, but I don’t know I’m having anxiety because that’s what it feels like for me 100% of the time. Maybe that’s hard to understand if you don’t have anxiety like I do.

Sometimes I genuinely do not realize that the feelings I am having about something is actually my anxiety. How is that even possible? Because like I said above, that’s really what it feels like 100% of the time for me. So maybe in a way I’m already getting comfortable being uncomfortable?

  

College was uncomfortable for me. Until months before I moved out of my house and into my dorm (four hours away) I didn’t even order my own food at restaurants. My mom ordered my food for me until I was about 15. For about a year after Kayla and I started dating, she did the same. Then, she literally forced me to do it by myself.

My mom handled my doctor’s appointments, all of my school stuff (financial aid, etc). I only did what was absolutely necessary for me to handle. I only hung out with people I had hung out with for years and years, unless Kayla was with me. And she HAD to introduce me; because there was no way I was going to do it myself.

Then things started to change once I went to college. I had to take care of my own stuff. I got sick during the school year and my doctor (and mom) were 300 miles away. I emailed my professor telling her I wouldn’t be in class today due to being sick, scheduled myself an appointment at the student center, checked myself in and found everything all on my own.

I got myself a group fitness pass, I ordered my own stuff at the dining hall and restaurants on campus, I hung out with my roommate and her friends, I actually hung out with Kayla and I’s mutual friend alone. I applied and interviewed for the RA job and that is something I never thought I would have done just 6 months ago.

College and being on my own changed me a lot. But, I know I still have a long ways to go. I’m not very good at making friends. I still practice my food order 100 times before saying it to the cashier. I practice saying “here” during roll call, even though I’ve done it the last 18 years of my life. I want to throw up every time I have a presentation to make.

But that’s okay. I know over the years I will get better at all of these things. All of them are part of life, and trust me, those few things I listed they’re not even the half of it. I will always have to deal with my anxiety and getting comfortable being uncomfortable.

Do you have any similar issues you deal with?