It’s June. To be honest, I thought this time of the year would be easier for me. I didn’t see any of my triggers around this time last year, and I hoped beyond hopes that this year would be the same. However, here it is, June 8th, and I’m still seeing them. Granted, they aren’t everywhere like they are early Fall and late Winter…but even just one is enough to send me over the edge sometimes. The worst time for me to see one is when I haven’t for a while. That’s because I convince myself that they’re all gone- living in the trees or wherever they go when they aren’t making a name for themselves as household pests, and more importantly, leaving me the hell alone. I’ll even go as far as to convince myself that I’m better, and I can start the process of living normally again. I can start working on running errands by myself and maybe even find a real job. Then, I’ll see one or two in a day, and my whole illusion of recovery collapses.
I always convince myself that there are patterns that they follow, which in turn causes me to follow patterns of alertness, if you will. It’s 7am and I haven’t been to bed yet, so I know that probably made next to no sense. I’ll explain.
In the Winter, my happiness depends on the temperature completely. If it’s 40f or below, I’m calm (or the closest semblance to calm that I can possibly be). Anything warmer and I’m a wreck. Why? Because for some reason I’ve decided 40f and below is too cold to see bugs. It’s not really. I know that, but for some reason my brain tells me I’m safe if it’s colder. This past Winter there were instances when it would be 20f or colder and I’d see them.
Now that it’s Summer, the hotter it is, the more comfortable I feel. Weird, right? Such is life when you live with a phobia. I feel more comfortable in hotter summer temperatures because I feel like they’re all gone, outside. Then days like yesterday happen. I’ll see one. Only one. But one is enough to destroy the happy little ignorance that I’ve created.
The moral of the story is that these ugly little fear creators don’t care what the weather is like. They aren’t polite enough to leave when I want them to and to stay out of site when they DO take up residence in buildings. It’s vital to my recovery that I wash my hands of this attachment to the weather. I need to follow the advice of my boyfriend, possibly the best advice I’ve ever heard.
“You need to stop living and dying by the weather. There are no safe times and there are no safe places. You’re gonna see them when you least expect it, so you really have to find another way to approach recovery. ”
He’s right. I’m only enabling myself. Phobias develop in a Pavlovian fashion. When one has a fear, the more avoidance she/he allows her/himself, the greater the gratification, the better the relief. It becomes a pattern, which becomes an obsessive lifestyle of avoidance behaviors. It destroys you. You must reinvent yourself completely- molding your life around trying NOT to be exposed.
That’s why exposure works, it always works. It causes you to break your avoidance compulsions and deal with the issue, and realize there’s nothing to fear. I heard a joke about phobias once that held so much truth that it almost hurt. The difference between a phobia and common sense is that phobias are irrational. There’s nothing to fear, I know that. If there were, it would be common sense.
But try telling that to my psyche.
The Malady Mill 