just confused the heck out of some poor guy conducting a media/tv survey:
“How many adults are there in your home?”
“Four.”
“How many men reside in your home?”
“Three.”
“And how many women reside in your home?”
“None.”
“How m- I’m sorry, how many adults did you say live there?”
“Four.”
“And there are three men?”
“Yes.”
“And... how many women?”
“Zero. I’m nonbinary. I’m not a man or a woman.”
“I. Pardon me. I will need to consult my supervisor.”
[Two minutes later]
“I apologize for that. Uh... what age range do you fall within of the following...”
i don’t take personal joy in fucking with telemarketers and other folks just doing their job but for once it was nice to get to be totally unapologetic about myself with no consequences
for once someone’s homophobia and idiocy gave me a kick- guy sat down on the bus behind me + Skep, saw my arm around him, muttered “Gay,” under his voice and moved to the back of the bus. i don’t feel like i pass particularly well so it was inexplicably a high point of my day?
i don’t want to give him any credit since i’m sure he would have said something else nasty and more true if he’d known, but like, thanks man. you were bad and also wrong but the net impact was positive for me thanks
Recently, I saw a text post with two parts. The first part urged people with anxiety not to make phone calls if they didn’t want to. The second part attacked this stance, stating that leaving your comfort zone is the only way to beat your anxiety and that it’s often recommended in therapy. Both posts were in loud capital letters and took very accusatory tones.
As someone with GAD (general anxiety disorder), I wanted to try to phrase my thoughts on the issue, in a way that compromises between these two sides of the arguments:
Leaving your comfort zone is a good thing, but only if it is on your own terms.
If someone else is pushing you to leave your comfort zone, it’s only going to further your angst on the issue. Change needs to start with you and be your idea. Yes, while wallowing and never changing anything is going to make things worse, you shouldn’t feel obligated to leave your comfort zone if someone else is forcing the issue on you.
(Examples and suggestions below the cut.)
For example: I have horrible phone anxiety. It stems from my GAD and the fact that I have bad hearing, which makes it difficult for me to clearly hear words if I’m not able to see another person’s face. I have been working through this mainly by requesting video calls when it’s an option. However, it’s not always an option.
I’ll give two cases: In the first case, my mom wanted me to be the one to order Chinese food, despite knowing my intense phone anxiety. Her tone and demeanor suggested that I was not a functioning human being without being able to talk on the phone, and instead of helping me through my comfort zone, it only made my anxiety worse through steeping it in self-deprecation.
In the second case, I needed to call customer service for a company based outside the U.S. I knew that the person would have an accent, which makes it even harder for me to hear clearly. To help with it, I came to my mom and asked if she would listen to the call on speaker phone with me and help out if I ever misheard a word or couldn’t come up with what to say. While the phone call was still uncomfortable for me, I got through to the end and overall felt much better with the results.
In the first example, I was thrown into the situation with no prior warning and then made to feel awful for not leaving my comfort zone. In the second example, I made a plan to leave my comfort zone, had safety nets, and executed the plan with far less overall anxiety.
It works for things outside of neurodivergence and mental illness, too. I’ve found it’s worked a lot with gender presentation for me. For three of my four years in college, I was forced into a dress for choir concerts because I was a “girl” (I was dfab, but I’m nonbinary). It was a horribly uncomfortable experience and I always felt ugly in it. However, there have been times where I’ve experimented with skirts and dresses of my own accord, and I’ve had much more success with my comfort there. Do I still get uncomfortable when a shirt clings too tightly to my chest, or when I’m going out in public in a feminine skirt? Yes. But since it’s my choice to be there, it’s easier to handle--and I’m the one who has control over when to stop it.
This was a pretty long rant, but it was just something I was thinking about. Your process (no matter what through--anxiety, gender presentation, sexuality, or any other number of things) should always be in your hands. Take things at your own pace, make plans, and never let anyone take away your control. It’s all about your safety and comfort, after all!
