I’ve been avoiding talking to my very best good friend on the phone. We live an hour’s drive apart and she doesn’t drive and so we don’t see each other very much, only when I have got some spare cash to pay for the fuel to go to see her when I am well enough. Her family is like my own, I’m “aunty” to her kids, and I’ve known them for about 14 years and we are very close. And yet I still struggle to talk on the phone to her.
I don’t understand it, and I don’t think my friend understands it although I do think she does accept it.
Even when I know it is her calling, as soon as I hear the phone ring, my stomach lurches, and I get a sense of resentment that someone is disturbing me in my happy little cocoon of isolation. I then I get the most awful feeling of guilt about not answering and about not wanting to talk to someone I love and who needs me to be a good friend for them. And so on top of the guilt, I then feel really crap – a false friend, a taker and not a giver, unreliable. And then on top of that, more guilt because my friend might be getting worried about me. And then the whole thing snowballs in my head and becomes a big thing, and I sit here and ruminate and obsess about it, beating myself up.
And all this could so simply be avoided by simply picking up the damn phone.
So why don’t I? That’s what I need to figure out. I know that some of it is rooted in my childhood – my dad had a big thing about only using the phone to pass on essential messages, he didn’t believe that the phone was for chatting. He used the phone bill as an excuse but even when, as a teenager, a friend had called me and so the phone call would not be on our bill, he still hung around, listening in, tutting and frowning, making it difficult, until we had hung up. And then the excuse for his bad temper would be that if we were on the phone for ages, we might have been blocking someone else from getting through.
Thinking about it now, from what I have learned from therapy and insight, I think that it was just another way for my father to control his family – to restrict their independence, to keep them dependent on him, and to maintain his position of power.
So having gained this understanding and insight, and knowing that my father no longer has any control over me and what I do in my private life, and that there is no-one in my house who can object to a long phone conversation with a friend, why on earth can’t I pick up the damn phone and talk to my friend for hours on end?
These days many landline calls are free so the cost isn’t an issue. Why does the sound of the phone ringing cause the familiar sense of panic – butterflies in my stomach, a sudden tension, feelings of fear and dread, my heart thumping loud and fast, my head in a spin?
I’ve begun to accept that I have a phone phobia – an irrational fear which can’t be explained, and which I know is irrational. I go to extreme lengths to avoid phone calls – last year I had the landline unplugged for about 6 months. I used to deliberately leave my mobile where there was no reception (I have patchy reception at home and have to leave the mobile in a certain place to get reception). I was supposed to ring the dentist this week to change next week’s appointment to avoid having to do a 40 mile round trip simply for a 5 min checkup. But I haven’t and so instead of rearranging the appointment for a time when I was going to be in town anyway, I have resigned myself to the additional cost and inconvenience of having to do the 40 mile round trip, simply because I couldn’t face picking up the phone to change it.
Some phone calls I can cope with – I am a little better at making calls than I am at answering them. It takes several days of planning and “pysching” myself up, but I can manage to ring the coal man to order coal – I’ve done it so many times now and it is a straightforward quick call :
me – umm, please can I order some coal for Wednesday when you are in the village?
coalman – certainly, what address is it?
me – gives address
coalman – oh yes, Ms Mentalhealthserviceuser, how much would you like?
me – 3 bags of trebles please
coalman – certainly. 3 bags of trebles. thankyou.
me – thanks, bye
coalman – bye
See, dead easy. It’s the same each time. I know what to expect, what I have to say, no hidden surprises (although sometimes if I am feeling confident, I might check the price and occasionally it has gone up but I usually just say ok). So ordering more coal by phone is ok.
So why is picking up the phone when a friend rings not ok?
