Sometimes I feel that my emotions aren’t real. I feel nervous about something or unhappy about something or stressed, but I feel like I try to block that emotion out and not feel it. I think I’m just so used to blocking my emotions about things that it’s actually only rarely that I feel an emotion to its full extent.
In my life, I have had to do so much emotion blocking and distancing myself from a situation that it is almost second nature. I had to distance myself when I was bullied in elementary school about my tics and when after I was diagnosed my parents didn’t really accept or want to believe that I have Tourette’s. I have to distance myself from the stares when I am ticcing, washing my hands for too long in the bathroom, or panicking and having anxiety in a store and am not acting like myself at all.
Distancing myself and blocking my emotions is something I do on a daily basis without even consciously thinking about it. Today, though, is one of those rare days where I cannot distance myself or block out my emotions. I am nervous, scared and worried about going back to college and having to meet new people and be in new classes and have to educate over and over again about my Tourette’s for gosh knows how long.
I am nervous and scared and worried in a real way that I can’t block out. I don’t want to go out of the house today, which is really the opposite of what I am usually like because I am usually always wanting to be on the go or always doing something.
When an emotion like this hits me hard, I feel like I am “stuck” in a way and don’t really want to do much of anything. Even writing this blog post is something I originally didn’t want to do. It feels like someone flipped a switch in my brain and put me in a completely different mental state than I was yesterday.
Yesterday I was so excited about going back to college and seeing my friends and was actually excited about getting to educate about my Tourette’s. I still feel that to some extent, but mostly I feel scared and anxious now.
I wish I could flip the switch back to where I was yesterday, but it’s like I can’t find the switch right now. I know though that this, too, will pass and that probably in a day or two I will find that switch. It will help a lot when I actually move back in with my friends from college and start getting into it.
The worst part of anything for me is the anticipation, and I have to keep that in mind in times like these. The anxiety and emotions that come with anticipation of something that’s coming up is always 100 percent worse than the actual situation itself.
When I’m in the situation, I tend to be fine, but it never feels like it’s going to be that way. I just want someone to rip of the band-aid right now though. I am fed up with the anticipation and the waiting! Four more days, though, until I move back, which feels both like a very long time and a very short time.
