Last month was the (fun but crazy) Warped Tour, and next month is going to be busy-ish. We're going to have a friend staying here one weekend, and we'll be taking a little trip another weekend to go to a festival. Then I have a check-up near the end of the month, and going to the doctor always stresses me out. So I've been taking this month to relax and do pretty much nothing. Nothing big, anyway. No major challenges.
I got an email from my mother asking me if I would meet her in NYC sometime to hang out. She said she wanted to take me to a play. I know this is contradicting my last two posts, but this is something I can't say yes to. There is a difference between challenging yourself to move a little bit out of your comfort zone and attempting to do something so beyond your comfort zone that you know it can't possibly go well.
About five years ago, I took a trip to NYC with my wife. We spent five days there. She understands what I can handle, and we did everything as low key as possible - didn't plan a ton of things to do, took frequent breaks between activities, spent a ridiculous amount of time in our hotel room. Even though I was with the person who makes me feel safest, and we took all those steps to make it a calm trip, my anxiety was still a huge problem. I suppose I can say that I handled it okay for the most part, but there was one night where I got so anxious that I spent most of the night in the bathtub. I was watching episodes of Family Guy on my iPod trying to drown out the noise of rain hitting our hotel room's air conditioner, because I actually thought it was going to make me go insane if I had to listen to it for one more second.
Looking back on that now, it seems like such an obvious sign of the breakdown that was coming two years later.
I do feel guilty sometimes, because I've cut off my family in a way. It's too expensive and too much of an ordeal anxiety-wise to go down to visit them. I definitely can't go off to meet them in some big city for a Broadway play and a carefree good time. But also, I don't like the idea of them coming here unless I could convince them to do absolutely everything on my terms. I just feel like they don't understand anxiety or at least don't understand what my life is like because of it. I don't know how to explain it to them, and I worry that if I tried, they would think it was something that could be easily and pretty quickly fixed (such as by throwing some medication at the problem) and would see me as an idiot for not having done so already.
So I guess in general, it always feels like a bad idea to even be around them, because who knows what might happen? And then what? I wouldn't be able to explain and/or they wouldn't be able to deal with it. I'm sure it would just result in me feeling embarrassed. It's a weird situation when your family basically doesn't know you at all.
I've been thinking and thinking about this but haven't responded to my mom's email yet (which is about two weeks old at this point), because with all the thinking, I haven't figured out what to say to her. At some point, I have to give them something, so I'll probably suggest they come here. It seems like the easiest option.
