more traveling

The trip for work got pushed back again. Now they are saying maybe it will be a few weeks from now. It’s been at least a year since they first brought it up. The other day I was trying to say that this trip would be hanging over me the rest of my life, but I accidentally said “lives” instead. And you know, I think that’s more accurate. I’ll be reincarnated, some confused little kid thinking “I don’t even have a job! Why do I have to go on a business trip?”

But now another situation has come up where one of my family members is in very poor health, so I am having to go down to Virginia anyway, this weekend, to see them. I mean, I don’t have to in this case. It’s my choice. But it still doesn’t really feel like it is, because even though I want to see them, I don’t want to make this trip and am dreading it so much. I want to stay home and have things be normal.

I just have to keep reminding myself it’s important and I can’t be selfish all the time.

Plus there is another bright side to this. The trip is going to follow the exact route I’ll have to take when I go on the work trip (if that one ever actually happens), and since this one is a short trip over a weekend my wife can go with me. So it’ll be like a practice run, which I think will be really helpful.

All signs pointing to this being the right thing to do. And yet it still feels like a horrible decision made by someone who isn’t me, and I want to crawl into a cave where no one will ever expect or need me to do anything ever again.

As usually happens, my brain has already started assaulting me with extra irrational thoughts. “Your hands will only really be clean if you wash them in THIS sink. The other one’s no good.” “If you wear mismatching clothes to bed, you’ll get sick.” Things that make no sense, just little things that I guess make me feel like I am in control. Or could be in control, I should say, because I’m doing my best to ignore these thoughts. But it’s strange how they suddenly appear and feel absolutely true even though I can see how insane they are.

I’m hoping I’ll feel better once we leave and I have to start going through the motions of getting through this. The anticipation is always the worst part. I’m so used to my safe routine and it feels surreal to even imagine doing something else. But in reality, it probably won’t be that strange.

I mean, the NYC trip went so much better than I thought it would. Maybe this will be totally fine. Sometimes I think I am stuck in this mentality of thinking my anxiety is still as bad as it was a few years ago. That’s obviously not true. I think back to things I said or wrote during that time period and can barely remember what it was like to feel that way. I guess that’s part of the worry - that things got so terrible so fast, and it was so unexpected, and I am still not even sure why it happened. Part of me wonders if something will set it off again, as unlikely as that seems.

At least this trip will give me plenty more opportunities to try out the CYEAT book’s special technique for fighting negative thoughts.

CYEAT: Chapter 12

Throughout this book, the author keeps dropping hints of a special technique he developed that you’re going to learn later to help reduce anxiety and change your negative thoughts. Well, in this chapter, that special technique is finally revealed, and I’m not all that surprised it was a bit of a let-down.

It’s not even that it’s not a good technique. It is just very similar to the anxiety-reducing advice you would get anywhere else, kind of a melding together of a few different common techniques (noticing and countering negative thoughts, positive visualization, self-esteem building).

The technique, I’m sure, could be helpful. It’s the trademarking and the weirdly intense hype that lead me into the mindset of ‘that’s it?’ Before finally telling you the technique, the author builds it up for several pages. I honestly feel like I am watching an infomercial at times. This will make your life substantially easier! Quick and simple! Anyone can learn it! You don’t need to believe it, just do it! Stop living a life that isn’t really the life you want! This may seem like other techniques you have used, but it is actually very unique!

It is a pretty short chapter, especially if you disregard the lengthy sales pitch. The exercise at the end is to keep a log of every time you can use this technique to combat an anxious or negative thought over the next week. If I’m wrong about the amazingness of this technique and it works much better in practice than it sounds, I’ll report back here.

One part of the technique is focused on detailed visualization of a positive outcome, and that is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Because I am great at envisioning everything that could go wrong, but I don’t put nearly enough effort into imagining something could go well. Or even adequately. And it has usually been the case that things don’t go quite as badly as I thought they would.