Anxiety, Fear and Trepidation after Sixty-Five: You Are Kidding!

Here it is Monday afternoon, and still I am feeling the emotional reverberations of a weekend spent in the doghouse.  Almost overnight, fungi overran all the squash plants (four) in the little garden out back. My sister’s wrath was as the hammer of Thor pounding upon my head. It was not the devastation of the squash plants that incited her wrath. It was the fact that I didn’t tell her about it, and allowed her to discover it for herself during one of her rare visits out of doors. My silence on the subject mystifies her; as indeed it should.  When asked for an explanation, I had no rational response.

Anxiety and Fear of Speaking Up

Over and over and over and over again, this has happened to me. At some point in third grade, I developed feeling of fear and anxiety that lay like lead in the pit of my stomach. They occurred every time I had to tell somebody something that was unpleasant, or had unpleasant consequences. The leaden feeling in my stomach seemed to choke my ability to speak. So I remained silent.  Obviously that was an unproductive choice of behavior. The consequences were always doubly unpleasant when people finally discovered what they should have been told earlier.

A Third Grade Habit Allowed to Continue

I am annoyed, disappointed, aggravated, and ashamed that it has taken me fifty years to WAKE UP to the fact that I have allowed a very non-productive habit to add unnecessary anxiety and tension to my daily life.  I have allowed a bad habit to create unnecessary clangor, clamor and drama in other peoples lives.  Even worse, I created it for myself!

Guess Who Gets to Change the Habit

Spending the weekend in the doghouse of another’s anger was unpleasant.  But I can only blame myself.  “When I point the finger at another, I am pointing three fingers back at myself.”  I am at fault for allowing a child’s habit to continue disrupting my life for fifty years.  Could it be time to change? Maybe old dog’s can’t learn new tricks, but I believe old ladies can change their habits.

Repost

How appropriate! I found a useful article discussing the fact that there are always three fingers pointing at oneself.

Three Fingers Pointing Back