Okay, I have this weird anxiety isse RE:reading emails and forum messages.

[expatriot]

I have this really weird thing going on where I have this debilitating anxiety over opening/reading emails or messages or just an avoidance of reading emails that I have no reason to fear reading. Some emails I will put off for days even perhaps longer than a week to read. And emails that I have rational reason to feel a bit nervous or anxious about their contents I will put off reading for day/s if at all practical. (I am not detached from reality in that I will not read an email with information in it I NEED to know asap).

Without going into too much more detail, how common is this small anxiety hang up over reading email messages? Does it go beyond just your basic general anxiety issue to a deeper psychological root?

PS: Sometimes I even have this hang up regarding forum messages in response to mine here on DU.

[Droopy]

1. Do you tend to piss a lot of people off?

I always have that apprehension here when I post something that might be a little controversial.

[Kool Kitty]

2. I go through that kind of anxiety every now and then,

but I sure can't explain it. I don't know why. I go through that with the phone, too. (I do love those tin-foil hat kitties, though. Are they yours?)

[expatriot]

15. Everyone who asks about my tinfoil kitties.....

Gets one of these....



and a few of these

[Kool Kitty]

20. What lovely cats!!!

Thanks for sending these pix-this may be the best message I ever got here!

[enigmatic]

3. It's the phone w/ me

I despise phones w/ a passion and have the same feeling w/ phone messages, even though I know most of them are pretty benign..

[Heidi]

5. Same with Mr. Heidi.

He loathes the telephone, and will let the machine take a call, rather than answering it when he's sitting right here at the desk. He also prefers to email or send a fax, rather than make a telephone call. This characteristic sometimes drives me nuts, but his family says he's _always_ been like this. :shrug:

[enigmatic]

8. I'm the same way

I have friends over the years who I've never talked to on the phone because I hate it so much; I;m just not a phone person..

[Tom Kitten]

12. hmmm...

tell me more about my evil twin, this Mr. Heidi...I think he's spot on!

[Heidi]

14. He sees telephone calls as absolute intrusions

on his work and personal time, and won't negotiate about it. If people want to see his face or hear his voice, they have to make an appointment -- by email or fax. No joke. (He's really a wonderful man, but very shy.)

[Tom Kitten]

16. I'm sure he is !

but he sounds even shyer than me. More like Dr. Jekyll than Mr. Heidi. Maybe we should switch roles?

(ed for conciseness) :D

[expatriot]

7. I do too. But it is a different kind of anxiety. Phone calls and phone

messages I despise with a passion just because I am so annoyed by them but I wouldn't say I am "annoyed" with emails in my inbox. It is probably best desribed as "apprehension."

[enigmatic]

9. I get that

Pretty much the same way with me..

[shockra]

13. I haven't answered the phone in yeeears.

I just let the machine get it.

I used to jump whenever the phone rang. It would shatter my nerves. When they made that movie The Ring I thought someone was on to me.

[enigmatic]

17. Yep

Getting me to have a convo on a phone is like pulling teeth..

[hfojvt]

18. Do you have sisters?

When I was a kid, the phone was never for me. First I do not appreciate the abrupt jangling ringing. Then it means that I need to take a message for one of my sisters, or it's "be quiet, somebody is on the phone." Now it is all the same, either wrong numbers or telemarketers. Nobody wants to talk to ME. Except my boss who keeps calling to interrupt some of my time off with work trivia.

[enigmatic]

19. No sisters

It's more of invasion of my privacy kind of thing for me. I'm a Loner, and although I'm blessed w/ friends that I have no problems doing anything for at anytime, I have to have my own time as well.

I've had a couple girlfriends who used the phone as a perpetual checking up on device w/ me, calling me just to see what I was up to or just to "chat" even though they knew I was either working on my music or just wanted to be alone, and it drove me crazy.

And the middle of the night phone calls have always been bad, bad news, so that doesn't help, either..

[shockra]

4. I do too!

About forum responses. The first few months here, I never even *looked*. I had such bad experiences on another board with getting my head bitten off over the most innocuous of things that I didn't want to be discouraged off of DU too soon.

It was a long time before I even found the My Posts feature.

Now I pretty much read everything, but still sometimes I'm not in the mood to look. If I'm in a bad mood it could make it worse.

[Omphaloskepsis]

6. I have the same thing..

Can't really explain it. But it does piss the family off that I only check my email a couple of times a month.

[Tom Kitten]

10. I've felt the same way a lot...

Deep down inside I suppose I feel that I'm still hanging on to the fear that someday soon somebody is going to make a complete fool out of me for what I post for some reason or another.

That might well occur in the future but I don't worry about it anymore...

After all I am what I am and I still eat my spinach!

[the_spectator]

11. Stop worrying! That's SO natural! --

--since most people get 1)way too many emails and 2)the vast majority of them are either A)useless or B)new bogus tasks to do!


I was seriously ready to make some kind of obsessive-compulsive diagnosis when I clicked on this thread, imagining you had some weird compulsion to open them in reverse-alphabetical order, or only under a full moon or something, but you're fine!

Relax!

By the way, along similar lines, and remembering a thread from earlier tonight, NO-ONE should NEED to clean their window screens "mid-season" due to alleged guckiness!

Life is too short!

:hi:

[miss_kitty]

21. I don't open my snail mail

and I AM seeing a psychiatrist. I haven't been to the mail box (it's locked in the lobby) in a couple of weeks. I'll go now, even though it's scary. :scared:

[Pithlet]

22. For me, it's running into my neighbors.

Every time I go out the door I'm anxious that one of my neighbors will be outside also, and I'll have to interact with them somehow. I'm perfectly normal in all other social situations. But neighbors scare the crap out of me, and always have no matter where I live, and no matter how nice they may seem. It was worse when I lived in apartments; it's a little more manageable now that I'm in my own home. But, I'm completely cut off from the neighborhood because of it. I'm sure they think me an odd recluse.