I call my sickness "avoidance"

I am thinking of Jo, or more specifically about one of her more recent posts. I've never met Jo before but so far she is the only one to bother to comment on this site of mine. OK. That's not true. Chris commented under an alias, but he knows me, even claims to genuinely like me. Therefore he's disqualified.

Anyway Jo was talking about how she spaces out and procrastinates when it comes time to doing things she dislikes. At first she seemed really concerned about this characteristic of hers, then she decided she was just a pleasure junkie and went to get a snack.

I think I suffer from a related illness, Jo. I call mine avoidance.

For instance, I hate my job. The intensity of my hatred varies somewhere between barely noticeable/somewhat rewarding to I-have-to-quit-now-now-now. But alas, I have not quit. Mostly because I have my father's voice in my head and when I get close to doing something reckless it screams, What's the mattah with you? You stupid or what? I really think you're stupid.

I think of telling my friends about my latest dilemna but I already know what they will say: Did you send out your resume? Why don't you send out your resume? You never know unless you try, you know.

I have also avoided booking a trip for me and Grandma M. to Cousin Erin's wedding in Chicago until almost the last possible moment. I avoided calling Uncle Alan, who's coming along, to tell him whether I bought the ticket or not.

I am avoiding talking to B, the photographer, ever since he called to chew me out for behaving "selfishly" and taking his friendship for granted. And I have avoided hanging out with Maile because she hangs out with B and there is a remote, distant, but possible chance of drama and picking of subjects that will make me uncomfortable.

In fact, I've been avoiding almost all social engagements. Sitting around at a noisy bar while everyone else gets drunk and tries to make me talk is terrifying and draining and overwhelming and I will not enjoy myself. In fact, I will go home and feel like a loser for exactly those reasons.

The voices are telling me it's stupid, I really am behaving stupidly. Some other voices are telling that voice to shut up. I have my father's voice growing frantic, "What for you need go out? You really go out to that kind place?" I have the voices of my co-workers teasing and bugging and calling me lame for not going out.

The list of things I am avoiding or not adequately addressing goes on and on and on. But this is overwhelming. I want to avoid getting into it.

What I need is an exorcism, something to drain all these different people who have somehow weaseled in my mind and taken over. As soon as I wrote that line one of them popped in with this snide remark: Well somebody has to be in control here, since obviously you can't handle the responsibility.

I started this post talking about Jo. Now I realize it was misleading. Like I said, I've never met her but she is likely to be far saner than I am. She makes handmade soap, which I think is really, really cool. If you are reading this, Jo, please send me info. on handmade soap. I swear I'm not as loopy as this post makes me seem.