So, this week I was faced with a huge personal wall at work. If you know me you know I have a lot of anxieties and a growing list of phobias but something that has always been near impossible for me was calling strangers on the phone. It may sound silly to some people but it’s actually a fairly common fear, perhaps not to the extent that I have taken it but people often have anxieties over using the phone.
It make sense when you think that you don’t know who you are speaking to, you can’t see their face or body language to read cues, and even if you plan for what you are going to say you have no idea what their response might be.
My fear has been around for a long time and it used to be worse. When I was around 17 or 18 I started working in my father’s medical practice as a receptionist. As you can already tell, having a phone phobia is not the best for someone whose work is with phones. Back then I was still terrified of even answering the phone. I remember my first day where I was made to answer a few phone calls and after the first few fell apart completely. I rushed into the back room to cry. But by just having to face my fear I was made to get over it. It took a wee while but eventually I became able to answer phones just fine. If I wasn’t I wouldn’t have been able to continue in that line of work for 6 years.
In this day and age, it is a lot easier to avoid calling people. Email, text, online forms, Google; we have everything we need to be anti-social and live in our box of comfort. I have always used those forms of contact to my advantage, avoiding all forms of phone calls aside from automated phone systems. There have been a few unavoidable circumstances; dealing with taxes, student loans, calling someone back after they left a message. But overall, I’ve been fairly successful.
Until this week, where I was faced with something more difficult than just a phone call to a stranger. A phone call to a stranger from my work place in my second language. Needless to say I spent my week in a perpetual circle of panic attacks. The worst lasting at least 4 hours of my work day. Heart palpitations, sweating, difficulty breathing, nausea, stomach pain, headaches, repetitive thought patterns, crying and rage spells. It’s been one hell of a week. And all over a bunch of phone calls. I’m fully aware of the ridiculousness of this all but that doesn’t make it any easier.
Perhaps I should expand on why this is so hard for me aside from the phone fear. I’m also terrified of offending people (the formalities of Japanese are not easy to grasp), I’m worried about misrepresenting my workplace (a government office), I’m scared of not being able to express myself enough that it will make sense to the person on the other end, and I feel completely unprepared and unqualified for the job that I’ve been asked to do after the phone calls are made (visiting schools to evaluate their assistant language teacher’s teaching). These are the thoughts that run through my head creating a whole mix of doubt and anger and fear.
But yesterday, I bit the bullet. I made 4 phone calls resulting in 2 confirmations and all within an hour. They weren’t easy or smooth but they did work. The battle isn’t over, I still have 10 places to confirm with and then comes the actual visiting of the places I’ve called but yesterday I had a taste of minor success. I proved to myself that even my poor business Japanese can be understood over the phone, I didn’t die when I made the call, no body called work to say a rude foreigner called them and made no sense what so ever, and I even managed to arrange a few of the visits I needed to.
The job isn’t any more pleasant for me and I get butterflies in my stomach just thinking about making more calls or visiting more places by myself but I’m just happy that I showed my own mind that I’m not completely useless and if I make enough effort I can push past my anxiety and be a functional human being.
