A River in Egypt

denial, an unconscious defense mechanism in which emotional conflict and anxiety are avoided by refusal to acknowledge those thoughts, feelings, desires, impulses, or facts that are consciously intolerable.

*******

(Yes, yes, I know. Ba-dum-bump -- *tshhhhhh*)

I think I need to explore this aspect of my behavior. Whether it's a good idea to do it publicly here, I'm not sure - but I have this tendency to avoid potentially bad news by any means possible. Usually, this bad news is manifested as some form of rejection. The latest example was my total dread of reading my advisor's comments and corrections in my thesis introduction. I sent her a draft last Friday and she promised to get it back to me with corrections by Monday. Monday morning, her email arrived - I waited a good hour before opening it. I didn't want to read the bad news. Before reading it, I knew the contents of the email:

Mike,
Seriously - are you trying at all? This introduction was such a lame attempt - it's incomplete blah blah blah and you need to add the following chapters blah blah blah.

B

Of course, I finally opened her email and what it really said was:

Mike:

Your intro is quite good. However, you need to have a few pages on what has been done to characterize trans factors on the promoter and enhancer and answer the question of why the focus of the work was on PU and C/EBPβ. I left specific comments on your desk.

B

Well - that wasn't so bad. It could have been worse - I could have let her comments sit on my desk for another week, but time is not a luxury right now.

I'm wondering why my mind just defaults to expecting the worst. This extreme form of denial manifests itself in other ways in other aspects of my life. In the academic world, I never check my exam results, not wanting to see how poorly I've done, assuming that I've failed. Despite the fact that I haven't come close to failing, that things always turn out for the best, I can't get around these thought patterns.

Even worse, I feel, are the social anxieties. It doesn't take much, but I can withdraw from my social circle du jour in a split second. It's hard enough being one of the few single persons because you're always the individual that makes the group an odd number of people. On top of that, there's the issue of my performance within the group. Am I funny enough? Bright enough? Interesting? Or am I falling short in all categories and therefore justifying my bachelorhood to all witnesses? Just one sideways glance or awkward silence later, and I can sit there and come up with all the social faux pas that I've committed in the last several years that I'm sure everybody remembers and are adding to the ever-growing body of evidence that hanging out with Mikey is such a chore.

So I hide. I can usually come up with any number of excuses - feeling ill, too busy, writing a dissertation - but sometimes it's just an opportunity for me to get away from that performance anxiety I invariably get whenever I'm out with people I care about.

So there it is - if you think I'm avoiding you, you're mistaken. It's me avoiding - trying to avoid - my own petty insecurities.

*******

Right now I'm listening to: Visions, Jakatta

A DJ mix album, Jakatta samples some themes from the music of American Beauty by Thomas Newman. Includes the track "My Vision" performed by Seal. The mood is really chill and downtempo, something that I need right now.