Today, I had an episode of panicky overwhelmed-ness when I read an email sent to me by the agency I tutor for, asking if I could take on another student for September.
What, another student!? I thought. I've already got three and I've only met one of them, and I'm not even sure I have the energy for that, let alone the other two, not even considering a third. Eight to ten hours a week? What was I thinking! But how can I say no? I gave her a perfectly reasonable number of hours, and if I say no I'll look like a spaz. Not only that, but this student needs exactly my skill set, and if I say no, how will he get the help he needs!? I have to say yes, but oh my god how will I handle it and still have serenity? Why won't the world stop attacking my serenity?!!!
This sort of thought pattern is distressingly common for me. Any time something new comes along, I panic a little (or a lot), particularly if it involves added or changed responsibilities for me.
I voiced my thought spiral aloud to Nonsense. After a few minutes of attempting to suggest reasonable solutions ("You could just say no;" "If you're overwhelmed just looking at it, it's probably too much for the moment") which I countered with the reasonable arguments ("But I did say I could do a certain number of hours";"But I'll always have a moment of panic at the thought of new responsibility"), and a moment of baffled silence in which he marvelled at my ability to turn interested queries into life-threatening full frontal assaults, he said: "But you don't have to decide right now."
Over the past four years of my life, the one plan for continued serenity and safe boundaries that has been suggested for me by my therapist, my former life coach and myself, and that actually worked for me may times, is simply this: do not make a decision right away.
Let me repeat that, it's important. DO NOT MAKE A DECISION RIGHT AWAY.
Once I'm over my habitual moment of panic, you see, I am in fact able to think rationally about whether I want to say yes or no, which response makes more sense, and how to effectively yet politely respond with whichever decision I've come to. But when I think I'm being backed into a corner, oddly enough, I'll promise all sorts of silly things I later realize I should under no circumstance have pledged. Maybe it's bravado?
I need to keep reminding myself that I don't have to say yes (or even no) right away, and that I need, no, I am obliged, to take that moment of away time to make decisions that actually reflect my position on things.
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