I believe I’ve mentioned something like this before, but I’m an extremely empathetic person – sometimes to the point where it’s almost painful. It’s like second nature for me to take on the full emotions others are feeling, whether they’re positive or negative. If someone is feeling pretty high off of life, I spend less than a minute with them and I’m right there by their side, head in the clouds, not quite sure why I’m smiling or why it won’t go away. If someone is feeling insecure or small, I shrink in on myself and start to remember every time I let my own mind convince me I was worthless until I feel it becomes my responsibility to help them feel better.

If someone cries, it’s all too easy for me to jump into that mindset until my eyes start to sting with tears that weren’t originally mine. I used to try to hide it when that happened because I didn’t know anyone else who cried from simply seeing someone else cry. I used to pretend emotional scenes in movies, or videos of soldiers coming home, or a grandparent crying upon meeting their grandchild for the first time didn’t affect me as much because I didn’t know how to explain it to people why it happens and why I connect so deeply with strangers I don’t know. Now, I don’t try to hide this fact about myself. No matter what I tried, it wouldn’t go away, and one day I just got tired of feeling insecure about it. I now talk about it freely, though I still don’t know exactly why it happens – it just does.

It’s a part of me just as much as my favorite color is, and I choose to embrace it now rather than worry about how to rid myself of this ability. But I can’t say the same about everything inside of me, and something that popped up this week reminded me that I still have a lot of growing to do.

I have an issue with getting in trouble or doing something wrong. I have a strong, anxiety-based reaction to even thinking I might get into trouble, something I’m sure has to do with my childhood but is something I’ve never been able to connect the dots on myself.

This pops up occasionally in my job – no one likes thinking or feeling accused of doing something wrong, but it’s a part of life. I deal with those smaller anxieties as they pop up day-to-day; I can’t make myself calm down really but I find ways to distract myself to the point where I kind of forget to keep feeling anxious. But depending on the situation, that doesn’t always work. I received a jury summons this week, something I had never participated in before but always thought might be interesting to try. Was it convenient for me and my job? No, not really, but when is it ever? It felt fair to me, whether I liked it or not and there was a part of me that was excited to do something I had never done before. I knew I could be fair and impartial, and all I focused on was being the best I could be for the people who deserved than from me. It’s nice to know people depend on me, and I don’t take that responsibility lightly.

So why was it that as soon as I stepped into the courtroom where the attorneys were to start questioning the potential juror pool for selection, my heart was trying to hammer its way out of my chest? Why was it that as soon as the judge arrived, and spared a quick glance at me as I answered the posed general questions, it felt like his stare was burning holes into my skin the rest of the time I was there? Why was it that when I was answering the questions designed to be based purely on our own personal thoughts and experiences, I was so afraid of saying the wrong thing and having someone angry with me?

I’ve always been this way, but the level of anxiety I felt as I sat in that courtroom was one that was almost crippling. I could feel the blood rushing from my hands, feet, and lips into somewhere deep into my body where I couldn’t feel it anymore. My heartrate never evened out, and I was convinced the strangers next to me could hear it. My voice was quiet and shaky when I spoke though I tried to make it strong. My mind overanalyzed everything I was going to say and tried to think of every possible way it could have been misinterpreted. Not until they dismissed me, did I take an actual, full breath of air. I couldn’t get out of that room fast enough.

I don’t often feel that level of panic that reels out of my control or makes me want to curl up into a ball, and usually when it does come up, it’s been attached to these feelings of getting in trouble somehow. I want to know why.

My childhood trauma has played a role in shaping me as the person I am now in every way, whether it’s habits that still linger from it or its new personality traits I developed when I healed from certain trauma responses. But there’s some like this one, I can’t shake for some reason. I didn’t get into trouble a lot as a kid – just the opposite in fact. I was the most well-behaved out of my siblings, often learning from the things others did around me that angered my parents. And yes, we could put some blame for this fear on the way we were punished as kids – it wasn’t always necessarily physical punishment, but it was always embarrassing. Making us sit on the stair steps for hours until the other parent came home from work so we could explain what we did. Taking away the things that gave us some enjoyment for honestly trivial actions we did that shouldn’t have warranted such a strong reaction. Sometimes giving us the silent treatment and getting treated with no kindness and love when one of our parents were mad at us. It was a tricky situation built off of years of punishment equaling less attention and love in a household where we were already struggling with alcoholic parents who were always fighting and didn’t pay enough attention to there children as they should have as it was.

And maybe that’s it. Maybe, the lack of attention we already received, coupled with parents with whom the slightest action could set them off and take away what little attention they gave us has everything to do with it. But their feels like there’s some missing piece to it as well; something I can’t quite place. When I feel like I’ve gotten down to the root cause of some habit or thought process I have, usually there’s an “eureka!” moment where it feels like everything falls into place and I finally solved some puzzle I’ve been stuck with my whole life. But when I think of this fear in those terms of how I grew up, it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like there’s still something missing.

And maybe it’s a fear that’s grown in the way that my brain equates my worthiness of being loved to not ever making a mistake. Maybe there’s a small part of my mind that thinks as soon as I mess up, I will no longer have the love I’ve come to gain. But that doesn’t feel quite right either.

I want to understand it better; my fear doesn’t usually get the best of me this badly, but I want to be prepared when it does and want to have some sort of defense against it so I don’t spiral nearly out of control. For me, I need to know the ‘why’ behind things. You can’t just tell me planes fly because they just do and expect that to be enough for me. Especially the more complicated the subject, until I know why there’s part of my brain that can’t accept that something simply is. And I can’t go about fixing anything until I know why it’s broken either. I know some people who can, and I envy them because how simple and easy that must be?

I do have a bad fear of rejection as well, and perhaps that also plays a part in it. But I just can’t connect the dots fully by myself, and that frustrates me. It also slows down my growth which is irritating as well – I’ve spent so long working on myself and for there to still be some things I can’t get a handle on really preys on my need to figure things out.

I’m sure one day those dots will connect, and maybe it will be one of those things that happens without me needing to think about it. Maybe it will happen at the right time someday without me even knowing. And maybe it’s something I need a specific someone to help me out with for some reason.

I hope it comes fast, or I hope that it continues to be a once in a while occurrence until I can figure it out. But the main part of it is growth anyway, right? I guess I should just ultimately hope one day I’ve grown enough to deal with it how I should.

Here’s to a better rest of the week for all of us – hang in there. February is almost over.