I entered a hotel room where my 2 sisters and my mother were. I began to feel a negative, hateful, rejection. It escalated. I initially was in a good mood, playful, laughing, happy. The counter reaction was rejecting, unwelcoming, criticizing, unfriendly. I wondered what was going on. I took it personally. I felt unwanted. I couldnt understand why I was feeling this way. I wondered if it was me. As I continued to be met with a wall each time I was spontaneously jovial, I began to get really angry and then my anger got out of control. I decided I would confront the members of the room and ask them if they disliked me. I told them how I was feeling. They denied feeling that way towards me. One sister told me I was reacting to the anxiety of my other sister and I was taking it personally. The anxious sister admitted that she had just taken a klonopin and her anxiety was escalating and that she was thinking about taking another. How is it that I felt her anxiety and took it personally? Why did it bully me? Why do I think people are rejecting me? Yes I know this is a illogical thinking error where I take responsibility for what other’s decide–believing that it must be my fault, but still? What was my mood? Well I have anxiety myself and it was as if I was drowning in hers to where I couldnt get control of my own. How is that possible to drown in another’s anxiety? I can now see anxiety does infect and is contagious–but that was weird.
When I found out what the problem was, I told my sister to keep her anxiety to herself! That if I could contain my anxiety without meds, she could contain hers with meds! My other sister said she couldnt believe I said that, that surely I didn’t believe that. Yes I do believe it. If I can learn to manage my anxiety she can learn to manage hers. I am still not sure what really happened and why I acted like I did–its out of character for me to not show empathy or not have insight into psychiatric issues. What surprises me is I meant it! I screamed at her: “Keep your anxiety to yourself!”
Is that realistically possible???
If I have flatulence, am I going to pass gas in an enclosed room? No, I am going to leave and relieve myself somewhere else. Why can’t she show the same courtesy? And I am serious!