Tag: social anxiety

Anxiety in the Age of COVID-19

~ Kathryn

This week I invented a fun “adult” game to play with my partner. It’s called:

“Can you please sit on the couch with me and help me write emails because I am riddled with anxiety and have somehow managed to convince myself that every single word I write is bad and will cause everyone to lose respect for me and hate me forever.”

I’m currently struggling through a wave of anxiety, and it’s both intense and completely irrational. For example:

– An amazing colleague sent me a nice email expressing admiration for something I published recently, and I think I’m going to die.
– Another amazing colleague wrote to ask if they could put an unpublished essay of mine in a book they’re editing, and I think I’m going to die.
– I got a few new submissions to a zine I’m editing, and they are wonderful, and I think I’m going to die.
– A stranger who seems like a cool and interesting person sent me a message on Instagram inviting me to submit a comic to a zine they’re putting together, and I think I’m going to die.
– Someone sent me a message on Etsy telling me that they love my art, and I think I’m going to die.
– An artist I admire tentatively accepted an illustration commission for a novel I’m writing, and I think I’m going to die.

I feel awful, as if I’m an asshole for tricking these people. Like, they don’t know that I’m actually a terrible person, but they will find out. Nothing bad has happened, but bad things may potentially happen in the future.

When I was at my previous job, my older male department chair asked a female colleague to sit me down and tell me that anxiety doesn’t exist, and that it’s just a matter of me changing my attitude (or something). I keep thinking about this in an attempt to explain to no one in particular that I don’t actually want social interaction – even positive social interaction – to make me feel like I can’t breathe and might need to go to the hospital.

Emotionally I want to communicate and connect with people, especially friendly people doing cool things who it would be fun to work with. Intellectually I know that the worst thing that could happen is me making a silly typo or me eventually having to apologize for submitting something a few days late. Physically, however, I feel like I’m watching a grisly scene in a horror movie, except I can’t close my eyes until it goes away because this is my actual life.

Despite feeling like I’m on the verge of a coronary event, I’m going to ask my partner to sit on the couch with me and help me respond to some emails like a normal adult. This shouldn’t feel like I’m walking into battle, but it does and I hate it.

I’ll get through this, of course. It might take me a bit longer than it takes other people to respond to emails when I’m dealing with anxiety, but I’ll definitely get through this. I’m grateful to have a partner who supports me, and I’m very lucky that my colleagues (and students!) in my new department are accommodating. I’ve started being honest and upfront about what I’m going through, and everyone has been surprisingly kind and understanding.

I’m sharing this in the hope that it makes someone out there feel less weird and alone. There’s so much ambient stress and bad news in the world every single week, and I think a lot of people are experiencing this sort of anxiety at this level of intensity for the first time. It’s normal to feel physically sick, and it’s normal to feel mentally paralyzed. After experiencing wave after wave of negativity, it’s totally normal to have this sort of reaction even to positive events. So be kind to yourself, and let other people help you! You can get through this.

Why I Buy Books on Amazon

~ Kathryn

Amazon is evil, and I’m afraid of them. So why do I still use their stupid website to buy books? Let me give you six reasons.

First, I read a lot of scholarship. Since it’s easy to get distracted while reading an academic book, I find it more productive to read paper copies than digital editions. I highlight text and take notes in the margins, so library books are out of the question. Bookstores don’t keep academic books in stock, and I’m not about to order them for full price (which is often more than $100) from the publishers.

Second, I read a lot of literary fiction in translation. I’m not trying to sound cool, because I don’t think literary fiction in translation is ever going to be cool, but I enjoy reading the sort of books that you can only find if you can search for them by means of an aggregate of hundreds of independent storefronts.

Third, I read a lot of fiction and graphic novels that haven’t been translated, and Amazon ships internationally for cheap. In fact, buying a book shipped via DHL Global Express from Amazon Japan or Amazon France is often cheaper than buying the translation at an American bookstore. True story!

Fourth, I read a lot of garbage, and I mean A LOT of garbage.

Let me give you an example. I love the manga series Black Butler, but I do not want to walk into an actual bookstore and ask an actual human being to special order the latest volume for me. In fact, I don’t even want the latest volume to be physically in my apartment, which is why I buy the Kindle editions. I also read a lot of Kindle singles, some of which are so bizarre that they’re probably intended to be performance art. Like most performance art, there’s a lot of potential for misunderstanding. Can you imagine yourself going into an independent bookstore and asking, “Hi, I was wondering where you keep your chapbooks of short experimental fiction. I’m looking for I Got Pounded in the Butt by a T-Rex, could you tell me if you have it in stock?” I guessing that you don’t need any help imagining the look on the face of the English major at the till, which brings me to my next point…

Fifth, I tend to dislike independent bookstores. Don’t get me started on the snobbishness of book culture, because we will be here all day and all night and I still won’t have said everything I have to say about literary gatekeepers and their bullshit.

(I love independent comic book stores forever and always, but that’s another story for another day.)

Sixth, I don’t dislike big chain stores as much as I dislike independent bookstores, but they’re still awful. Let me tell you a short story to help explain why.

The other day I decided that it’s finally time for me to read Pride and Prejudice, so I went to a Barnes and Noble in the suburbs. The entire store was very cringe, with lots of Harry Potter and ghostwritten politician “autobiographies” everywhere. But fuck me, I’m very cringe myself, so I went straight to the super discount shelves to check out those giant glossy books about “How to Make Your Own Healing Crystals” or whatever. I was carefully studying the covers of all the garbage books no one else wanted, and I was about to pick up one of those “witchcraft in a box” packages when a store employee came up to me. She was a super cheerful teenager with bouncy blonde curls, and she asked if she could help me find anything.

I did not in fact need for her to help me figure out where Jane Austen is in their fiction section, but I couldn’t help imagining the awkward conversation we’d have if I requested that she take me there. She would ask if I’ve read the book, and I would have to tell her I haven’t. The reason I’ve never been able to get more than fifty pages into Pride and Prejudice is because Jane Austen has always struck me as a mean girl, and I don’t like the way she makes fun of Elizabeth Bennet’s mom. I’m not sure how I would explain this to the rosy-cheeked teenager, who might respond by repeating some nonsense about the book that she read on Tumblr – where there happens to be a lot of angry and impassioned Jane Austen discourse, if you can believe it.

While this awful conversation was flashing through my mind, I realized that the girl was probably ordered to approach me by one of her supervisors, who saw me concentrating intently on something no sane person would actually buy and was therefore worried that I was a shoplifter. I then got a ridiculous mental image of myself sneaking out of the store with a giant “Witchcraft for Dummies Starter Kit with Bonus Crystals” box under my shirt, which would honestly be only slightly less embarrassing than taking it up to the cash register to pay a whole $8.99 to another teenager who would have to keep a straight face while asking me if I wanted to sign up for a store card.

What I mean to say is that this girl surprised me, and I ended up replying to her offer of assistance by saying “no.” Not “no, thank you” or “no, I’m good,” or “no, but I’ll find you if I need anything.” I just said “no” and walked away. Even though it was a little rude of her to interrupt me, this dick move instantly turned me into the bad guy, because what sort of douchenozzle treats retail workers like that? I felt like such an asshole, especially when they didn’t have Pride and Prejudice on the self with the rest of the Jane Austen books and I was too embarrassed to ask where it was.

And that’s why I don’t like going into bookstores, thank you for joining me on this journey.

In conclusion, I love books, and it makes me happy to support writers and publishers, but I’m also a weird little gremlin who probably shouldn’t be allowed to go out in public. Amazon enables the full extent of my reading habit without being judgmental, and that’s why they get all my money even though they’re evil.