Saturday, July 2, 2011

Decidophobia - The Fear of Making Decisions

Here I am again! It's 3:45am, and I am just starting to write a blog. For some odd reason, I think my deepest thoughts and have the most self-realization at night. Gosh, I love the way my body is so mixed up! [/sarcasm]

Just once, I'd love to realize something major during the day...

So, for the past few hours, I've been sitting here on my bed trolling the internet for whatever I can find. Tonight, that "whatever" happened to be Liberty University's website. Liberty then turned into UCLA which turned into Biola. (No, I don't understand the different progression of schools. It just...happened. :P)

I've been looking at different schools in different states (none in Canada of course...). Different undergraduate degrees, Masters degrees, and even doctoral programs. Each different school, different degree, and different state could lead to a whole different life for me.

I know that I've been accepted at Trevecca and have decided to go there in the fall, but the money hasn't come in yet. I'm starting to wonder whether it will come in at all. The money isn't really where I'm going with this blog though - well, it kind of is, but not entirely.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I kind of don't want the money to come in for Trevecca. It's not that I don't want to go there, because I do. I want to go to university. I want to get on with my life. The thing is...


I'm scared.


My whole life, I've bounced from one city to another, one school to another, one life to another. I don't like the idea of settling down...of committing to something long term.

Some of you might think that four years in one place is not that long. I, however, beg to differ.

This week coming up will be four years of my family living in Ontario. It's the longest length of time my family has stayed anywhere in my whole life. Even in these four years, I've been out of the country a few times on trips (which isn't highly unusual but my main motivation for the trips was the need to get out of here...not for pleasure, but to preserve my own sanity), spent 8 months last year in Nashville, and tried to live in Toronto for a few weeks.

In the past four years I have attended 6 different schools. Been at four different churches for an extended period of time. Gone through many, many peer groups. Seen a bunch of different therapists and doctors.

With all that in mind, four years in one place seems like a hell of a long time. I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I can commit to staying in one place for so long.

Throughout my life, there has only been one thing that I have been able to stick to through everything. That has been my eating disorder. It has been what I fell back on in every situation. When something went wrong, I could always resort to my distorted thoughts and behaviours regarding food. It was my safety net. If my life was chaotic, I would use the eating disorder to bring stability. If my life was too stable, I'd use it to shake things up a bit.

Going into this next season, I don't have that safety net anymore. It's not even an option for me if I go to university. I'm going to be paying top dollar to receive my education, and I'm not going to throw it away because I'm too busy counting calories to write papers.

That being said, I'm afraid to commit to anything in regards to my education because I know that the eating disorder is not an option. If I fail, I'm not going to have an excuse.

Part of me thinks that it would be easier to just not go to school because I won't have to deal with the disappointment of letting myself down. I won't have to feel weighted down by commitments because I won't make any long term decisions.

The thing is...I'm letting the present hang in the balance right now. I'm not making concrete long term plans, but I'm not making any plans in the present either because I don't know if I'm going to make any long term decisions. It's a catch-22. I can't make the decisions that I need to right now if I refuse to make the decisions that I need to for my future and vice versa.

At the rate I'm going, my life is going to be spent right here where I am right now. Sitting on my bed in my parents house, staring at my computer screen. Not doing anything besides dreaming about an amazing future but knowing that it will never happen because I'm too afraid to get out of my comfort zone and actually DO something.

I have a very avoidant personality when it comes to things like this. I avoid making big decisions because I'm afraid of failure, but I avoid making small decisions because...well...eventually small decisions aren't enough and I'll be forced to make a big decision. So I don't make any decisions besides the one not to make decisions.

I don't really know how to get over that, other than to just do it. But...when I do go to "just do it", I become paralyzed with fear and trepidation. I over think things...and I just get myself into a big mess.

It's so easy for me to have all these big dreams of things that I would love to accomplish one day and to plan things far down the road because in the back of my mind, I am convinced that I will never achieve them. As far as I can tell, that's an issue that I probably need to work on.

So...what does that mean in the present? I guess that means I need to mail off the OSAP papers and stop trying to self-sabotage my feeble attempt to overcome that paralyzing fear of actually committing myself to something and sticking with it.




On a completely unrelated note...does anyone know why we capitalize both the 'h' and the 'b' in Happy Birthday?

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