Total Exposure

Anyone who know anything about phobias, knows that it is a horrible idea to just put someone in the situation. Uh, you can’t do that. Chances are the person will regress. No therapist would do that.

If you are scared of snakes, no therapist is going to make you sit down and hold a snake for an hour. Most likely you would scream, cry, run away etc…and possibly give up on that phobia. (I’m ignorant as to why that is such a big deal. I guess some places have a lot of snakes. ??? Florida? We have them here but I have never seen one in the wild. I’m not scared of snakes. I enjoy them at zoos but if I saw one in my house, I would probably freak out. “Ugh! How did that get in here? Do you have brothers?”)

You have to desensitize the person. You wouldn’t put a person with a deep fear of flying on a 20 hour flight to Asia. Talk about a nightmare! You would allow the person to do a flying stimulation. Then maybe you would walk around the airport with a ‘safe person’. Then you get on a plane without flying anywhere. I’m not a therapist so I don’t know what happens next.

Certain people – I’ll just call them “management” doesn’t get why I and ——– freaked out about taking phone calls. You are taking us from 0 to 1000. Ask any therapist, that is a horrible idea. Interesting how I reacted just like a person with a fear of snakes would. hmmmmmmmm

Also, would anyone take a person with agoraphobia and make them leave the house. Trust me, you couldn’t get the person to just leave the house. There would be screaming and tears. In fact, just the thought of someone doing that to a person unnerves me. I hope no one has ever gone through that.

I’m going to be on the phone for about 3 hours tomorrow. I should be working on scripting but it is sorta hard when you don’t know what you are supposed to say. LOL. I have been listening to others. I have a better idea of how to not piss the callers off. But I do panic. So I’m always asking, “Can you hold?” Okay, I’m starting to freak out. That’s it for now.

Dear universe, I ask for some sort of peace of mind at work.

4 responses to “Total Exposure”

  1. Mike Avatar
    Mike

    I agree. The whole “facing your fears” approach only strengthens the anxiety. You have to gradual expose yourself to the fearful situation. Have you tried to convey this to your boss?

    Reply
    1. Lindz Avatar
      Lindz

      Yes I did convince my boss to give me a less intensive schedule. but what I would need is way too much to ask a company for. It would require two people on the phone at one time…until I got everything down. They did that in training but it would never work in the real world. We wouldn’t get much work done.

      Reply
  2. imaginaryfears Avatar
    imaginaryfears

    It makes me cringe to think about being thrown into certain social situations I know I’m not ready for–being someone who deals with a lot of social anxiety. I had a job at a call center once where we did surveys for companies, and while we all had a script to read I still lost sleep over how to go about keeping people on the line to answer the questions. And the moment I had to take verbal abuse/disrespect from one individual, it really became too much. I didn’t last at that place but three days…lol. So anyway, I wish you luck while you’re doing your work on the phone and I hope it goes well.

    Reply
    1. Lindz Avatar
      Lindz

      Thank you. That job you had sounds scary. :/ That would scare me more than what I’m doing. Luckily for me, I may not be on the phone much until January.

      Reply

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