When exposed to a certain level of stress and anxiety during social events, I have a tendency to forget things. Maybe forget is the wrong term because that word implies that I actually register something in my brain and I don’t feel like that happens for me.
Anyhoo, I guess at this point the best phrase I can come up with is detach and forget (D&F). Over the years of studying this phenomenon, I seem to mentally detach when experiencing stress/anxiety, which makes me forget certain moments or events. It’s a coping mechanism that I apparently employ automatically.
During these times, I don’t recall feeling stress or anxiety and am told that I behave normally (normal for me anyway, ha!) and interact with people, yet D&F is still deployed. There are other times I remember a few small details scattered throughout the event but don’t remember other things that would be widely be considered more memorable. This doesn’t tend to happen as often with smaller events where there are fewer people so it seems like the more people there are, the more likely I am to D&F.
Over the years there has been an untold number of these lost moments from trips I’ve taken with family and other events. Luckily I’ve been told stories by people that were present that can tell me what I said and did so I have an idea of what I missed. I use this information to help me better understand and recognize when this happens to me.
Being someone who is averse to being the center of attention in crowds, I’ve viewed being the center of attention at my own ceremony as something to hurry through so that I can get to the less intense party portion of the event. However, in having a conversation with a co-worker (thanks, Kathy!), I began to think that maybe slowing things down a tiny bit might help me in more ways than one. If things happen slightly more slowly, perhaps I wouldn’t detach as much so I’d have a better chance at savoring and remembering more aspects of one of the most precious events of G and my lives together.
I’m not sure whether slowing things down will help me or not so these are just thoughts for the moment. I’ll mull this over for a few more days, talk with G ,and we’ll see what shakes out. For those of you attending, please remember as much as you can so you can share it with me if I D&F! ;0)
Exploring curiosity 