Disordered Thinking and First-World problems

Originally posted to my Facebook on August 25, 2026

I'll be honest, this social media thing is so far outside my comfort zone, it pushes the envelope of everything about me. It would be much safer to set my privacy settings to 'only family' or 'friends only'; or better yet (and possibly better for everyone I embarrass by association), just publish it to my blog, which no one reads.

This is one of the so-few places I can push myself (socially, albeit virtually). It seems like I ought to at least try . . . as some form of functional therapy (it's one step past reading a book or listening to a pod-cast).

I know they make medication for people to treat social anxiety (people in my household have taken it - along with an alphabet soup of other meds . . . w/ +&- side effects). And I might go that route if I really couldn't function in my life day to day. I purposely keep my life uneventful, as apparently my nervous system has already exceeded its lifetime quota for eggshell-walking and other-shoe-dropping. And if you've ever been to a psychiatrist or therapists office, you will know it is a process, sometimes lengthy (read, time consuming) and expensive to find the effective targeted combination of treatment - without causing drooling (or some other unfortunate event).

Besides, my problems are actually only crippling to me (and maybe my sons, because I'm not a voracious advocate); and perhaps by extension, my larger family unit(s) - ie. nuclear parent/sibling family, (all my ex-)in laws, and my church family. Because I've learned not to push myself too much, so I remain, in some ways, a 'lesser' person. For instance, I only have a bachelor's, not a master's; I work nearly-full time, but not quite; I don't organize family get togethers (even though I'm the oldest of my parent's kids living in town); I know all my family's birthdays (but only send cards to my nuclear family), etc.

But, if you look at it in the grand scheme of things, I really only experience First-World problems. I'm surrounded by people who provide so much assistance (social, emotional, etc.). It would be incredibly selfish (and socially tone-deaf) to consider myself as 'needy'. Even if there are milestones I don't accomplish (in this life), I am far too privileged, given the history of the world, to think of myself otherwise.

I realize some of my dysfunctional 'symptoms' appear to mimic people who've lived in war-torn countries, even though I haven't. And I often communicate (in real time) like I have an intellectual disability, which I've never been diagnosed with. And I'm avoidant as h*** when panic sets in, because I'm afraid of completely detaching from reality; which happens to people with complex trauma (which I can't claim to have). So, in reality, I have it a lot better than many humans on earth ever will. And as my sweet neighbors used to say, "it isn't a contest" (for who has it worse).

My dad says it has only been in relatively recent years that we started using the term anxiety (in place of fear). And people have always experienced some form of fear (justified or unjustified - given Christ's admonition to not fear). I like to think of anxiety as a term we use for the more irrational type of fear that disordered thinking creates. Because people in the first world (for the most part) don't fear tigers/lions, 'God', or volcanoes - we fear each other. And that may be the most scary of all.

My older sister advised I shouldn't be afraid to share this part of myself. Allowing people to 'know' me through my words is, in some ways, like sharing a gift. And if I could just persuade my disordered thinking to look at it that way, I might be more comfortable with the whole endeavor. As it is, I'm often just placing myself on the mercy of any reader, to hopefully understand what my words will inevitably miscommunicate . . . in an effort to normalize talking about mental illness and disordered thinking. And hopefully, making it even marginally accessible, to understand what is is to walk in our shoes. So that someday, it won't feel quite so isolating.