Rehearsing Conversations
 

Alright, here is a confession....

I rehearse conversations in my head.

Coming home every day was a challenge, never knowing what mood my SM was going to be in, whether she was going to hate me, love me, ignore me, abuse me, if I had done something wrong, if I was in trouble, whatever. So to prepare for walking in the door I would go over every scenario that could happen, the conversation (if I say hello and she ignores me, then I will do this, if she yells at me for this then I will say blah blah blah, I can try to start it off good by telling her I did this at school today....) etc... and prepare myself for them.

Now, I do the same thing for just regular encounters. If I am at home and DH says, hey, can I talk to you, I panic, cause I havent rehearsed the million things that could be discussed. If I am at work and my boss says, Terri can you come to my office I panic, cause I assume I am getting fired and I dont have a prepared response.

Please tell me I am not the only one. I am over 40 and have never told anyone this. I would LOVE to relax and never do this again! I can be involved in full conversation rehearsals and be completely unaware of my surroundings.

Hahahahaha! No, no you are not the only one, there is at least one other person who does this - me. I'm not laughing at you either, I'm most definitely laughing with you. I sometimes laugh at myself when I'm doing it and ask myself if I'm having conversations with ghosts.

Because no matter how many ways I rehearse the conversation, it never ever goes how I rehearsed it. I'm Management, which means I occasionally have to fire people. Not often, thank heavens, but sometimes. That will drive me to talking to myself in the car for days!! The last time I had to do it, I talked to myself for three days straight, rehearsing "every possible outcome." Except that I didn't rehearse having things thrown at me. And I wasn't expecting a 15 minute monologue where the ex-employee (who I had the honor of escorting out of the building) called me just about every name in the urban dictionary for male or female genitalia.

Recently, I resigned from a volunteer position with a community outreach group because of mismanagement by the higher-ups. I didn't have time to rehearse any of that because it happened so quickly.

Y'know what? No matter how much I do or don't rehearse, the outcome always ends up the same. The person gets fired (then lists me as a reference!!), I resigned, the end was still the same. I allow myself to rehearse because in each scenario, it allows me to ask "and what tools will you need if they do X?" Not that I'll necessarily need those tools, but it brings them back into the fore of my mind.

Rehearsing isn't bad in and of itself. It's what you do with it that counts. Your psyche is giving you the chance to reinforce healthy behaviors. When you rehearse, ask yourself what tools you would use. If the rehearsing is only an exercise in further panic, it is unhealthy. If you use it to also practice your recovery tools, it's healthy. The rehearsing is not the problem.

If you include rehearsing your tools and skills, you'll find that it calms you down. There are those in the world who thrive on conflict. I am not one of them. So any form of conflict is going to agitate me. What I do with that agitation is up to me. Because of my rehearsing, I was able to stay calm during the firing I mentioned above, and during the subsequent administrative trial it brought about (at the employee's instigation). I had all my tools in easy reach and I used them all.

I don't know if it's possible to never rehearse. It's one way that we can prepare ourselves. But if we include our tools in our rehearsal, it can help calm us down (by feeling prepared) AND it can help us be ready for the next thing that gets sprung on us by keeping our tools in good repair.

I say keep on rehearsing. And practice those tools - the more you use them (in a real conversation or in 'rehearsal'), the better you'll get with them!

Gin

Yeah, my rehearsing is a panic rehearsal. I play both roles in my head. Full on conversations go on in there! I guess it's better than talking out loud though! Tools, I have no tools. I dont even know where to begin there Ginger!

I did a lot of that when I lived at home with my alcoholic Dad. But no matter what I was prepared for he just would turn another corner and I would be left unprepared.

That's where the lying comes in. I would then just make up a lie that I thought would appease the drunk. Of course it never did but I started to think fast on my feet. I shared in my blog that I have to fight the feeling of lying to please people when I don't even have to and it doesn't matter to the person on the receiving end.

I do panic when people single me out to talk to me as well. It's one reason I started my own business, I just couldn't handle being around authorities who I saw as all out to get me in the end. Even though they really weren't.

Try this post in the stickies, it outlines our response to guilt but it could apply to panicking and give you some ideas.
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ing-guilt.html

Yes, I suppose we expect the worst, wait for the other shoe to drop etc... etc...

I don't recall rehearsing stuff in my dysfunctional alcoholic home. There is still some stuff 'well below the radar' so I cannot be sure.

But i know going to Alanon, and to other thongs i would always plan what to say- and would also plan the responses, and what I would say to that!

Needless to say nothing ever worked out- it left me in a bubble...

today I would say I am more 'in the moment'.

I really like this sort of sharing! :thanks

DavidG.

You might want to start with the Bill of Rights stickied up above. When you find yourself doing it, run through those rights and see if any of them fit. If they do, repeat that ones that fit, out loud, as many times as it takes.

For a very long time I used as a mantra "I have the right to not participate in the crazy making behaviors of my family." I still do. Even with my father in prison, when I go visit him, I have to repeat that one.

Another tool is to imagine the toxic person (or other perceived threat) as being a crazy person (some use the visual of a person inside an insane assylum behind a window screaming at them, I use the the visual of the homeless people I encounter who yell completely insane things at me when I'm downtown). Imagine them yelling the same things at you that you're hearing, then imagine how you'd react if it really were a crazy person yelling at you, but one you didn't know. I've found that this helps me both stay centered on me and find a shred of compassion for the person - after all, what a miserable life to be so angry, so threatened, so scared all the time to the point of having completely lost one's grip on reality.

In that place of staying centered on me (because it's not MY problem - I'm not the crazy one) and in finding the smallest slip of compassion for them, I find I can withstand quite a bit, being buffeted like tall grass in high winds, but after the yelling has stopped, I'm still there, whole and intact.

It can't hurt you to try it. It may or may not be useful, but it can't hurt to try it. And by trying it, you'll find power in your own ability to look at the scary things from a more self-possessed position.

Gin

Thanks Ginger, I will print those out.

This post was a light bulb for me coming from the other direction... I think some family members do this in a big way. And are uncomfortable with me because it's hard to anticipate what I will say (in recovery for long enough that I probably just think differently). A lot of times they seem to expect a black or white response-- that I will either blame someone horribly or else make excuses-- but responsibility/accountability isn't like either blame or excuse-making, sometimes it's about looking at a complex problem and figuring out even small things that can help make it better.