Musing

[chanaleh]

One time in your life, you have the experience of being unable to get hold of someone you love, wherein it happens that in fact they *have* dropped off the face of the earth for a bad reason... and you learn about this after 36 hours or so, and have to track them down to the hospital.

Forever after -- as in ten and a half years later -- anytime you are unexpectedly unable to reach a loved one for the better part of a day, you cannot shake an uneasy feeling that Something Has Gone Terribly Wrong, and that, for reasons of sudden emotional trauma, they either are purposely refusing to pick up the phone to speak to you or have taken themselves off and disappeared altogether.

So when the loved one of today finally does return your phonecall, having been out on a perfectly mundane errand, you are privately rather embarrassed, but also relieved that your gut-level fears have been proven wrong once again.

(Then you wonder what this pattern says more about: your own deep neuroses, or the actual emotional instability of the people you come to love.)

Comments

[lifecollage.livejournal.com]

What's worse is when you have that reaction, and you've never had the horrible experience that would give your subconscious at least an excuse for jumping to awful conclusions. Erg.

[meranthi.livejournal.com]

I don't think that's unreasonable. I have the same problem and I've never actually had someone drop off the face of the planet for bad reasons.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

I get that feeling too sometimes. I tend to chalk it up to different people needing different types and degrees of connection. If the person in question is someone that I know is not a habitual communicator, I don't get upset if I don't talk to them for days or (in my brother's case) weeks. But if I know it's someone who tends to stay connected, and I don't hear from them for several days when usually it'd be no more than one, I would probably freak out.

[avram]

I get the panic reaction, but I've never had cause for it. After a the inital flush of dread is over, I start to think of it as a comfort, an omen that the thing I fear won't actually come to pass, this time.

[jessruth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get this too. And (gratefully), most of the time, I wind up embarrassed, too, and the other person wonders how I could possibly have let my mind wander that far....

Mostly, I have to remember that It's Not Always About Me (as in, it's not because I did something wrong). Nonetheless, it never seems to take me too long to get to that place where I'm backpedaling through the hours or days, trying to pinpoint my misdeed that led to the lack of contact.

Argh, neuroses are not kind.

[navrins]

Please.

Never panic because you can't reach me.
I disappear sometimes. Unexpectedly, unpredictably, even by me, I just decide to silently go somewhere out of touch for a little while. It happens. Today, even, hence me thinking of it.

(No, I'm sure you're not referring to me. 'Specially since it's you who hasn't afaik returned *my* contact last, unless my email is being slow again. But still.)

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

You know, in mulling this over, it occurred to me that I myself am frequently impossible to reach. But everyone who knows me well enough to care knows that it's because I'm constantly out and about, socially or otherwise. And being cellphone-free, if I'm neither at home nor at my desk at work, I'm out of touch. But that's okay.

[cos]

Ten and a half years ago, that would've been during our senior year, right? I feel like I should remember this event, but for some reason I don't.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure you would have been aware of it, necessarily.

[(Anonymous)]

I've always said my imagination is far, far worse than reality. This is usually why I don't mind people telling me the truth - it's a rare day when the truth is less horrible than what I'm capable of imagining.