Anxiety and Phone Calls

I woke up this morning to 3 separate missed calls, all from unknown numbers.
That is a terrible way to start a day for me.

I'll let you sit here and be baffled for a moment because that probably makes very little sense to you, if everything up in your noggin is working correctly .

Well, phone calls from unknown numbers are the worst, they spin my head into the depths of improbable , but still possible scenarios.
Who is it? What do they want ? Is is an emergency ?
Is someone looking for me?
Did someone die?
Is it a bill collector?
Am I in trouble somewhere for something ?
Is it a stupid survey ?
Is it work?

Logically , none of those make any sense.
And i know that and I can consciously recognize that.
However , that doesn't mean i can control it.

"But Kiah, why didn't you just call them back and find out who it was ?" You're probably wondering.

Because that's what people do don't they?
They call them back.

Which again , makes perfect sense to me, yet I still can't do it.

That throws me into a near panic.
What if they don't answer?
What if they do answer?
What do I say?
What do I ask?
What if they want something?
I don't know what to do!

It's exhausting .
And I do know that there are tons of other people that understand where I'm coming from, that 
have this same repeat of anxieties every freaking day, and that is somewhat comforting.

There are more people that don't understand though, and that is so frustrating.
Everyone has this set of expectations of how every single person is going to react.
A phone rings? Answer it.
You don't sit there and fearfully stare at it, debating answering it until it stops ringing and then try to play detective through Google .

It's not just unknown numbers either.
HA! if only it were that simple.

I also can't make outgoing calls to people other than my mother , my brother ,my significant other and a very small handful of friends. Think around two friends.
Here's an example :
Just last month I needed to call the school I'll start at in the fall. I needed to tell them I registered for the wrong major online and I needed to change it.
Super simple.
I even knew exactly which office to call.

I put off that call for at least a week.
I even called my mom and tried to pawn it off on her.
When I finally decided I had to do it, I sat there and had a panic attack staring at my phone for an hour.
In order to actually call that damn number , I literally had to write down on paper word for word what I would say.
The call itself lasted maybe six minutes tops.

Another example :
When I started my job several months ago , I was required to learn phones.
The night I was being taught how to answer the phones and take orders I almost started crying.
My voice was shaking so bad the customers couldn't understand me.

This is something that affects me, everyday.

Often my mother says to me:
 "You should call (insert relative here) because (insert reason here)
and they love you so much." 
I'm sorry mom , but I can't .
Yes I do love them , and yes I am happy/sad for them , and yes I miss them and would love to see them , however I cannot call them and will continue holding on to the hope that we will all soon learn telepathy.