Visiting with my in-laws.

     Yesterday I spent the afternoon and evening with my in-laws.  Do not get me wrong, I love them dearly and enjoy their company.  However, these visits fill me with fear most times.  I worry what I should talk about, and worry that I will run out of things to say.  Because of this I often sit silently and passively.

     Meal time is particularly stressful.  I am not used to the concept of multiple forks and the like.  I grew up where there was only one fork, and you ate everything with it.  When the meal starts and the salad is served I have to look and see which fork everyone else is using.  On the note of salads, I worry that the lettuce on my fork is going to come off the tip slightly and spring open forcing me to take more than a mouthful of salad at once.

     This visit was especially rough.  My wife went over information from her childhood and shared stories about growing up.  Under the best of circumstances I don’t remember much of my childhood, and the parts I do remember are suggested by other people and are subject to bias.  Perhaps it was our frequent moves, bad memory, or some other force.  The few memories I have of my childhood are good, though far between.  To compound difficulties precious little remains of my childhood.  This made it somewhat difficult to hear her memories, even the “bad” ones.

     Though I am, by and large, not sentimental I do find myself wishing I had more details on growing up.  I remember things in fragments up until my early adolescence and know that it could not be any kind of medication issue because I failed to remember before I was on medication.  This disconnect between my life and my memories makes me slightly jealous of those with ready access to their past.

     I know my parents love me, and I do hope they know that I love them; the distance between us is so great that I have found a sort of surrogacy with my in-laws and constantly worry that my parents think that I have replaced them.  As much as I love my in-laws, I often feel as though I do not fit in with them, and I feel incredibly disconnected from my own family.  Thus it feels as though I have only my wife in my family.

     Feeling alone in a room full of people is hard; it is a feeling that many of us have had from time to time.  I know in my heart that they all care for me, but my head tends to disagree.  I constantly fear rejection, judgment, and ridicule.  I feel as though I’ve been rejected too many times and therefore keep myself closely guarded.

     What kinds of social situations do you find stressful?  How do/did you cope with them?

--JJM