Posted by Racer on March 10, 2006, at 2:07:55
Today was my first midterm, after 15 years away from school. Yes, I got totally stressed about it. And I walked out and felt pretty OK.
For a while.
Now I'm stressing again, "OMG! What if I really do miss the five questions the instructor told me EVERYONE was going to miss? That would be 10% right there -- I wouldn't have an A! What were the questions? Was I being overconfident when I thought I did OK?"
That's what we talked about in therapy yesterday, why I do that? Why I can't just let it go -- why, an hour after turning in the exams, I am still saying, "I should have checked everything over one more time."
I think it's partly a sort of talisman: if I do that, and I worry, and I stress, then it will be OK, because in the past when I've twisted myself up this way, it has been OK. If I don't get crazy with upset, then it won't be OK. If I ADMIT to having confidence in how I've done, then the universe will slap me down, in some terrible way.
It goes back to what I wrote about yesterday -- that it's almost as though I have to zero out my confidence somehow. Because if I were to be totally honest -- mostly I think I did well on this exam. There were two or three questions I was unsure about, but otherwise -- I think I probably got every other question right, and I have a one in four chance of getting those two or three right just by chance. (Multiple choice.) But even typing that, I'm getting a bit nauseous. And I'm feeling as though my superstitious anxiety is ramping itself up awfully quickly. As if,somehow, my having that confidence, my stating that I think I did well, will make all my little marks disappear, and my test come back with a D, instead of an A. (Although, frankly, I think I'd freak out if I got a B, let alone a D. And if I freaked out over a B, I think GG would fly to California to slap me!)
Can anyone else relate? That sort of superstitious sense that something really awful would happen if you admitted confidence, even to yourself?
Or have I finally found a way to be unique? lol
poster:Racer
thread:618255
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060225/msgs/618255.html