# Made Phone Calls



## penguin runner (Apr 28, 2010)

Phones Calls. The arch-enemies of many of us suffering from SA. 
Why they so scary?? The inability to see the interaction and the loss of bodily communication. The incomplete knowledge of whose on the other line. The fear the lines you've practice 10 times and written on paper as a guide will become useless after their first response. Being hung up on and not being able to get across the information you wanted. What ever the reason, and I fit all of the above as that's how I know about them.

But to get into vet school, my lifelong dream that I've just now had the courage to let others now about, I had to dead call like 30 different clinics and got through all of them! And I'm still ALIVE! I was surprised.

It's like one of my bigger fears was greatly gone in a few days from just keeping at it. Before each call I wrote "time-fear before-fear during - fear after". The first time I called I got quite freaked as they didn't follow my planned conversation (how could they not follow what I wrote down without their knowledge!/sarcasm I felt like just hanging up and or vomiting). But the person on the line knew enough about what I wanted and sent me to the manager. She was then able to find me a spot like that week to volunteer. 
Started out horrible, but ended up perfect. Highest fear was when things didn't go as planned but still lower than I expected initially.

Did this for all of the as a science like experiment and generally my initial fear did drop (but just a bit.... I figured b/c wasn't much time to let things settle in). But biggest change was during when things went wrong, I felt actually happy as I had new ideas of what could be done based on previous calls. The overall afters seemed to increase too slightly. 

Any way for me when going through something you expect to be frustration before and after, break it up and work on it in a step wise process trying to be objective. I guess I just believe numbers more than I do feelings/memories. Like if during a faux pas I feel like a 7, but after looking back would call it a 10, then it's more of a problem in my memory shifting parts of reality to make them worse.

Anyways by doing this strategies for the 30 calls over 2 days, by the second day I no longer feared phones enough to hide them whenever they wrang. Now I can make outgoing calls and answer calls (usually).

Anyways it was a big deal for me.


TLR

I answered and called a lot of unknown people on the phone in a short time and most of my phone scare is gone.:clap


----------



## pehrj (Feb 12, 2009)

That's awesome. I'm going through a similar thing wrt phone calls. Very smart strategy writing out want you want to talk about before hand. I'm happy for your success.


----------



## kurtjb (Aug 27, 2010)

Good job! 

That's very similar to what I did to reduce phone anxiety. I wanted to know about what hair salons/barbers in my town were the best, and what their prices were, so I called them one by one. I must have made 30 calls. It was partly to get the info, but partly to see if I could lessen my anxiety. It worked. I also had a basic script, as you did.

Once I had to make a tough customer service complaint call and I wrote out a fairly elaborate script, anticpating what they might answer. The very act of writing the script was (I later realized) "cognitive exposure" in that I was playing out the call in my mind before I made it. So when I actually called, the anxiety was surprisingly low--I felt like I'd already gone through it before.

What's still a problem for me is unstructured calls. (As in conversations with friends and acquaintainces I haven't seen in awhile.) I'm not bad receiving them, but I procrastinate in making them sometimes. It's hard to do 30 calls in a row that aren't structured, so they are harder to practice.


----------



## losinghope (Mar 29, 2011)

I ordered pizza the other night! My mum said if you want it you have to phone and get rid of your fear. And i really wanted that pizza!

At first my hands were shaking and i forgot what i was gonna say but then i just walked around at that helps.


----------



## losinghope (Mar 29, 2011)

good on ya for overcoming your fear of talking on the phone!


----------



## penguin runner (Apr 28, 2010)

kurtjb said:


> Good job!
> 
> That's very similar to what I did to reduce phone anxiety. I wanted to know about what hair salons/barbers in my town were the best, and what their prices were, so I called them one by one. I must have made 30 calls. It was partly to get the info, but partly to see if I could lessen my anxiety. It worked. I also had a basic script, as you did.
> 
> ...


It's cool to see such similar experiences in others. Yay not being alone!

And I know what you mean. I feel so much more comfortable now when calling and expecting something to happen and sort of know a definite finish to the call. But calling to 'catch up' or when my family calls to find out what is going on I spend the entire call pacing around my house. I always feel like I am being boring or not showing enough interest and they are getting bored too. That's not a problem with calls to strangers as I don't really care how they feel. For now I communicate to friends mostly with e-mail, but it would be nice to get back to phone use as things actually get done that way instead of just e-mails back and force where nothing is planned/accomplished.

If you figure out any good exposure situations for unstructured calls please share!

Just figured making any call was a sort of big deal for me and I was happy about it. But know I'm not near where I'd like to be.


----------



## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

There was a lot of anticipatory anxiety there, but you did the right thing. You planned with your conversation notes. Even when they did not follow what you thought was going to happen, you did well.

It gets easier with practice .


----------

