Phobia

So I realize that I haven't posted anything in quite some time. It's been a mix of not knowing what to say, being worried about saying the wrong thing or sounding stupid, and lack of motivation/antisocial-ness. Mostly the latter one.

I have this strange phobia of checking email/facebook etc. I think it has a lot to do with a fear of rejection as weird as that sounds. I have this fear that if I check my email/facebook then there might be something awful there and if I reply to a wall post or message I'll say something dumb and the other person's reaction will be, "Wow, you suck at life. You are the most useless person and the biggest screw-up on the entire planet. I hate you."

Anyways, I will try to update a little more often lol. I also posted a few entries I saved as drafts (I never ended up posting them because I thought they were too personal). Maybe this can be my own mini-exposure exercise (The best treatment for phobias is to expose the person to the thing that they are afraid of, and that helps to lessen the fear response that is elicited).

Phobia - (from the Greek: φόβος, phóbos, fear or morbid fear)the sensation of extreme fear when it is not justified by the presence of any real danger or threat, or by any rational cause, and when it is accompanied by a systematic avoidance of the situations that lead to it. (http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro02/web3/mwhite.html)

At least I know that I am not completely crazy. There is research out there that there is brain evidence for phobias. [Researchers are] finding that the amygdala--a small, almond-shaped structure in the middle of the brain's temporal lobes--is a key player, and that malfunctions of the amygdala and associated brain structures may give rise to many phobias. Still, researchers have yet to work out the details of how this happens. (http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug05/figuring.html)

The amygdala is one of the key players in emotion regulation, especially fear. So this information isn't totally surprising to me.