As soon as I feel remotely overwhelmed, my ability to promptly respond to texts absolutely disappears. It’s like a wall goes up and every time I open my messages, my brain begins to shut down.
The mantra “I just can’t handle this right now” keeps repeating in my head. I see the names of friends, even some of my closest friends, pop up in my text inbox and it feels impossible to respond. Like the energy it would take to open the text, read it, and respond is just not within me.
It makes me feel like a failure. I measure my ability to be a good friend by my reliability, and in these times of stress, I am completely incapable of keeping my perceived end of the bargain.
Why does it feel so much easier to scroll through Instagram than respond to some of my best friends?
In the midst of my overwhelm, I saw this post from Adam Grant. It sometimes feels like he hears the voices in my head and provides research to defeat them.
This post was a relief to read. I’m not a bad person; I’m just overwhelmed. But why does it feel like urgency is the only measure of being a good friend? I’m convinced that my friends are just checking the days I haven’t responded off in their paper calendar, like they do in sad Hollywood movies. But it’s kind of selfish, isn’t it? That fact that I’m so convinced that all my friends are deeply upset by how slowly I respond to their texts. Maybe it’s not selfishness so much as anxiety. With anxiety, it sometimes feels the world revolves around you, not really in the “I’m a star of the show” way, but in a “everyone notices every single thing I do” way.
I’m not sure when I will get to the 70 unread text messages in my inbox. I usually batch respond to all of the them a month after the fact, guilt and nausea sitting heavy in my stomach — I’m a bad friend, repeating in my head.
*Side note: at any one time, 50% of my unread messages are in a group chat with Ryan and his siblings because somehow they are in constant communication.*
I sometimes wish you could set up an automatic response on text messages like you can on your email. (If someone knows how to do this, let me know). Here’s my ideal automatic text response:
“Hello. I am currently very overwhelmed and am only capable of being cuddled by my dog and scrolling through Instagram after work. If I do not get back to you within a few days, you can assume that I am in the depths of some crisis or just incapable of responding at this point. This is not a reflection of you as a person or a reflection of our friendship. If this is an emergency, please text Ryan. He is too good at responding to messages promptly. Thank you for your patience in these trying times.”
I truly believe that my quality of attention is quite high. When I meet up with friends, I like to think that they appreciate my active listening and ability to be in the moment with them. If this isn’t true, please don’t tell me right now. I can’t handle that feedback at this juncture. But I believe it’s true. As I get older and feel like the walls of time are slowly closing in on me (okay Ryan reminded me I’m 28), I’ve had to be even more selective in how I spend my free time. Maybe my freeze response to texts is partially a fear of letting people down, having to communicate to friends that I don’t know when I will be available.
So for now, I’m going to sit in the discomfort of having many unread and unanswered texts. It doesn’t mean I’m a bad friend, or a bad person, or even unreliable. My quality of attention will be worth the wait!