I totally get this. For a long time when I was the sole on-call sysadmin at my old job and we were going through a particularly bad period with a lot of technical challenges, I would get a knot in my stomach every single time my phone rang. Not just metaphorically -- I had acute physical responses to the sound of it. Not only that, but the feeling of relief when I looked to see it wasn't a work call was palpable as well.
Because my anxiety was very narrowly focused, I eventually solved this problem by getting a phone that allowed me to assign custom ringtones,and setting up a "work" ringtone separate to personal calls, but I still totally understand what you mean.
On the subject of training, I remember having a leadership meeting with members of my WoW guild, and we were discussing attendance problems we were having with our scheduled raid nights. I suggested perhaps we could give some bonus DKP to folks who showed up on time and were ready to go 10 minutes before the start time, and the guild leader grumbled "We shouldn't have to reward people for doing what they're supposed to do in the first place."
And I said "No, we shouldn't. But...that's how you train mammals. And while I've only thoroughly examined a couple of them, I'm reasonably sure most if not all of them are, in fact, mammals."
Makes perfect sense. Kind of like when your home phone rings at 2:30 a.m. and you wake in a panic, sure it must be an emergency. (This happened recently, it turned out to be a wrong number. But it took a while for the adrenalin to ebb so I could fall back asleep.)
I get this. That happened to me after my dad died and even more so after my grandmother died, leaving my mom alone in her house. I had my cell phone by my side all the freakin' time and got to where I hated it and wanted it to never ring. It took months for me to realize that I no longer needed to have the phone with me at all times, and that its ringing was mostly a good thing.
Getting a new phone helped a lot, and now I'm wondering whether part of why I'm wanting to get a smartphone so badly is because I associate this phone with my former job in Shrewsbury. I would love to have no more reminders of that time.
Sympathies. I don't know how many subconscious tics I picked up from Jane's traumatic last couple of months, but I'd bet there are several lurking down there...
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Because my anxiety was very narrowly focused, I eventually solved this problem by getting a phone that allowed me to assign custom ringtones,and setting up a "work" ringtone separate to personal calls, but I still totally understand what you mean.
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And I said "No, we shouldn't. But...that's how you train mammals. And while I've only thoroughly examined a couple of them, I'm reasonably sure most if not all of them are, in fact, mammals."
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Getting a new phone helped a lot, and now I'm wondering whether part of why I'm wanting to get a smartphone so badly is because I associate this phone with my former job in Shrewsbury. I would love to have no more reminders of that time.
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