I am a control freak

I rediscovered this fact last night. I kind of allready knew, it tends to be a major personality contributor to depression, but this conversation I had last night drove it home.

You know those horrible telemarketer calls, usually at the busiest time of day, and usually from someone in some far distant country with an accent so thick you can only make out half of what they are saying. Man, those people are well trained!

I like to think of myself as a reasonably intelligent person, with a decent amount of interpersonal skills too, but this guy last night - he had me wrapped around his little finger.

It took me a good three quarters of the call to work out what he was talking about, and by then I had apparently agreed to change my phone carrier? It was not untill I was in the middle of some recording I worked out what was going on - i thought he just wanted to confirm my details so he could send me some information. And I felt to stupid to change my mind half way through. Voila - new phone company. The first thing I did when I got off the phone was put myself on the do not call register.!

I stewed over this for hours, i felt stupid, taken advantage of, almost violated. It was not untill 11.30 last night I worked out what my problem was. I was not in control of the situation. I had not made an informed decision, i was not in control of the phone call, I felt forced into a decision etc etc. I HATE feeling controlled by another person.

So what can I learn?? Well, I can learn to say no more quickly to telemarketers. But on a deeper level? - I guess it's a good thing to recognise problems in oneself in order to work on them. There are going to be situations in life that I can not control, especially with a family. I guess I need to learn to relinquish control in appropriate situations. And to recognise the anxious feelings that come with a lack of control and try to control (probably the wrong word!!) or manage them better.