NOTE:  The following is an e-mail that I sent to the Associate Pastor of the church that I attend.  I am sharing this with all of you because this was a very critical point in my life where my Social Anxiety was put to the test in a most extreme case, where I had absolutely no control in my life at all.

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Rod,

First of all, I am sorry that I missed the service last Saturday evening.  I was up in Hannibal for the Fourth of July weekend.  I am planning to attend Community Live this upcoming Wednesday evening.

I did not mean to bring a more literal meaning to “’crash’ courses” last Tuesday night.  I really did enjoy Kevin Bartolacci’s class on the Mathematics of Margin.  I had been going through a lot the weeks prior to this class.  I had been working about 60 hours a week at work preparing a new system to become operation (which it did this past weekend).  My boss had been putting a lot of pressure on me since the two other vendors associated with this project were not living up to their expectations.  As a result, I was shouldering the work and responsibility of three people while trying to do my own job, and last Tuesday night, all of the stress I had been facing, and all of the anger, fear, and frustration that was building up inside of me, I collapsed.  As Kevin stated in the class, I reached my finite emotional limit.

As I mentioned to you before, I have suffered from Social Anxiety Disorder for over 31 years and also I have problems trusting others ever since the incident my dad did to me back when I was 18.  This incident was the first time in my adult life that I had no control of what was going on with me physically, and that I had to completely trust in the hands of my classmates with my life.

After I performed the sobriety tests in the classroom, they asked me if I wanted to take the ambulance or drive to the hospital myself, since my motor skills were to the paramedics’ satisfaction.  I thought about it for a few seconds, and then Sandra, the RN who was in our class, told me to go into the ambulance.  I made my decision based completely on Sandra’s advice.

On a lighter note, even though I was riding in the Mizzou ambulance to the Mizzou hospital, I made sure not to mention what school I was a fan of.  Otherwise, they may have just put me out of my misery.

Anyway, while I was in the ER, I prayed to God and asked him what the message he was trying to tell me was.  In my prayer, I heard three words “I planned this”.  At the time, I was trying to figure out what he meant, but then it hit me. 

I was in a class with two nurses and a co-worker.  The only reason the one nurse, Sandra, was in our class was because she had won the rhino from one of the services a few weeks back (I was at the service and saw her win the rhino).  The class that day was on Physical Margin, and Kevin was stressing the importance of having physicals and getting your blood work done.  My co-worker in my class followed me to the hospital.  On the way to the hospital, the paramedic made the observation that I couldn’t have been in a more perfect environment for this to happen.  I could have been driving, or by myself in my apartment, or sitting behind my computer at work.  Instead, I was sitting in a class with two trained medical professionals and additional people as well.  When I was at the hospital, my co-worker called my boss, and about 20-30 minutes later, my boss and her boss both saw me in the emergency room, with an IV in my arm and a blood pressure sleeve and heart monitor strapped to me.  Both my boss and her boss heard the news about the stress and overexertion.  When I got the results of the blood work back, the doctor had stated that everything in my results was perfect, all of my numbers were right where they should be, and nothing looked out of the ordinary.

When I got up the next morning, something was telling me to sit down and have a heart to heart conversation with you.  That’s when I came to the church on Wednesday morning, and Tim Davis informed me you were on a retreat.

I will tell you that this past weekend, I went to Hannibal to visit my parents for the Fourth of July, and to relax, and I will tell you that I felt closer to my dad than I have ever been.  Also, at the family picnic, my aunt and grandmother both gave me a hug and told me that dad had informed them about the news.  In sitting with them at the picnic, this was the closest I had ever felt toward them (considering they wanted nothing to do with me growing up).

I look forward to talking with you soon.  Again, I did enjoy the crash course, and Kevin Bartolacci was a great instructor.

Thank you for all of your help!

Josh Aldrich