What is phone call anxiety? Here are the signs

From not being ready to masking anxiety, here are a few signs of phone call anxiety.

Sometimes when the phone starts to ring, and we start to panic if we should receive the call or let it ring and get disconnected – do you face this too? This may happen because we have phone call anxiety. Anxiety is a condition where we feel excessive worry and fear about some situations. Overthinking is a major sign of anxiety and having panic attacks. In such cases, we always assume the worst of every situation and start to get scared that we do not have it under control. Therapist Alison Seponara shared a few signs of phone call anxiety and explained what it looks like and feels like.

What is phone call anxiety? Here are the signs(Unsplash)

Fear of saying the wrong things: When the phone starts to ring out of the blue, especially when we are not ready to have a conversation, we may feel that we are unprepared for it. We may feel that we may say the wrong things over the phone and make the situation worse.

Awkward silence: Before taking the phone call, we assume that we will have to go through phases of awkward silence in the phone call. We also think that we would need to disconnect the call and end the conversation at some point – this thought makes us more anxious.

Emergency: Since we do not get much phone calls from people, we assume that they are calling us for an emergency, and we are not ready to face it.

Mask the anxiety: We sometimes may not be in the right mental state to have a conversation with another person. We also feel that if we take the phone call, we will need to put extra efforts in masking the anxiety that we are experiencing.

Rehearse the conversation: We are never ready to take the phone call, and hence, we feel the need to have a rehearsal of the conversation before speaking to the other person.