Accept, Limit, Concentrate

Accept yourself, nothing and no one will make you change. You are avoidant, you suffer from social phobia and this will accompany you throughout your life, therefore, the sooner you make up your mind and act accordingly, not opposing what happens to you but waiting for the crisis to pass and bypassing obstacles, the better. Avoid blaming yourself: you can’t do anything about it and, in any case, you don’t hurt anyone.

Limit the problem. You have a specific disorder, you have some problems but you don’t have others. Do not be overwhelmed by anguish, by chaos, do not feel paralyzed by a nameless fear that always nails you in the usual place. Look at your trouble in the face and delimit it, give it its real name, analyze the nuances that are not the same for everyone, do not let yourself get knocked down and crashed. Remember, above all, that you always arrive at the end of the day, in one way or another. “Everything passes”, I tell myself before a meeting, a dinner, a visit, a phone call, “this too will pass.” Sometimes it’s harder than expected, but sometimes it’s even easier.

Concentrate. Nothing helps you relax more than application. Be as attentive as possible, follow the thread of speech with all your strength, engage in activities that absorb you completely, tensions will ease, the body will be loose, the mind will not be distracted. If you are afraid of being left speechless, prepare a list of topics, preferably questions, and then listen actively to the answers. Nothing will satisfy your interlocutors more than total attention. You will be irresistible, they will forgive you for the inconvenience, they will come looking for you. Ok, I know that this is not good for you but it is gratifying anyway, it mitigates that feeling of being always unpleasant to everyone.

And now I’ll tell you about my graduation thesis. Tell me if it’s not thrilling.

It is 1985, November 21st. I enter the lecture hall of the University of Pisa to discuss my thesis on “The Lord of the Rings.”

Social phobic as I am, I don’t want anyone to attend. There are a few people, plus my brother who is eleven at the time. My mother stays out, my father is not there, he is already dead. I am anxious but I know my average is good, I have 109.36.

The commission is deployed:

My rapporteur. Every time he sees me, he says, “I’ll hurry up with her anyway” and pushes the hottest one forward.

The counter-rapporteur. She hasn’t even read the book but, she explains, “her husband read it.”

A series of chickens that I do not know and do not listen to me while I speak, they chat to each other.

I discuss the thesis. Worn out, nervous, tense, but I discuss it. Everything seems fine, I did it.

I go out, I come back.

“The commission appoints you doctor in foreign languages ​​and literature with 105 points.”

The smile curls up on my lips, the sweat freezes on my brow, I hug my green jacket, I turn pale — they say — to the point that they fear my fainting. The applause stops, a consternation buzz arises.

“Why?” I stammer “How much average do I have?”

“100, aren’t you happy? We did give you 5 points! “

A faint voice: “Yes, thank you …” I leave the classroom. I think that, as usual, it is I who made the calculations wrong.

My mother intervenes, for her arithmetic has never been an opinion, she asks to see my grades, she calls me back. They show me a booklet that is not mine, with low marks, which are not mine. They laugh. My graduation, my party, becomes a market, where we discuss the price of something that no longer has value for me. If I was really good, I think, if I had worked hard, this wouldn’t have happened.

Then they stop laughing, they discover that they made a mistake in pinning the paper, they gave my marks to another, one who, coincidentally, dances tightly with my professor at parties.

They give me 110, without honors. The chickens who haven’t listened say I don’t deserve it. I’m leaving with my head down. I get angry with my mother because she demanded what was mine. I don’t want anything, just go home. Without flowers, without anything. I feel anger, disgust, shame, humiliation, I feel in my mouth a taste of shit that has never gone away and that re-emerges in contact with certain people, certain environments, certain pseudo-intellectuals who pride themselves on not knowing how to change even a burnt light bulb.

I never set foot in the university again, not even to get my diploma. For many years I have done a squalid job that didn’t represent me and that never allowed me to support myself. Now I just write.