Not quite sure how it happens, but today I have sensed myself being especially vulnerable, it has been easy to worry but more to the point, some sort of sense of dread in the background. This fascinates me, I am happy to observe, and curious that I cannot find the anchor. Though I believe it has to be, except I don’t feel it, that I was worried about my talk before the faculty.

Said talk went well. The same thing happened again that when I got to the penultimate slide outlining how I want to look at trans cohorts to understand sex-differential disease better, my body but not my mind reacted, I felt at peace internally but my voice got thick and I would have shook had I not prevented it. It slowly dissipated but slowly, and made me less eloquent. Obviously I fear talking about that in front of an audience because it’s a coming out and I feel exposed, it brings all the fears of not seeming serious, of seeming ridiculous, of being too much, probably multiple impostor syndromes simultaneously. It does nexus many of my fears so that does make sense.

But still odd I don’t emotionally sense it, whereas my body reacts whether I want to or not. Is this a sign of emotional repression? I’ve gotten so controlled over the years I can ignore affect and just move past fear without even sensing it, but the body still is deathly afraid and it shows in my body language?

Now a little worried that everyone could sense my voice tone shifting, worrying they look down or me or pity me, that they won’t work with me or give me tenure. But that’s also probably just the irrational fear, the same fears underlying it. I’ll act to ignore them, not feel them, just proceed with my work. But perhaps the ease with which I do that is precisely why it only can come out through my body tensing up?