# Anxiety opening mail? Is that a thing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 15, 2018, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-opening-mail-is-that-a-thing/816155 "2018-06-15T15:42:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-opening-mail-is-that-a-thing/816155/21 "2018-06-17T00:00:08Z")
I have anxiety about seeing Private Messages on my SD Welcome. They are always from moderators. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-opening-mail-is-that-a-thing/816155/22 "2018-06-17T01:59:50Z")
I have a friend who has a phobia of just going to the mailbox. I guess she got one too many letters with some kind of bad news. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-opening-mail-is-that-a-thing/816155/23 "2018-06-17T02:28:15Z")
> [@zimaane](#): > > Aside: do companies really send out mail which entitles you to a free vacation ?. If I recall the person’s story correctly, it was a trip for a school club and they had no idea they had been invited because they didn’t open the letter until months later. ---
**Author:** ![lingyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-opening-mail-is-that-a-thing/816155/24 "2018-06-17T02:51:03Z")
I don’t have anxiety about opening the mail, but I do have a phobia about being woken up for bad news. I was fast asleep on the morning of my 16th birthday and my Dad woke up to tell me my grandmother had passed away. History repeated itself when I was awoken from a nap by my sister and being told my Mom had passed. Fortunately, we knew she was on her deathbed, so it was expected. As I think about, this is probably why I hate the “drop in”, when someone comes knocking on your door even if it’s good news. I purposely don’t tell anyone where I currently live and fortunately, my apartment building requires a buzz-in to enter. I don’t even like answering the phone or getting text messages for the same reason. ---
**Author:** ![lingyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-opening-mail-is-that-a-thing/816155/25 "2018-06-17T02:55:01Z")
At my previous apartment, I had a small mailbox that I didn’t check for a couple of weeks. I received a notice that no additional mail could be delivered and I had to go to the local Post Office to receive the rest of my mail. ---
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-opening-mail-is-that-a-thing/816155/26 "2018-06-17T03:37:45Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > No, she was gossiping. I was fine, she knew I was fine (I’d occasionally see her and say hi). She liked to talk and used her knowledge of the mail people recieved to give her an in for conversation. She wasn’t asking about my well-being, she was talking about “that wacky guy in the corner house who gets lots of catalogues”. > > She eventually got fired for not delivering junk mail. If you were friendly with her she’d offer to not deliver your junk. When caught, she had hundreds of pounds of undelivered junk mail in her apartment. > > But back to my original behavior of once-a-week mail collection. It really made sense back then. I paid whatever bills were there and threw out all the rest once every 7-10 days. I was never late paying bills, and the whole thing was so efficient. my apologies, then. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-opening-mail-is-that-a-thing/816155/27 "2018-06-17T12:03:27Z")
> [@Cub\_Mistress](#): > > my apologies, then. No, I was purposely vague. I was sure there’d be online reports of her firing, and I thought it would be too identifying. Turns out _her_ nondelivery never shows up, although plenty of others have done it. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-opening-mail-is-that-a-thing/816155/28 "2018-06-17T12:04:27Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > I have anxiety about seeing Private Messages on my SD Welcome. They are always from moderators. PM sent:D ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-opening-mail-is-that-a-thing/816155/29 "2018-06-17T12:49:51Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > She eventually got fired for not delivering junk mail. If you were friendly with her she’d offer to not deliver your junk. When caught, she had hundreds of pounds of undelivered junk mail in her apartment. So, when you said “Hi” to her, did you call her "Newman "? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-opening-mail-is-that-a-thing/816155/30 "2018-06-17T15:29:47Z")
As an adult I’ve begun to have trouble opening personal mail. Last summer I was never able to open a birthday card from my grandmother, for example. It ended up actually stuck behind the books on a shelf, where I forgot about it until she called six months later asking when I was going to deposit the check inside. I don’t know what it is, but the cards freak me out. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-opening-mail-is-that-a-thing/816155/31 "2018-06-18T11:23:28Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > So, when you said “Hi” to her, did you call her "Newman "? 😃 Wow. That led to a lot of memories. Seinfeld finished in '98. The mail-lady drama all occurred around 95-ish, but I do not remember comparing her to Newman. Her saga was pretty sad. She lived with a disabled man whose condition deteriorated during the decade they cohabited. When the mail fiasco came to a head, she packed up some stuff and drove off, leaving him in a really bad situation. No idea what became of either of them. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Serenata67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/serenata67/32/10646_2.png) [@Serenata67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Serenata67)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-opening-mail-is-that-a-thing/816155/32 "2018-06-18T13:15:28Z")
I was one of them. I have OCD and had obsessive thoughts about lots of things, including fears of poison and worries about finances. Any and all mail could contain either in my mind, so it was very difficult for me to open mail. (It so happened that my OCD really seemed to blossom during the anthrax/ricin scares around the turn of the millennium.) It took a lot of therapy to be able to open mail. And still, I don’t really like to do it. I have most of my bills and bank statements all delivered electronically, so I get the important stuff without the anxiety. The rest of it tends to pile up for a little while, at least, because it’s mostly junk. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-opening-mail-is-that-a-thing/816155/33 "2018-06-19T17:56:36Z")
> [@MonkeyMensch](#): > > I’m depressed and have a lot of stress and anxiety in my life right now and I’m scared shitless of my mail. I have months worth piled on my coffee table waiting for me to go through it and I’m paralyzed. I went through this once when I was out of work. There were tons of nasty notes from utilities and creditors; I can’t begin to imagine why they think being nasty is helpful. I knew what the letters were about, and I knew there was nothing I could do, so they just piled up until the whole thing was too overwhelming to look at. Even after I was working and had the money, I had a superstitious dread of dealing with that stack. I was also afraid to throw it all out, in case there was something important in there. In the end, I was actually avoiding that corner of the apartment, because just seeing the stack made my blood pressure surge, and sometimes started an anxiety attack. All I can offer is this: Pick five items out and stand beside the trash can. Open each and either deal with it or identify it as trash. Then go through the mound and **remove everything that matches those five items.** By now there are tons of redundant items that you can just toss, having opened the most recent one. Do this even once per week and the stack will become manageable surprisingly fast. And hang in there. This too shall pass. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anxiety-opening-mail-is-that-a-thing/816155.md?page=1)