Absurdity

Through online support groups I have observed people with anxiety disorders are often frustrated with the average person’s inability to understand what we go through or why we can’t  just “get over it”. But when confronted with the incredible absurdity that is this disorder, I can certainly understand it. I know that no matter what I say, do, or write I can never convey to the healthy what it is like to live with this condition. Healthy people wouldn’t be able to comprehend it any more than I can comprehend what their lives must be like.

This morning two things happened which underscore the extraordinary absurdity of this condition. I will attempt to describe these events, though it is nearly impossible to put into words.

I left home at 6:00 AM, wanting to get to the credit union and use the lobby ATM well before opening time, when no one would likely be around. I get so nervous I cannot function well enough to navigate use of the machine if anyone is nearby. Arriving at 6:15 and seeing no one around, Main Street all but completely devoid of traffic, I confidently strolled up to the doors. Suddenly I froze, literally paralyzed by intense fear, having seen two human reflections in the glass doors. In that instant I could not move. I could not even breathe. I wanted to run but my body would not respond. I was absolutely panicked. After what seemed an eternity, I did mange to turn around. To my great surprise, there was no one around. Looking back at the doors again, there were still two reflections! Was I going insane? Had somehow the laws of physics stopped working?

Eventually I realized both reflections were me. The early morning sunlight was causing one reflection in the outer door, another in the inner door. In the absolute terror of the moment, I had been unable to recognize this simple and obvious fact; unable to recognize that I was seeing myself in both places. How can one be expected to comprehend this? So intense is my fear of getting caught in a panic situation that the obvious is completely lost to the terror of the moment. The response is so automatic, so beyond control, that the slightest thing – no matter how absurd – sets it in motion.

Following this event I found a secluded place to pull myself together before going on to my next errand. After some considerable time, I felt able to take on a trip to the supermarket for food. The shopping went well, as did interaction with the clerk at the checkout, until the very last moment. She handed me a small square of cardboard, and said “and here is a ticket for our grand prize drawing out there”, while nodding toward the store lobby. Once again I felt completely consumed by terror. Barely able to move at all, I stumbled into the lobby. Had it not been for the shopping cart partially holding me upright, it is quite likely I would have fallen.

I tried to fathom what I was expected to do with this damned thing. I imagined there must be some box, bucket, or something to put it in. If only I were able to see one! Then it dawned on me that I might be expected to write my name and address on the ticket – if only I were able to read anything it said on there, in my panic state with blurred vision! I have no idea what happened next, or how much time elapsed before the next thing I do recall.

I found myself pushing a shopping cart around a parking lot, looking for my house. At least I thought I was looking for my house, but I couldn’t get a firm grasp on the thought. Nor could I recall what  my house looks like. It was as though the thought itself were a tangible item, shrouded in extraordinarily dense fog – perceptible, but only identifiable in the vaguest sense. Slowly I began to sense that I didn’t live in a parking lot. I started to think perhaps I was looking for a vehicle, but I couldn’t remember what it looked like, nor could I clearly see the vehicles around me with still very compromised vision from the panic. I seem to recall wandering around the parking lot for a while, though I can’t give any estimate of how long. Finally I thought I remembered that I don’t have a vehicle any more, that I get around some other way. Slowly the thought that I had come here on a bicycle emerged, along with a vague sense that I left it behind the store.

Following that, there is another period of time I cannot account for. I have no memory whatsoever of the trip home. I remember arriving home on the bicycle, which means I had to have ridden two miles in heavy morning truck and commuter traffic. The thought that I did that and had no memory of it is, to say the very least, unsettling. I wonder if I was aware of and interacting with my surroundings at the time, or if I was oblivious to the very real dangers.