I didn’t really have a list.
I realize, looking back, that was my first mistake. Having no battle plan when going to war is asking for a swift defeat–nothing short of a suicide mission. But we were out of bread, eggs, and milk, and I needed some frozens and other insta-foods because the world stops when I’m not there, and I wouldn’t be there for at least two days. Images flashed in my mind of returning from my business trip to decimated corpses, posed like the dead in photos of the aftermath of Hiroshima, halfway to the refrigerator for a glass of water.
This all happens within a few seconds, but my heart is racing and I’m breathing like I had just sprinted to the store rather than drove there. I stepped out of my car and onto the slick pavement. It took me three tries to find the safest place to park.
This is a peek into the mind of someone living with an anxiety disorder.
Benzos stopped working about a month ago, but I still take them. I take them as prescribed, under the direction of my psychiatrist. I do not have the “addiction gene,” as my psychiatrist calls it. Not like my mother. I suppose God knew I had enough to deal with (including her). Or perhaps He appreciates irony. I popped one anyway out of habit and gripped the shopping cart harder than I should so the tremor from my hands would radiate into my arms and disappear within, a warm shiver invisible to others.
Inside, I quickly spot a student I taught last semester, and I turn the cart sharply right. She is working her first job, a checker at the local grocery store. She is pleasant, a good writer. I don’t want her to see me, although she will. Everyone is seeing me, or that is what it feels like. I am ugly, and I have gained so much weight from the massive amounts of meds I’ve been on recently. I was hospitalized at the end of April, and it crosses my mind that that will make a story, I mean just a fine yarn, until I spot yet another person I know and avert my eyes. This town’s too small to be anonymous. Shots fired.
I’ve got one of those squeaky carts, the ones with the shaky wheel, but I barely notice. My medicine has changed. My state of mind has not. Pushing further into the store, I compulsively smooth my hair. I’ve done nothing with it. I’m going to get it all cut off, I think to myself, so at least I’ll stop smoothing it.
I whirl by the fresh produce. I grab some bananas without being choosey; stopping would put me at risk. What if someone strikes up a conversation? Or simply asks me a question? I would have to engage them and that would require looking up at them and then they would get a really good look at my face.
It is pale. My lips are chapped. My eyes look dull and lifeless. I don’t look like a person; I look like an emotion. I look like sadness.
I finish the rest of my shopping trip preoccupied with avoidance, often forgetting what I need or why I came in in the first place. I edge around shelves and peek around corners like a soldier would on the battlefield. I regularly admonish myself. “This is ridiculous. You should not be afraid of the grocery store.” My eyes well with tears. There is no reasoning with mental illness.
I use my keys as an anxiety toy (I keep saying I am going to one, but I have trouble spending money on myself), but the small comfort that brings is nothing compared to the secondary anxiety it causes. As I flip the keys rapidly, staring at boxes of pancake mix I don’t need and will not buy, I nonsensically start thinking “What if I accidentally unlock my car? Someone gains entrance and is there waiting for me? Someone hurts me? Rapes me? Kills me?” I spin the keys even faster before I shove them into my pocket, hoping the keyless entry doesn’t sporadically go off.
Later, I take an inordinate amount of time digging through the frozen vegetables, trying to make a decision. I don’t know how long I was there or how long that very patient, very kind man was there waiting behind me in the frozen section, but after my embarrassment had finally abated, all I could think was “do you think HE KNEW?”
And I’m not sure what he should know. That I’m crazy? That I’m to the left of normal? That I’m…human? I don’t know.
I thought I had made it through the minefield when I ran into the sister of one of my few friends. I suppose–though I do not think she would say the same–I would call her my best friend. Seeing her, I immediately transitioned into my social voice, my social self. I can usually slip easily into that skin when needed. I think of that line from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”…I put on “a face to meet the faces that I meet.” I am not as good at it some days as I am others.
Meeting her sister made me think of Laura, my bestfriend-who-probably-does-not-reciprocate-that-feeling-but-still-considers-me-a-friend-and-cares-for-me-on-some-level, Laura who has her own dragons to slay, her own burdens and monsters lurking in the dark. I thought of how this would be so much easier if she were here with me, this simple task of grocery shopping, and immediately began to cry.
And I allowed myself to, just for a moment. I hid behind the potato chips and accepted the luxury of self-pity before wiping my eyes and making my way to the register. Sometimes it’s ok. War is hell, after all.
Getting back into the car was like finding a foxhole between volleys. I sat there looking out of the rain-streaked windshield and took my pulse. It was 94 bpm.
All I wanted was bread.