It’s A Smaller World

Here was the plan for Saturday:

1) Wake up

2) Exercise, shower, guzzle coffee

3) Get on the 11:57 train into the city

4) Meet up with cousin and friend to go see Sweeney Todd at 2 pm

5) Go eat after and revel in each other’s company, which we rarely get to do

6) Return home by train

Here’s what happened on Saturday:

1) I was woken by the feline alarm clock. This is a fantastical clock with no numbers that will snuggle for body warmth, but will also rip sheets to shreds if not fed on time. It is best that the alarm clock be obeyed, so I got out of bed to provide its morning meal.

2) Instead of working out immediately upon rising as planned, I put on a pot of coffee. “I”m going into the city,” I reasoned. “I’m going to walk several miles today, poop on exercise for the morning.” Classic me, I talked myself out of exercising. While the coffee brewed I sat on the couch and scrolled through my phone.

3) I convinced myself I had tetanus. A few days ago I woke up with a patch of numbness between my bottom lip and my chin. It’s not completely numb, but I do have a loss of sensation in this area. For the last several days I’ve been convinced that the numbness was caused by sleeping with my Fitbit jammed against my chin all night. (I sleep deep and hard and sometimes barely move all night, and I also sleep with my hands/arms as pillows, so this is a very likely scenario.) Yet for whatever reason, on Saturday morning I woke up believing the numbness was an early sign of tetanus. I Googled tetanus symptoms. Despite being proven wrong by Google, my brain started scanning my body for other symptoms. None existed, yet my brain still whispered “tetanus” to me every few minutes.

4) Ignoring my brain, I chugged my first cup of coffee. Then it was time to get in the shower. In the shower I got a stomach cramp which lasted for a few minutes. Abdominal cramping being another symptom of tetanus, this did not help my brain to be calm.

5) While waiting for my hair to dry, I read two chapters of a book. This was a good sign that I was feeling calm. Typically when I am anxious, I cannot focus enough to read for pleasure. I took this to mean my brain was easing up on the anxiety for the day.

6) I geared up to head out to the train station in the rain. Having checked the weather I knew it was supposed to rain heavily all day until at least 6 pm. There was also a wind advisory starting at 2 pm and running until Sunday afternoon. Not my favorite, but not a big deal. I slapped on my rain jacket, rain boots, and pulled up the hood to keep myself dry on the walk to the train station. (It mostly worked.)

7) Knowing that I now enjoy travel anxiety, the last thing I did before leaving home was pop a pill. A prescribed, legal, and medically advised pill. This was intended to take the edge off and help me get through whatever anxiety the train brought on.

8) I got on the 11:57 am train to New York Penn Station. It was to take about 42 minutes to get there. Immediately upon sitting down I noticed the train window was so cloudy, I couldn’t see out. I’ve heard that people have been commenting on this on social media, so I wasn’t too surprised, but sitting next to a cloudy window probably covered in unknown pathogens was unsettling.

Also unsettling was the fact that this was a double decker train. I found a seat on the top deck, and as we rolled through the first station on the way, I found myself wondering how top heavy the train was. How safe was it? What speeds would we be travelling? I started listening to the sounds the train was making and found them discomforting.

9) By the time we arrived at Brick Church station, four stops from my point of origin, I was in panic mode. Low grade panic mode, but still: elevated heart rate, that pinch behind my eyes that indicates the beginnings of dizziness, nausea, irregular breathing. I got off the train and walked around to the other side of the station to get on the next train headed back home.

I texted my cousin to let her know what was going on and she was sweet and lovely and understanding.

10) I boarded the train back towards South Orange around 12:43 pm. Within ten minutes I was back in town and hurrying home through the raindrops. Upon arriving home I changed into comfy and dry clothes, took out my contacts, and got myself a warm beverage. I did a brief little stretching workout to refocus my breathing and heartrate. After that I was calm again, if quite tired from the whole thing.

11) I snuggled up on the couch and took the inevitable post-panic attack nap.

Actual image of the window on the first train. Imagine the pathogens.

Brick Church station is closed on weekends. You can still get on the train there, but you cannot go through the station itself, you only have access via the platform steps. For this reason and the fact that it was pouring down rain, the platform was entirely deserted when I got there. I checked the schedule and had about twenty minutes to wait. Twenty minutes alone with my brain and nothing to do but think about what was happening. The first thing I thought was, “What could I have done differently?” There is a long list.

I could have exercised in the morning. I hadn’t wanted to lose my Saturday morning relaxing time and that’s really why I chose not to workout. But the fact is that exercise is good for anxiety. For me it helps to reset my body whether I’m anticipating something or have just experienced something stressful. Knowing that taking the train into the city would make me anxious, I should have preloaded some endorphins through getting a good sweat going in the morning.

I could have opted for one cup of coffee instead of three. Caffeine, while crucial to my ability to function, also makes me jittery if consumed too quickly or in high amounts. On Saturday I am not kidding you I SLUGGED it down. I did not want to get sleepy during the show. I did not want to be lethargic and have to drag my butt around the city. I was counting on the movement of walking around the city to help burn off the excess energy from the caffeine, forgetting that before I would be walking I would be sitting for forty five minutes on a train.

I could have paid attention to the giant red flag that was believing that I had tetanus. One clue that my anxiety is higher is that my hypochondriac tendencies rise to the surface. The number of diseases I have self-diagnosed myself with is ridiculous. But that is beside the point. The point is that waking up and thinking myself infected with tetanus should have spurred me into action to address the anxiety with some of my strategies for getting out of my own head, stopping the unhelpful thought patterns.

Here’s a big one: I could have pushed through! While yes, I was in panic mode, it was really the early stages of panic mode. I could have stayed on the train and focused on breathing, put on soothing music or an audiobook to distract my mind. I could have used the innumerable strategies that I have for moments of panic and made it work, pushing through to be able to see friends and see a Broadway show.

I could have pushed through, but I chose not to. There are two big reasons for this: 1) I knew I would feel like hot garbage for the rest of the day and not actually feel up to doing anything we had planned, and 2) I quite simply did not want to spend the rest of the day battling my anxiety while walking around the cold and very rainy city. I felt like I could either fight the anxiety OR fight the weather and a city I find overwhelming on a good day. I did not feel equipped to do both at the same time. I had no way of knowing if I could successfully make myself feel better, or if I would spend the whole day in a state of panic, even if at low-grade.

In the end I know I made the right choice for myself. Had it been sunny, things might have been different. Had I consumed less coffee, things likely would have been different. If I was less stressed about work going into the weekend, things probably would have been different. But that isn’t what happened. What happened is I went home and took care of myself.

If you’ve known me for any amount of time you know that I prioritize self-care, especially mental health self-care. It is, for me, a requirement so that I can continue being a dazzling and amazing creature, befuddling the populous with my charm each step of the way.

*Pause for eye roll.*

Mental health care is priority number one for me, but this event shows me that I’ve actually been slacking on my own mental health practices. In all of the treatment I have received, I’ve been taught ways to help myself through situations where my anxiety is triggered, ways to keep me out in the world and functional. But on Saturday instead of facing what was triggering me and sticking with it, I chose to walk away and simply go home. Don’t get me wrong, going home was and is a valid option. But I want it to be a last resort option, the last step taken rather than the first.

I love being at home. I feel safe there. It is the space in which I introvert and recover from all interactions with all the exhausting humans that crawl the earth. I am grateful to have a home to which I can escape. But I am wary now of becoming too much of a homebody. While I love being at home, I also love doing fun things with the greatest people. I love Broadway shows. I love time hanging out with awesome ladies. Saturday in the city would have been awesome, but my brain and body said, “nope, get your ass home”.

While I know I made the right choice for myself in the moment, I did miss seeing my cousin. I missed seeing Sweeney Todd. I missed going out for food and seeing all the miscellany that fills the streets of Manhattan. I feel like this time around my anxiety effectively made my world smaller. My comfort zone used to encompass travelling NJ Transit by myself. It used to include stepping out for something fun even when I was tired and stressed. This weekend I felt that circumference of comfort zone cinch in closer. First it was flying that freaked me out the most, and now it seems trains are quickly gaining ground on airplanes. I’m not currently comfortable traveling either mode by myself, a real punch in the gut for an independently minded person such as myself.

There are action steps to be taken here. Therapy is on Wednesday. My psychiatrist will be getting a call. Whether it is a medication adjustment or a mental adjustment, something has to change. Because as much as I will forever defend my right (and anyone’s right) to get out of a situation that has them uncomfortable, some things are worth pushing through. Not even pushing through, but working through. For me it is time to remind myself of all of those strategies I learned to change the subject in my brain, to help myself get through moments of panic. It is time once again to take my experience back to those who are helping me manage this part of my life, to tell them I’m not satisfied with my current results, and that I want and deserve better.

It’s a small world, but it doesn’t have to be made smaller by my dumb old crusty brain.