I have opinions. Wanna hear them? Anxiety has strata

Anxiety has strata.

Anxiety has strata. Sub-categories, if you will. Agoraphobia is one stratum. As is obsessive-compulsive disorder. Social anxiety. All strata. And even though strata are packed, vertically intent on squishing that below, anxiety strata exists on a plane, being all valid and equal. Being all real and not made up—but it’s in your head you should smile more perhaps get a hobby—strata.

Let’s talk about agoraphobia. This stratum is not simply fear of the outdoors. In fact, sometimes an agoraphobic is more likely to need to be outdoors because there are a few agoraphobics who fear enclosed spaces, even spaces in their own homes. My agoraphobia isn’t a fear of being outdoors. Mine is a fear of the potential at a place. An example. I can drive my son to school. Not a problem. The driving. Ha! Got it covered. But being at the school car park brings on a panic attack as I imagine all types of things: a sink hole suddenly appearing, or a car driving into me and I can’t get to my phone to tell my wife. So I don’t move for ten minutes or so. I’ve imagined all this at home as well and so the effort to get in the car is monumental. The actual driving is fine. Eventually I’ll drive back home and shake for about ten minutes as I deal with the enormity of the task I’ve just completed.

That is agoraphobia. It’s irrational. It’s exhausting. It’s debilitating. It’s paralysing. Here’s the funny thing (It’s not funny; it’s incredibly sad). I wrote the majority of Outcast at the local bakery. Now I can’t even leave the house to go down to that bakery. My agoraphobia tells me that VERY BAD THINGS will happen if I go there. They won’t. Those things won’t happen. I know that. But I can’t risk it. So I haven’t been back to that bakery. I was much braver when I was writing Outcast, or my medication wasn’t working which meant I could fly so high. It’s not working now either because I can’t fly at all.

My therapist calls it ‘challenging avoidance behaviours’ which is therapist fancy talk for ‘give yourself a kick up the bum and reward yourself for doing shit’.

So I walk the dog, imagining all the VERY BAD THINGS that will occur. My eyes are big and my head turns at every sound, every movement and my hands shake when I get home. Nothing bad has happened but it could have. I reward myself by having a bit of a cry.

I went for a blood test just recently. I was convinced that VERY BAD THINGS were going to happen at the clinic, and I almost didn’t go but I knew that my doctor would get cranky at me at not receiving my results, so I went and the VERY BAD THINGS didn’t happen. But I got home and collapsed in a heap on the couch and didn’t move for half an hour. Just breathing and blinking which my body decided were the only functions it could cope with.

Anxiety is real. Yes, we need anxiety to get up in the morning. That’s minor stress. It’s important. But on the other end of the scale is topple-over-the-edge heart-pounding blood-pressure-elevating, pulse-racing distress.

One day, I’d like to write again in that little bakery down the road. I need to remember that VERY BAD THINGS might not happen. Perhaps I’ll just sit there with my laptop open and not write a single word. Perhaps I’ll just stare into the distance and drink my coffee. Perhaps I’ll look at a blank page. Perhaps I’ll type “I am okay” a number of times, then finish my coffee, pack up my laptop, get in the car—yay, driving, I can do that—and come home where I’ll most likely shake due to the adrenaline drop but remind myself that I got to drink an outside-the-house coffee. And nothing bad happened.