Our normal Friday plans (lunch with friends and then grocery shopping for the week) were thrown out the window when David threw up this morning. Being the creature of habit that I am, I volunteered to take Daniel and try and get some of the shopping done while Lawrence stayed home with David. David would be sad that he didn’t get to “in car go” but he would get a chance to rest without Daniel enticing him to play and Lawrence could get some work done or play an online game without Daniel making cute, begging “up” motions.
It was a little stormy when we left, but not bad. Cloudy with an erratic breeze. I wasn’t too worried. I figured it might start raining at some point, but the last couple of “big” storms the weather man had promised had begun like today – a lot of promising bluster only to fizzle out into a gentle drizzle or a half dozen spits of rain before it was blue skies and sunshine.
About half way to Walmart I really started to dislike my creature of habit tendencies. The wind picked up and it started raining. The best comparison I could think of while I drove v.e.r.y c.a.r.e.f.u.l.l.y through the pounding rain and gusting wind was of the time that my mom had taken us out in a Tropical Storm. (In her defense we hadjust moved to the South from the Pacific Northwest… that was the day that we discovered that “Tropical Storm” really meant “small hurricane” and not “big, warm thunder storm”).
I have never been so happy to get to Walmart in my life…. except for the fact that I couldn’t actually get to the Walmart. See, with Utah’s whole obsession with road construction they’ve been busy putting in an under-the-street walkway from the area of the Walmart parking lot to the campus across the street. Well today they actually had the road to Walmart blocked off … but between the blinding rain and the itty-bitty sign there was no way you could realize that until you were right at the light.
Given the lane I was in, the layout of the road + construction there was really only one option at that point: get on the highway. Now, driving on the highway kind of tops my list of “things I don’t like doing” even when I’m having a good day. It tends to drag up all of my borderline claustrophobic tendencies that I keep tucked away. So driving on it, in a storm, in a city that is completely incompetent when it comes to driving in the rain was sooooo not something I wanted to do today.
Sure enough, with several inches of standing water on the highway (why do highways always collect water – why?!?!) I came very close to hydroplaning several times. The idiot in front of me did hydroplane and did a complete 360 across multiple (thankfully) empty lanes. Another idiot slid across two lanes when he decided that all of us going 50 mph were going to. darn. slow and tried to go faster. (Seriously, in what universe would anyone think it smart to try and go 60, 70 mph + in inches of standing water?).
And that was just in the couple of miles between me and the next exit.
Being the stubborn person that I am, I swung by a different store on my way home to get the few things I wanted from there. As I was getting Daniel out of the car I was so grateful that we had made it there safely; I was so grateful that I hadn’t had David with me (who has come to expect a running conversation whenever he’s in the car with me); I was so grateful that I had – apparently – learned more about driving in the rain during the years I spent half-observing my parents drive in the PNW than most of the people here ever learn.
Unsurprisingly I was shaking by the time we got in the store, and though my list was short (5 items) we took our time. Afterwards, sitting in the car sipping at a Dr. Pepper and munching on a Kit Kat (so that my hands would stop shaking and so that I would stop feeling like I needed to stick my head between my knees and slowly count to ten) it dawned on me that a normal person would have probably pulled off the road until the rain stopped (it lasted about 30 minutes) or turned around and gone back home. After a certain point on my outing neither was really a viable option anymore, but up to a certain point it would have been extremely easy to pull into a different parking lot or to even turn back and return to the safety of home.
Neither option even occurred to me as options until well after the fact.
I have spent most of the day puzzling over this and have come to the conclusion that it is simply because I am so used to living with fear.
Just like I have struggled with depression, I have struggled with anxiety. When I was little I remember getting hysterically afraid of having my picture taken at school (kindergarten). In my early elementary years I often faked being sick (which I’m sure my mom saw through often enough but believed me anyway) to get out of potential outings that terrified me. By the time I hit middle school my anxiety had branched out to include attending new classes, meeting knew people, talking on the phone (even with those I knew well), and attending parties and events.
I tried explaining it to my mom once, but I’m pretty sure she dismissed it as shyness or something. Or didn’t really understand what I was saying. So I just learned to push through it. Now, I hardly notice it.
Sure, it will take me a good day to work up to making a phone call to anyone but Lawrence or my parents. It still means that I almost throw up anytime someone other than Lawrence, my parents, or my best friend call me. It means living with that level of fear – that throat closing, chest pressure, sweat inducing fear several times a day over things that don’t ruffle normal people’s feathers.
But I’ve learned to work around it, to ignore it, and to just push through. Mentally I know I am experience anxiety or fear. I can feel what it physically does to me, but I refuse to let it cripple me. Sure, it hinders me. I’d be lying through my teeth if I said otherwise. But I refuse to let it take my life away from me.
I am aware that there are dozens, if not hundreds of medications to help with this sort of thing, but I’ll be honest: I really, really do not want to take medications unless it cannot be avoided. Partially because I just don’t like the idea of being on meds, but mostly because my family (and myself) has a long history of not reacting to medications like you are supposed to. We’re those people that ruin trials and ensure that all sorts of unpleasant warnings get slapped on the labels of various medications. Either that or they simply flat out don’t work.
There is a point to this novel, I promise.
It has only been in the last couple of years that I’ve been able to acknowledge that I have (and do) struggle with depression and anxiety. Prior to that I beat myself up, a lot, for simply “not trying hard enough” or “not being good enough”. I know that a lot of people I know and love still do view depression and anxiety in that way. In addition to debating why I didn’t take a logical course earlier today, I’ve also debated about blogging about it.
In the end I decided that I needed to write it out – even if it is rambling and somewhat disjointed – because one of the reasons I started blogging was that I wanted a place to share these sorts of experiences. Both depression and anxiety are things that I think we hear a lot about but that most people don’t understand simply because those that do suffer from one or both are very private about their struggles.
A lot of my struggles probably don’t need to be aired all over the internet, but some of them do. Not because I’m seeking advice or help but because I want to promote understanding, and because writing it is a healing balm in and of itself.