My Little World Too Big

(1995)

Home is safe.

At home, I can control things.

But … I need to go out.

I almost have to try surprise myself with this decision. If there’s premeditation, it starts the countdown. I have only minutes I can survive out in the world, so even when I know I might need to go out, I just can’t alert myself to when I’ll do it.

So I’ll do things to distract myself. To lose myself in some façade of normalcy. Write. Play a computer game. Read—

And, then, I’ll jump into my car.

Driving a car is stupidly unsafe when you’re an agoraphobic, but it’s the only way to complete whatever I need to do in the quickest time possible.

Turning the key in the ignition, my breath stutters. There, now. Breathing: an autonomous function that you usually do unthinkingly. The only time you do think about your breath is when you’re ill, like if you have a cold, or a chest infection, but even then it’s just an acknowledgement that your breathing is a little bit compromised.

Not now, though.

Now I feel that shallow breath grate its way down my throat and lodge halfway into my lungs.

Then, that’s it.

It doesn’t inflate my lungs, nor does it fill my body with life.

I have to worry about that. I don’t want to.

But I have to.

I drive to the supermarket. It’s two minutes away. My breath grows increasingly shorter. Anxiousness simmers. It’s like that boiling pot. You look, and you look, and you look, and it always seem tepid. Then, next time you look, it’s bubbling and frothing and threatening to spill over the rim.

I curse the filled parking lot, and don’t toy with trying to find a spot up close to my destination. Anything will do. Looking for a parking is engaging in a holding pattern. I can’t do that. That spends time. I’m not in the time wasting business now; I have only a certain amount of time allocated to me, so I need to be wise about how I spend it. I need to keep moving. So I take the first spot I see out around the side, get out of my car, and rush into the supermarket.

The adjacent bottle shop is my target this evening. Already, I’m light-headed. I have to resist the urge to gulp to prove to myself I can breathe, although my breathing remains this staccato rasp. If it gets worse, I’ll hyperventilate. Then faint. Faint far away from home. This is why being out in the world is unsafe. Fainting doesn’t happen at home. Being threatened doesn’t happen at home.

I grab a slab of beer from the cold room, then hurry back to the counter. There are two people in front of me. I bounce on the spot, eager to get moving, and curse when the first person fiddles with the money in his wallet, trying to find the exact amount for a bottle of scotch.

Just give him the fucking fifty!

But he doesn’t. He methodically flicks through the bills, occasionally deliberating about how he’s going to construct what he’ll use to pay – two tens and two fives or a twenty and a five and some change?

I will him to make decisions, will him to stop his idle chat with the salesclerk as they exchange pleasantries, talk as if they’re old acquaintances who’ve just seen one another after a long time. None of this is pleasant. For me, these are unpleasantries.

The next person isn’t much better. She wants to buy cigarettes – she just doesn’t know what sort. So she ums and aahs. This is a different interaction. You came to this place knowing you wanted to buy cigarettes. You should know what sort. There’s a reason they call smoking a habit.

Then it’s her fishing through her handbag to find her fucking purse.

Seriously. You knew your purse was going to be required here. Why do you respond with such surprise when money’s requested? Why do you respond as if you’re unsure where that money’s going to come from? Why do you delve into your handbag like you’re spelunking into a bat-filled cave for something you didn’t know you’d need? Your purse was always going to be part of this fucking transaction!

Why isn’t it fucking ready?

My breath isn’t just short now. It’s one-way. I’m firing out exhalations, and I can’t get a good breath in. The anxiety hurricanes through my head, scattering my thoughts. Although I’m holding a slab of beer, my arms feel too light. The energy that pulses through them could eviscerate my physical form.

What’s left then? What’s left when you’re whole identity, your whole self-perception, scatters to nothing, scatters who you are and leaves only the anxiety?

The temptation is to put the beer back in the cold room and flee, but I have to stick this out. How long has this been? How long have I been out in the world? Twenty minutes? Ten? Everybody always exaggerates wait times. It’s likelier been no more than four minutes, but that’s still long enough. I need to get the fuck out of here. Sometimes, I can stall the inevitable, but the inevitable always remains inevitable.

The woman finally finishes her transaction, and I curse her courtesy, her need to (also!) exchange unpleasantries with the salesclerk, like they’re flirting at the bar in a nightclub. You don’t need to be nice to each other. Just fuck off! I’m waiting. There’s nobody else waiting behind me. Typically. I’m the one held up. I’m waiting.

Dying.

DO YOU KNOW I’M FUCKING DYING?

The anxiety reveals this – me being out like everyday people – is all an affectation. I shouldn’t be out in the world. I shouldn’t be among the normals. Neither my mind, nor my body, are strong enough to cope. This is me breaking. And breaking cracks the pretence that there are parts of me functioning. They’re not. They’re pretending to function.

Fake it until you make it.

Or fake it until you break it.

Finally, the clerk turns to me. I put the slab on the counter and take my wallet out. He searches the slab of beer for the barcode that needs to be scanned. I bounce on the spot. It’s just there on the fucking corner, mate. I don’t say it. I should. I don’t. But I should. He’s not Indiana Jones. The barcode doesn’t move. Its location doesn’t need to be divined. He should know where the fuck it is. He hits me with the price.

The mask comes on. He doesn’t know what’s happening inside me. But my stoicism gives me just enough time to take the credit card out of my ready wallet.

He expects money. Fuck. Another delay. He types in the amount. I tap my card insistently. He smiles at me, asks if I want a receipt. I tell him no.

Done.

“Thanks,” I tell him.

He wants to wish me a good evening, but I’m out on good eve, lugging my slab of beer back to the car. While there’s relief that I’m heading home, the shortness of breath is still nearing critical mass. It doesn’t care. We’re still in Chernobyl. I’m not safe yet.

I throw the slab of beer into the passenger seat, jump into my car, and reverse out of my spot too quickly. The function of driving is a bandage. My mind has something to do, as much as the anxiety has pockmarked it. I just hope that I can survive, can maintain some functionality, long enough to get home.

I tell myself I’m okay, I’m going home, I’m okay, I’m going homehomehomehome, but there’s a self-loathing that riles up – I’m twenty-five, otherwise fit, mostly functioning, but I’m driving back into my tiny, tiny world, driving into a world without hope or prospect or any future, driving into nothing because that’s what my life’s become – friends, family, have moved on, gotten married, had kids, working good jobs, and done (or are doing) some amazing things.

And here’s my accomplishment: buying a slab of beer.

To cope.

When I pull into my street, my breath has relaxed – if there’s a point of no return, then entering my street is the point of return, so I’m mostly safe now.

My breathing begins to settle.

I park the car, stick the beer in the fridge, and grab the first.

This is the only way to forget.

For a little while, at least.