Surprise: Agoraphobia!

So I'm back from my moderately ill-fated NYC adventure. Long story short, I lived in The Village and Lower Manhattan longer than anywhere else in my adult life. I was never a big fan of Midtown, with its ginormous Molochs glassing and steeling all over my shiz. My parents very generously booked me a room next to theirs in Midtown; when I stepped off the elevator, the first thing I saw was a shiny plaque proclaiming that the 12th floor was the transitional home of "23 Freed Americans, Former Hostages of Iran...Were...Guests Here on th 12th Floor, January 28-31, 1981..."

Okaay. So 4 days on the 12th floor is preferable to being held hostage in an occupied embassy for 444 days. And the 12th floor is so proud of this fact that it felt a need to transmit its ebullience via plaque. I can only imagine what the other floor's plaques must commemorate: a "better than Entebbe" floor? A "cake walk for USS Indianapolis survivors" floor? The 24 hour "beats naked subzero punishment laps in the Gulag" exercise room?

This is where my mind goes when I'm anxious. And then when I suddenly burst out in anxious-hysterical giggles after a long anxious silence and someone asks me what TF I'm giggling about, I say something like "heheheeeAchilleLaurohehaaha!" Because, the thing is, nobody can ever accuse me of not having a sense of humor about, like, pretty much everything. But I HAVE been accused of having a sense of humor about, like, pretty much everything, aka "you awful, insensitive harpy!"

Problem is, I'm VERY sensitive. I'm so freaking sensitive that if I didn't try to find ways to laugh about awful bloodcurdling things, I wouldn't be able to function. I'd be like a goth in an SNL sketch, but even less funny. So being back in NYC for the first time in many years, sans the DH and au The Child was even harder on my already fragile-feeling psyche than expected. As usual when it comes to such things (which I will doubtless blog on about at a later date) my timing was way, waaaay bad. Here is the rundown:

I have to explain to my dad why the soldiers are searching cars at the Midtown tunnel. Some diplomatic security guy pounds on the car when we start to enter the hotel garage; he, along with the rest of the world, didn't see the plate in the rear window. Elevator lets us off at 12th floor, where I'm greeted by the aforementioned cheery plaque. I need to pick up and send business faxes, so I go down to the hotel business center. I overhear two hotel employees talking about something involving "exploded...people on their roofs...all but 2 are missing...not even an hour ago, etc." Everywhere I look, people are gathered into worried-looking little knots. There seems to be an epidemic of palmtop checkage. In my years away from The City, I have yet to lose my NY Manners, so I approach a hotel staff-knot and inquire, "What the heck am I missing here? Did something just happen? I'm really thinking I missed something big, right?" I am told that a violent midair collision has just occurred over the Hudson, that nobody knows why it happened, that we all hope it isn't terrorists, that there was an explosion and thousands of people saw it and couldn't do anything maybe it was because they opened the Statue of Liberty back up...I feel the bottom drop out of my stomach. It actually feels like I got physically kneed in the gut. I see huge goosebumps heave themselves up on my forearms. I numbly go through the motions of sending my faxes, thank the still-kibbitzing staff, and somehow make it back to my room. There is no interwebz in the room. My mom comes in and begins reading to me about the crash from a news feed on her phone, and I suddenly realize I can't listen to another word. My head is full of fire and smoke and sirens and fighter planes and empty streets and I am literally shaking from head to toe with useless adrenaline.

I never set foot outside that hotel. I stayed in my room, playing solitaire, reading, watching tv, fighting with The Child over bed space and trying not to think about 8 years ago. Or 20 years ago. Or any of the other times. My mom kept "encouraging" me to just "deal with it, face it"and other maternal gems that I'm sure I'll be tossing out in a decade or so. Problem is, when it comes to the particular set of neuroses in question, I feel quite justified in throwing out the ol' Mr. Rochester special, "I do my best, have done it, will do it."

My mother has only the vaguest concept of what, exactly, I have faced and dealt with. In truth, I don't even know that I do.

There was a time, 5 years ago or so, when I was traveling with my then-fiancee (now the DH) on a flight that was scheduled for a brief stopover; no changing planes, just refueling. Not long into the +/-3 hour flight, I became aware of a growing sense of...off-ness. There was...something...about the vibration of the engines against the soles of my feet. I tried hard, and I CANNOT stress just how hard, to convince myself that it was all in my head. I tried meditating, and when that didn't work, I tried medicating, which served only to make me feel vaguely-sedated terror as opposed to shrieking in the aisles panic. I looked down the length of the plane, and saw a fellow with a regulation wiffle-cut sitting on the aisle several rows ahead. he was sitting rigid as a statue, his single visible hand gripping his armrest. His knuckles were white and trembling. I suddenly got a whole helluva lot more scared.

I decided that, if the plane touched down safely for our stopover, I would walk off, dragging my then-fiancee if need be, and wait for a connecting flight. I was even willing to sacrifice my checked bags; I didn't want to make a huge fuss, or at least I didn't think I wanted to. I just wanted off that plane. BAD.

The plane landed safely, thankfully, and with a bit of an unexpected twist...at least for my fellow passengers. As we taxied to the gate, the pilot came on the PA and said that the planned stopover would not be occurring. We would need to change planes. Another plane was meeting us at the gate. There was no explanation. I didn't lose my checked bags, perhaps the true miracle of the day.

I am not someone overridden and/or overwhelmed by irrational phobias. I face my fears constantly, and successfully. But when I make the decision not to try facing them, there's most often a durn good reason. I'm far from insulted by racist allusions to rats and cockroaches...I'm happy being the first to know a ship's sinking, and the last to perish in a radioactive nightmare scenario. I stayed in that shoebox-sized hotel room on the happy hostage floor, and when we left The City, I got right back to my life.

Take that, life.

p.s. I wrote this in a massive hurry...apologies for any grammatical/syntactical/spelling/whatever related errors. k thx bai!