Social phobia: the confession of a room crammed into the space
I'm afraid of people. I cannot leave the house without experiencing great stress. Each time it seems that, stepping over the threshold, I lose a particle of myself. Something keeps me at home with heavy chains, strong, reliable … Habitual.
I'm afraid of people. I cannot leave the house without experiencing great stress. Each time it seems that, stepping over the threshold, I lose a particle of myself. Something keeps me at home with heavy chains, strong, reliable … Habitual. I almost physically feel how the soul is torn to pieces, how the lights of a big city dazzle the eyes. Breathing is interrupted, becomes heavy, unbearable. Every breath comes with incredible difficulty. I lean against the side of the elevator, close my eyes. Heart is beating! I managed to leave before a neighbor with a child approached.
I am driving alone. But every moment brings me closer to the need to leave the entrance, to go further. The same thing every time, and every time - lips bitten to blood, fingers pressed to a crunch and hopelessness. I am haunted by some images, scraps of memories. Fear chokes me. The elevator stops and I have to do the impossible again - one step towards the street.
I carefully open the front door, feeling painful joy again - no one is there. Hands instantly become hot and damp. I wipe them feverishly together and shudder - my mother never liked that I was such a coward. She laughed, noticing how my eyes widen in horror at the thought of having to cross the entire courtyard in the middle of the night to go to the toilet. I didn't understand that I was afraid of the dark.
Bedtime stories
They told me fairy tales. Many fairy tales. It was interesting and creepy at the same time. And all the time I was drawn to this feeling of fear. I started reading very early and loved Afanasyev. She turned off the light, took a flashlight and read, going crazy with fear and pleasure. So I spent the entire first school year under a blanket with a flashlight and a book pulled from the home library.
And also my stepfather spent evenings with me and my cousins and sister. We were going to listen to another scary story about a black hand and green eyes. I dreamed of these eyes until the age of fourteen, promising all the torments of hell and the fact that I am not of this world and in general it is not clear why I live.
But then, when he spoke, muffling the light, lowering his voice and immersing us in the atmosphere of a forest or an abandoned house, we huddled together, each time looking forward to the end of the story, when he threw his hand forward with the words "and now she ate you." and touched one of us. It was weird. A wave of excitement, awe, fear, and pleasure washed over me.
Although I forgot for a long time what a good dream is …
***
I look to the sky. It is gray, as always, almost colorless. Threatening and oppressive. It seems to me that God is mocking me from there. I'm afraid of god. It is as if he is playing with me, forcing me to experience this hell every day … Every day, from early childhood … Why does this happen to me?
Oksana
I remember that day very well. As if it happened yesterday. I am six years. First grade. Village. We had to move to another city, and I enjoyed the last days with my friends, who became close and dear to me in a year. We were working off, we worked in the garden, talked and laughed.
And then one day a teacher came to us and said that Oksana was no longer with us … My classmate died. She drowned. As a class, we went to her house to say goodbye. We were told to be sure to say goodbye. To spend on the last journey. Tell your parents something. And be sure to go into the room where the coffin stood, and then follow it along the road. Someone was forced to put their hand on the edge of the coffin. Someone leaned over to kiss her goodbye. I could not.
As I remember now, her blue, albeit covered in makeup, face. She did not stay in the water for long, her features did not blur, did not swell. I remembered how she told me: “I am afraid of life, I don’t want you to leave,” and cried in the last days before her death. And then I stood looking into her blue face and gasping in shock. Her image haunted me for years. She came in dreams, I covered my eyes with my hands, cried and ran. I didn't want to see. I was scared to see, scared to feel what I felt then.
***
Next, I have to do the impossible again. I have not used public transport for a long time. For a long time I have tried almost never to leave the house. But it is impossible to exist within four walls. I work remotely, but about once a week I have to go out to get to the office. And each time these 15–20 minutes stretch out for eternity. My fear of people is getting worse every day, and I don't understand why. The psychologist said that I should make friends, start communicating with someone. I tried. Truth tried. But the only one with whom I can throw a couple of phrases without locking myself in the toilet with excruciating nausea is my colleague. Quiet and calm girl, whom I simply do not notice … and I hardly see.
She works with clients, I come for documents and disappear. She persuaded me to seek help when I categorically refused to go with her to some forum as an assistant.
Social phobia - statement of fact or diagnosis? Of course, I tried to overcome myself. Wedge wedge, as they say. It didn't work out. That's absolutely. The only hike on the city day ended in a wild fit, hysteria and a long winding path home. To the darkest corners I could find. And then I sat in my room for a week, gasping every time I heard an elevator or the sound of a neighbor's door opening. Most of all I was afraid that they would call me …
But then nothing happened.
Cat
I'm ten. We have moved, I have little contact with my peers and have almost no contact with classmates. It seems to me that everyone who becomes attached to me will definitely follow Oksana. And I will have to remember all my life their blue faces, which will haunt me in the twilight and in my dreams. Sometimes I think, why do I need all this?
Stepfather and mom are worried. On the one hand, we are glad that I spend all my free time with books and do not waste time “on girlfriends,” on the other hand, they are saddened by my voluntary retreat. They decide I need a friend. A friend appeared unexpectedly. They just brought home a young cat.
I came to life. She laughed. I spent a lot of time with her. I even began to communicate with classmates and went for a walk. I didn't want big companies, but I felt comfortable in a group of three or four people. The parents were happy. I left home and began to more or less adapt to society. The idea that people shouldn't get attached to me is gone. The nightmares stopped, the image of Oksana was erased from memory.
Her name was Bagheera. Black. The way a little panther should be. I believed that if a black cat is on my side, then luck will definitely be with me. How else? After all, every day she not only crosses my path, but also accompanies me everywhere … My little friend.
She died. Suddenly and abruptly. Neighbors poisoned rats … and Bagirka was a rat catcher.
***
I jump to the side. A group of teenagers is walking towards. And the thought that you have to pass by is unbearable. I dive into the alley and hold my breath. Let them pass, let them pass … It knocks in my temples. It seems to me that my heart is about to jump out of my chest. But for the better … Thinking about a cat on the way to work is dangerous. I want to cry, but I can't cry for a long time.
It's a pity, it was impossible to cross to the other side at once … The teenagers pass, their high voices gradually dissolve in the morning silence. Again, a monstrous effort just to move on. I wrap my arms around my shoulders, slouch and walk, staring at the ground.
The fear of work came up unexpectedly. It's just that at some point I realized that I can't leave the house every day and do this maddening route. They went to meet me, allowing me to perform my duties, almost without leaving the house. But still…
They wrote to me on the net that I was young and it was strange that I did not have a lot of friends. And there is no boyfriend. Take and make friends? So on the run? By the way, I decided to have a cat again. So I have a friend.
My journey ends. I come to the office, sit down heavily on a chair and wait for the documentation to be handed over to me. There is a noise in the temples, the chest presses as if a hellish anvil itself was placed on it. The eyes are dark. I close them, realizing that I still cannot look anywhere and read anything. At home, all at home.
Houses. Where the curtains are closed and a cat is curled up on the sofa. Where there is only the two of us, a computer and no one else. It's quiet there. And only neighbors sometimes frighten with scandals and confusion at the door.
*******
There used to be a feeling of pain and fear. It was mistrust. It was an aimless existence within the four walls of a house without the opportunity to take even one breath of fresh air. It was a slow strangulation, and it already seemed that there was no way out. There used to be fear. Existence. Gray, smothered, devoid of color.
It was close to me, it remains close to hundreds and thousands of people, regardless of place, time of residence, gender, occupation and marital status. Fear of life, fear of people is a reality that is felt at all, including the physical, levels, which interferes with life, does not allow to be realized. You would like to be like everyone else, communicate, have fun, but you can't: fear chokes you. It strangles not abstractly, but quite palpably - you cannot move, you cannot speak, you only feel that you are about to lose consciousness.
You're scared. It is not clear where to go and who to contact. You are confused. Nothing helps, even though you try to do something. Professional advice, like pain reliever, does not solve the problem. They only remove the severity of the states for a couple of days, but then everything returns to normal. All life boils down to how to overcome yourself and not hide under the covers, just hearing a knock on the door. How can you keep yourself from running to the other side of the street if there is a flock of students ahead? How do you force yourself to say hello instead of turning away and running away?
Indeed, it seems that there is no way out. Fear rules your life. And at some point you realize that there is nowhere to wait for help. A treacherous thought appears in my head more and more often: "Why do I need all this?" And the body, a true traitor, each time deprives you of strength, you just have to face even one stranger.
But the darkest night is before dawn. Through the deepest awareness of the causes of such conditions, you can get rid of them forever. Through serious work with yourself, on yourself, you begin not only to cope with your fears, you feel tremendous relief when they no longer hammer you to the ground. Your life is changing, and you yourself do not notice how fears disappear from it forever.
Remain in the dark dungeons of your own fears or step into the sun … the choice is yours. And there is a way.
