Fear in a Box

I recently had an experience which has made me thoughtful and reflective (and all of those introspective adjectives) and I wrote about it on here. I actually dressed it up as a story, which was a little naughty of me. The reason for doing it was two-fold: I wanted it to read like fiction rather than a first person account; and the distance of the third-person created a detachment to the events that I sort of felt at the time and sort of didn't.

It put me in a no-man's land where I viewed my predicament with a dispassionate perspective that I didn't necessarily feel at the time because I actually felt quite panicked and yet, I wasn't necessarily panicked at all.

Ah, how to explain.

Firstly, let me introduce you to the piece I wrote in the Wheel community called Roadside Recovery:

It tells the story of a car breakdown from the perspective of the woman who experienced it. She was travelling alone in the early evening, which soon became a dark wintery night and found herself sitting and waiting for someone to come and repair or, alternatively, recover her car.

It sounds less than exciting even to me reading my own synopsis but, in fact, the story is a bare exposure of what is quite a scary and unsettling situation and actually reads quite well, as it conveys the intensity of what happened, even though it was really just a lot of waiting.

And yes, dear reader, it was me. The experience was mine and well done to Cathy Holmes for picking up on that.

So, why write it as a third person story and not a true-life story?

I think when I sat down to tackle it, I wanted to convey the isolation of it. Being left somewhere strange in the dark on your own with no certain way of moving on from there to somewhere safer and more familiar will inevitably prompt insecurity and trepidation, and if I'm honest, a little bit of fear.

I didn't think that I could explore that in the same way if I told it as "me".

I've talked about how I felt both panicked and not panicked at all about the experience in describing my approach to writing the piece. I was in two states of mind the whole time it was happening. It was like I was there and I was not there. It was like I was an advisor, an observer whilst also fully living it.

I've been thinking about this since. It happened on Saturday night and I spent most of Sunday in a rather weird headspace of physical tension caused by an actual headache (vape withdrawal symptoms, I think, as the driver of the recovery vehicle vaped the whole way back and the noxious chemically sweet mist pervaded my brain and my resisting nostrils for two hours) mixed with the acceptance of relief as I decompressed from something very stressful, which was a lesson in vulnerability.

But at the time, I was quite calm. I had moments, don't get me wrong, but I was contained. What else could I be? I was reliant on others, trapped in a car with nowhere to go. What would panic bring me except more anxiety?

I wondered if I put myself into this dissociative state to cope. It's like wrapping my fear and uncertainty in a box, so it's muffled and stifled, and tucking it into a deep pocket until it can be allowed out to cause chaos if it wishes, but not until I say so or until I am prepared to face it.

With that in mind, looking back, I knew that I was in danger the whole time. I was. I was in danger from many things. It's not the confronting immediate danger of a man with a knife, or being cornered in a dark alley as a woman alone, or swimming and seeing a shark coming towards you. This was not fight or flight.

This was danger, cloaked and mysterious, ready to pounce from a place unknown at a time unknown for maximum damaging impact. I felt, for the most part I was safe - but was I? I didn't know. Or rather, I did know there was a chance I wasn't. I knew it the whole time.

Melodramatic? Maybe but there were multiple threats: the cold; predatory others; the chance of collision. Luckily, I wasn't thirsty or hungry and I didn't need the bathroom. I was constantly reminded of the fact that I shouldn't be in my car, that I should be standing outside behind a crash barrier because people kept telling me. My shelter, the only shelter I had, my car, was presented as my biggest danger. What do you do?

In my case, you shut it out. You manage it, those feelings of fear that are engendered by your situation and you cope. You deal.

However, it's bound to leak out. I often find that I have migraines after stressful situations - not while they are happening but the day after, they come. I think of my brain either as this tightly wound spring which when it's released from the tension flies apart or like a wild woman with mad hair and wrongly buttoned and mismatched clothing with a bewildered expression on her face, saying What have we just been through?

That was my Sunday. I felt very weird, wrung out almost.

Those feelings must also be dealt with and I think that writing about them is my way of processing the whole experience. I'm composing this now for you all to read but really it's about the catharsis that comes with identifying how I felt and releasing it into the world so that it leaves only a small scar. I will always have the memory but it doesn't hurt and it's not weeping and I don't have to scratch it. If I want to though, I can look at it and remember - if I choose to.

Here is the crux of this, the key thing here: choice. I chose not to feel fear. I will choose not to dwell on what happened. I'm not sure that I'll be able to do this for all experiences but I am making a conscious choice to leave it behind this one. I have learned this and it has helped me to endure, not to cave.

People underestimate the amount of choice they have, that is contained within themselves. You can't control others but you can control certain aspects of yourself. I know that this is not true of all individuals but it is true of a lot of us.

We do have choice. Let things go. Release them. Acknowledge them and release them. You'll feel freer for it and you can move on, probably to another challenge but hey! That's the nature of life, isn't it?

That, however, is not the total extent of my consolidated learning from this experience.

I will also be reviewing the level of roadside recovery and who my provider is!