The maelstrom of images swirl too quickly leaving me disorientated for a moment as the humming top in my head spins to a blur threatening to launch at any time and take the top off my head with it. The scene is unreal and it by the artificial fluorescence powering all big supermarkets amid a cacophony of near silence- except for the humming in my head, the whizzing. It is a poor display in front of me. Where there should be a beautiful rainbow of varying colours and shapes I see emptiness. Where there should be various aromas which should melt together into an alluring fragrance and take me back to summer gardens I find myself robbed of scent. Flowers. More to the point flowers for my wife. Mother's day is nearly gone as its ten at night but here I am in the supermarket buying flowers on behalf of my children having not been out for 2 days and hating every minute of it.
I stare but don't absorb. I can't stop staring and that is the problem. Where I need to focus I have to much focus and cannot flick out of it. My eyes scan between the empty spaces at the pathetic offerings but still my mind is spinning so quickly any observations just bounce off. On instinct I grab two small bunches. They are poor specimens. I am no expert in flora or fauna but these look unconscious and maybe even in a coma but really it is all they have and in this situation I must make do.
Behind me is the path of least resistance- home- but ahead is where I must go to the checkouts. No point in wasting more time. I take the heavy steps to the checkout and pay for the items. As usual I try to throttle myself for something to do as the agitation needs some physical outlet. There was a time I just looked blankly lost in my own thoughts but now the anxiety manifests itself physically like this and takes over my hand to rip the Adam's apple from my neck. I try to remain calm despite the attack so no-one comes to my rescue. They are all as I once was moving slowly lost in their own worlds elsewhere. Mindless creates happy in their own heads, lucky bastards. They don't look at me and even if they did they would see an illusion. They may see the one handed assault but think nothing of it. They wouldn't see what the other hand was doing. This hand is straining to hold the taut thick elastic. This elastic stretches over my shoulder and all the way home to where it is bolted down to the sofa in my living room.
Each time I go out I must throw the thick elastic over my shoulder and push all the way out there in the world. The further I go the more the strain. I cannot stop and relax for fear of being catapulted at high speed back to my living room. So I take the strain and I pull the elastic hard in order to get further away. And when I return it is not much easier. If I relaxed I would be dragged face first through the concrete at high speed home. Instead I must still take the strain and edge myself home as slowly as I can. This is always the way but its not always the same experience. Some days it feels shorter and tighter. There have been days when it has loosened and I take hope that finally it is getting ready to snap but it never does. Always though I must strain and always these little trips leave me exhausted afterwards as a result. That is the resisting the strain and the constant tension.
Let me also say what took me there at the end of mother's day. One day I walked past "the pound shop" and paused for a moment wondering whether to get an anniversary card. To be able to have that decision is a big improvement in my walking problems, or agoraphobia, as there was a time that this was out of the question and no-one got cards. That day I decided not to go in as I would get it later- nothing was stopping me. This was 2 weeks before my anniversary. On the day of my anniversary I lay on the sofa in pain around my abdomen riddled by guilt at not even being able to get my wife a card for our day.
At the start of last week I paused in the same way outside the same shop- mother's day this time. I had learned my lesson so went in and bought not only my wife a card but my own mother too. Success for me. Just a little success but each one counts. And it was just as well. No physical problems, I said, for many years. I sat down in the kitchen on Friday night and when I tried to get up I couldn't straighten. I had pain in the small of my back. As the night went on it got worse. Saturday I could hardly move. So frustrating though. Another occasion and once again I am unable to move freely- was it always going to be this way from now on?
But at least this time I had the cards. So on Mother's day the girls had something to give their mum. They wrote the card out from the words I transcribed and then filled the card with kisses. My wife was happy but I could see something was missing. A little present. I hadn't gotten anything except a card. Partly this was because I didn't think I needed to, that I couldn't get out and also that I would not even know what to buy for my wife. I could see the disappointment though.
On Sunday evening I felt my back ease a little. In truth when I managed to straighten up it was alot better and later I found walking was actually not the problem I expected it to be. So on a whim on my late night jaunt I decided to go into ASDA and when in there had the notion to purchase flowers. I did so successfully. Again something else I can chalk up- a little thing but another thing regardless.
I am so glad I did. I sneaked back into the house and my wife was in the kitchen on the phone. Quietly I sneaked into the girls room to find them both awake. A minute later I stood there as my wife turned around to find her two girls there ready to present her with a bunch of flowers each for Mother's day. It might have been late but regardless it was worth it. It did make her day and I think we all got a lift.
Additionally though it taught me something else about myself. After a lay off from going out I have always found the first trip the hardest usually scuttling home almost a soon as I am out of the door. That night I was out for as long as I have been over the past year so that need not always be the case. It teaches me that my apprehension is probably at play. Better to do things on impulse. So if it has done nothing else it has helped me at least realise something that works better for me and long may it continue.
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