It's getting hot in here...(don't take off all your clothes)

'Haunting terror' in a heatwave. Is this film about my life?

Some interesting things I learned today:

1. Apparently if you press your nose and say 'beep' when you're panicking that can interrupt the panic cycle and stop it in its tracks. Not sure if this just makes you feel so ridiculous that you can't take your panic seriously, or if it has some more thorough psychological evidence-base, but can't harm, can it?

2. I learned yet AGAIN why I should never read free papers that come on London trains. The headline story was about a tube carriage that got stuck underground last night in the most horrendous heat for THREE HOURS (yes, London is hardly hot above ground ever, but underneath it, where you don't want it to be, it's like the fiery furnace of hell). This is why I must carry more Lorazepam in my purse so that if that does happen to me, I can take a big handful and just curl up on the floor in the foetal position and rock back and forth in the grime and sweat and commuter tears.

3. In the same paper there was a story about how all these children had been maimed and injured falling out of windows in the last few days... because they'd been open due to the 'heatwave'  we've been having.

 People - this isn't news!! This is an absurd, insane scare-fest! No wonder anxiety is on the bloody rise - we're being scared out of our bloody wits by the idea that OPENING THE WINDOWS IN THE HEAT WILL KILL OUR INNOCENT CHILDREN! If you care about your offspring at all, clamp those windows down against the breeze, and usher the little critters back in the centre of the room where it's safe.

4. Apparently pulling faces at yourself in the mirror during panic can help too. For much the same reason as number one, I guess.

So if you happen to be on the London underground in the next few weeks, and you see a slightly red-faced, sweaty woman punching her nose, beeping, closing the miserable excuses for windows, and furiously pulling faces at herself in a mirror, you'll know who it is.

Yours, fretful and hot as always (but more so)


Viv x 

Are you CRAZY?! GET AWAY FROM THAT GODDAMN WINDOW!

To be (anxious), or not to be (anxious)...

People with panic disorder LOVE it when you tell them there's no escape. It's their favourite thing.

I went to see a special arty, much-hyped mash-up of Hamlet the other night. It was in an abandoned warehouse way out of town, and I really didn't want to go. I didn't want to go for the obvious anxiety reasons: it would be too crowded, there would be no easy escape route (different town and I had to be driven back by someone else), and besides, it just sounded ridiculously creepy.

But my boyfriend convinced me all would be well, so I plucked up my cowardly lion 'noive' and went.

When we arrived in the middle of nowhere, in the industrial estate, in the pouring rain, we were given a laminated card that said the following:

1) Make sure you use the toilets before the production begins, because there will be absolutely no readmittance during the show.

2) If you have to leave for any reason, bear in mind it will be dark and disorienting, so find your way to an usher near an exit - they only will be identifiable by a reflective armband.

3) You will have to stand for 90 minutes.

4) There will be a loud bang during the production.

I'm not joking. It's as if they looked up the symptoms of panic disorder and agoraphobia and literally created an event specifically designed to cause maximum panic. 'So - just when you think your diarrhoea won't stay in any longer, a loud bang will occur, and you will lose your shit in the most literal sense. You will not find it easy to escape once said shit has erupted, because an exit won't be immediately visible, and you will need to beg a strange dark figure with an armband to do so'

Obviously I wanted to run away, but it was too late. I was in the bloody industrial estate. No escape.

Then we went into the main auditorium. Which was mirrored, all around, so once the doors had closed, it was impossible to see which one was the exit. Then all the lights went out, and they played ominous music, and projected Hamlet senior's death scene all over the walls.

I'm not ashamed to say that in my panic, I closed my eyes and mentally intoned 'naarrrrr schwaaaammmmmm' because I read it in some hippy book somewhere, and it was the first thing that occurred to me, and I was desperate. God, I was desperate. After a number of panty breaths and heart palpitations, I miraculously started to calm down a bit.

Anyway, long story short - the show was AMAZING, and I was so distracted by how bloody brilliant it was, I forgot all about the panic.

The moral (for you and me) is this:

1. The annoying thing about anxiety is that you've always got to push yourself further than feels comfortable, and do things you passionately don't want to do. But do them, and MOSTLY things are far, far better than you feared and imagined.

2. I had a really good two, and now I've forgotten it. Just focus on number one then - I think it's pretty good on its own.

PS. How did the writing everything down experiment go? Did anyone try it?

I'm not comparing panic attacks to Nazis. But. You know. They are a bit.

We're all goin' on a claustroholiday...

How bad can it be?!

Just got back from a weekend at a famous adventure holiday camp with my boyfriend's family. Having managed to resist it for two years in a row, this year I decided to bite the bullet, be a good auntie/girlfriend/daughter-in-law (ish) and join in. Everyone (including the boyfriend, who is now in the doghouse and never, EVER to be trusted again) promised me it would be far better than my worst, most fearful imaginings. 'How bad can it be?!' I thought to myself. Oh readers, how wrong I was...


Day 1: Arrived at aforementioned camp (in the middle of a huge forest) in the dark. Became increasingly aware of the remote location, thousands of cabins illuminated with cheap fluorescence and the glow of happy families, obvious impossibility of escape (one needed to walk for half an hour to get out of the forest and back to the carpark and civilisation), strange high-vis jacketed men peering through windows, and unidentified nature rustling in undergrowth. Went into bedroom, proceeded to get on the panic attack express (exacerbated somewhat by my conviction that I was trapped in a weird, Nazi-esque Hitler-youth camp), and only calmed down after my boyfriend managed to chuck a Lorazepam down my throat.


Day 2:  After planning my escape the previous night, I settled down and decided to try to enjoy the day. We took the kids to a massive water-park extravaganza for some swimming and water-sliding action. 'What larks!' I thought. 'Come on Viv, stop being a fretful, paranoid snob and get thee in a wave pool for some chillaxing.'

Now where did I put my Lorazepam again?

Gentle readers, it was in a massive dome. A huge, humid, insane, verruca-fest inside an huge, insane, impenetrable dome. And full of thousands, literally thousands, of screaming children. After retreating under a plastic palm tree I launched into holiday camp panic #2. Berated boyfriend for inexcusable lies and crazy masochistic family. Regretted leaving tranquilizers in damp locker miles away. Calmed down eventually after squashing poor, shivering three-year old niece to my bosom for about 20 minutes (NB. this actually works. If you can find a child to hug, it's just like a stuffed-monkey - only much, much better. I can't vouch for what effect this has on them though)


Day 3: The spa. I don't think I even need to explain why three hours in a succession of tinier and tinier steam rooms and saunas was not exactly what the doctor ordered for his claustrophobic, panicked patient. 


The moral of this story is not that we neurotics are right when we imagine terrible things, or that we should avoid leaving our safe, cosy, non-threatening bedrooms. It is to remind us that if we've ever felt trepidation about visiting an famous, fun-filled, family holiday camp, that we were GODDAMN RIGHT TO FEEL IT , and that sometimes our instincts are not anxiety-addled instincts at all, but the sane, rational instincts of normal, hell-avoiding people.


Thus endeth the lesson.

You're feeling verrrrry sleeeeepy (you control freak)...

Wooooo, the scary hypnosis spiral...

Well, hello there loyal readers (love you, Mum). Thanks for popping by and entering the worrisome realm of the occasional teeth-grinders and fist-clenchers.

So what's been happening with you lately, Viv? I hear you ask. Well. There's a pretty ticklesome story there.

In a desperate bid to rid my mind of the anxiety demons once and for all, I've just started seeing a hypnotherapist (let's call him Hypno-Joe, which admittedly makes him sound a bit like a travelling circus-freak). I'd heard of someone who was agoraphobic for years, and was COMPLETELY cured by hypnotherapy, so decided to throw some more money at my neuroses and see what would happen.

For a man who treats people with extreme OCD, anxiety, agoraphobia, claustrophobia (and all the other exciting phobias), he has somewhat inexplicably decided to set up his consulting room on the top floor of a tall building - the only access to which is via the TINIEST, OLDEST ELEVATOR IN THE WORLD.  It's one of those ones that has a screechy cage door you have to pull closed after yourself, and all sorts of sinister, hand-made signs saying 'if this lift gets stuck, pull the red button out and press your floor again. If this doesn't work then pull this other lever etc etc '.

Uh, what do you mean 'if this doesn't work?' Why wouldn't it work? WTF? Is this Hypno-Joe's crazy idea of a JOKE?! Is it a test? Is he just some sort of sadistic bastard who wants to torment neurotic people? (Maybe he's a psychopath who is going to plant weird messages to burn things in my subconscious, or maybe he's a keen rapist with a fake certificate he made in Word on his wall...)

So after a *very* tense few minutes, I gingerly crawled out of the lift, choked down half a bottle of rescue-remedy and wiped my clammy palms down.

I'll have floor number 'sheer terror' please

Hypno-Joe was lovely (not a rapist), if a bit 'starey' (maybe that's part of the job description?) and he explained that we would need to chat for a few sessions before the really exciting stuff began.

He was fantastic actually - loads of really good insights, and funny to boot. When he asked if I might possibly, maybe, at certain points, might be a tiny-weeny bit of a control freak, I very patiently and calmly explained that it was actually QUITE a stressful job controlling the entire universe with my thoughts, and being CONSTANTLY VIGILANT and mentally preparing for all the infinite combinations of bad things that might happen, and that if that counted as being a control freak, then yes, perhaps I was. A little bit.

More about Hypno-Joe’s piercing insights and anxiety recommendations another day. (I need to do something to keep my poor, devoted mother reading, because if she stops following this blog, then where will I be?)

Blind panic on the subway? Pop a podcast...

From this...

So. You're on the tube/subway, and have successfully managed to forget you're effectively buried hundreds of metres down into the bowels of the earth. You've put all thoughts of terrorism firmly out of your mind, and you're feeling pretty calm about the swarthy guy with the massive backpack - because hey, you're not racist - it's probably just a lovely guy carrying loads of his blind granny's clothes to the laundromat before his shift volunteering at a soup kitchen.

And then the guy comes over the tannoy and says there's been some kind of 'incident' up ahead, and you're going to be stuck for an unspecified amount of time. And suddenly, you realise you're throat's a bit dry, and you haven't got any water, and you're not quite sure, but you think perhaps the air's feeling a little thin, and actually, now you think of it, you might really need to empty your bowels pretty soon, and actually you'd really like to get out now, please - like NOW, goddamnit, before you choke on your swollen tongue and expire underground like a thirsty, diseased troll.

You need PODCASTS, STAT*. 

Here are some good ones.

Desert Island Discs

 Kirsty Young's soothing, dulcet Scottish tones will calm your nasty gremlins. Has got me through many a train journey, and I've even managed to forget that I'm trapped in an airless tin can surrounded by sweaty, aggressive commuters.

Sex and Other Human Activities

Again, I must doff my cap to the awesome Sara Benincasa and her pal Marcus. They talk about sex (quite graphically, so if you're not into dildo chat, I would steer clear), Doctor Who (oh, yes) and a bit about craziness too. It's like having your (inexplicably hilarious) mates chatting in the background. Another train gem.

David Mitchell's Soapbox

Short, sweet, and sarcastic mini-bites about all the grating, irritating, infuriating things in the world. You have to be in a certain kind of mood for this one, but is very funny if so.

New Yorker Fiction Podcast

Literary giants reading the works of other literary giants for your audio pleasure. Like a nice, long bedtime story for grown-ups.

To this...

* Warning. A note about relaxation music podcasts.'These are truly terrifying. I put one on whilst panicking on a train, and I felt I had a soundtrack of doom to accompany my slow death. Lots of ominous long synthesizer sounds and ethereal voices = magnifying of terror.