As you know, I'm a paraplegic. I have been a para since I was six years old. I feel that I handle my disability pretty well and accept my limitations, for the most part.
In the past year, I have been struggling with some mild anxiety. It's happened when I am around a group of people in a tight surrounding, mainly when those people are standing. I just get overwhelmed and feel like I'm shrinking. This feeling is intensified by loud noise/voices. If I can get away from the crowd and get fresh air and some silence, I do pretty good. For the longest time I just chalked it up to being introverted and needing my space.
Why am I writing about this? Because this was never an issue with me in the past. I know these things can just develop for no reason, but honestly, I'm simply frustrated with myself. It's a total control thing, I know, but I when you are disabled, a lot of your daily life is regimented. Anxiety, claustrophobia, and panicking was never a part of this equation.
My problem seemed to be manageable until a few weeks ago when I was at church. I was in the choir room with rest of the choir, preparing for the next service. The choir room was absolutely stuffed to the gills with people and no room to spare. I was sitting in my spot and since there were no chairs left, there were a lot of people standing, some near me. With everyone towering over me and the noise level being so loud, I felt the room start to close in on me. We went out and sang the service, and I went back to the choir room for my connect group.
I had fought tears the entire worship service. They were tears of frustration, tears of the feeling I was in the way, and feeling like I was on the verge of just completely breaking down. I didn't hear a word of what was talked about in our class; I just tried to concentrate on my breathing and calm down.
After the class was over, we had another rehearsal before we went to sing in the third service. The crowd and the noise level was even worse. One of my friends got my attention and asked me if I was ok. I just looked at her, raised my hands and told her, "It's just so much." She knew exactly what I meant. At that moment, an individual "woo-hoo'ed" really loud next to me, and it was like the dentist hit a tooth that had not yet been numbed with a drill. I fought everything within me from just bolting from the room and leaving. Honestly, I wish I had.
After singing in that final service, Scott and I left. We went to pick up some lunch to take home and I just waited in the car. He came back to find me sobbing. I felt such a release in crying and it was really hard to stop. He knew what had been going that morning and calmed me down.
I struggled all day with being embarrassed about what happened. Once I was feeling better, I couldn't help thinking that I was being ridiculous. Rooms are crowded and loud, everyone is taller than me, and sometimes life just isn't fair and you need to deal with it. First world problem, Lindsay. After a lot of thought and speaking to people who deal with these kind of feelings every day, I realize I have nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about. I didn't want to feel this way; it was my body's natural response to a stressful situation.
I'm putting this out there to remind everyone that we are all human, and that we all have things that we struggle with. I also hope that someone reading this has some tips for me to help with these situations. I have solved my choir room problem for the time being, but I will take any and all suggestions.
If you made it through this wall of text, I thank you!
1 comment:
I cannot imagine the feelings that you have from day to day. I empathize with you and certainly don't find any faults in your feeling the way you do at times. I believe all people have these overwhelming feelings at times, I know I do, and we just have to try to get through them the best that we can. I wouldn't ever want you to feel that you were "in the way" or embarrassed for having these feelings. As you stated, we are all dealing with something, for me it is my lack of hearing. I sometimes feel as though I am all alone because I can't join in on conversations. It gets very tiring asking people to repeat themselves so I find that I just stay silent even though I might just want to scream with frustration. I feel that what I deal with is only a fraction of what you must deal with at times. There is no magic remedy. I have found that deep breaths and even sometimes just going into myself will help. That might not be a great thing to do, but I know I'm safe in my own thoughts and can hear there. Above all, just saying "Jesus" can work wonders 😊 I hope that you are able to get relief from these feelings. You are loved very deeply by your friends and family. 🍂🍁
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