Panicked Mother Flees From Carolers!
(later found drooling under her own bed)
About this time last year I confessed to my deep aversion of Christmas Carolers. What's great about this aversion is that it only comes around once a year and I can, in the meantime completely forget I have it. I don't have to worry about them popping up unexpectedly on the boiling summer streets making my soul shrink into a black speck of fear.
To say that I'm terrified of them implies that I have some kind of reasonable fear, that I actually think they will do me harm, or that they are scary. I must clarify that what they do is bring on swift potent panic attacks in me based on absolutely no rational explanation other than the fact that they come at me singing sprightly songs about fat men in red suits* and their "fa-la-la"s and expect me to be ecstatic that they have taken the trouble to assault me with their noise and then...
...what am I supposed to do? I would like to ignore them and keep on doing what I'm doing but that would seem rude when they clearly have an expectation that I will listen to them in rapt adoring silence. I hate people I don't know expecting me to think they're fabulous. So if I politely pretend to enjoy their Christmas tunes do I have to also offer them hot cocoa? Do I tip them? Can I spit on them?
I hate not knowing what is expected of me in social and/or public situations. Is there a polite way of waving them on to other people without telling them that their music makes my ears bleed and causes my skin to crawl? Would it help to explain to them that years in retail service jobs have forever ruined any magic I might otherwise have felt about jolly tunes being hurled at me from quaintly dressed people who wish it was a hundred and fifty years before now when half the population was dying of TB?
It would be so different if a group of mourners came to my restaurant table to sing beautiful laments or solemn funereal tunes. When I hear funereal music my heart stops and I feel like something beautiful is speaking and I must listen. Like the sweet haunting whistling funeral band that woke me up in Glasgow one morning which I would have followed through the whole city if only I could have found my clothes and shoes fast enough.
When a group of carolers began making the rounds of dining tables at Hotel Oregon the other night where we were having dinner with my mom, I felt the panic immediately rise in my chest. They paused at each table to sing joyously and await applause. My family was still talking but I couldn't hear them anymore because all I could think about was leaving. It was agony seeing them get closer and closer to our table. Just when they got to our section I shoved my coat on in a rush and cutting off my family's conversation- jetted out of there as though my head were on fire.
As I left I looked back for a moment through the window and very quickly snapped this picture.
To say that I'm terrified of them implies that I have some kind of reasonable fear, that I actually think they will do me harm, or that they are scary. I must clarify that what they do is bring on swift potent panic attacks in me based on absolutely no rational explanation other than the fact that they come at me singing sprightly songs about fat men in red suits* and their "fa-la-la"s and expect me to be ecstatic that they have taken the trouble to assault me with their noise and then...
...what am I supposed to do? I would like to ignore them and keep on doing what I'm doing but that would seem rude when they clearly have an expectation that I will listen to them in rapt adoring silence. I hate people I don't know expecting me to think they're fabulous. So if I politely pretend to enjoy their Christmas tunes do I have to also offer them hot cocoa? Do I tip them? Can I spit on them?
I hate not knowing what is expected of me in social and/or public situations. Is there a polite way of waving them on to other people without telling them that their music makes my ears bleed and causes my skin to crawl? Would it help to explain to them that years in retail service jobs have forever ruined any magic I might otherwise have felt about jolly tunes being hurled at me from quaintly dressed people who wish it was a hundred and fifty years before now when half the population was dying of TB?
It would be so different if a group of mourners came to my restaurant table to sing beautiful laments or solemn funereal tunes. When I hear funereal music my heart stops and I feel like something beautiful is speaking and I must listen. Like the sweet haunting whistling funeral band that woke me up in Glasgow one morning which I would have followed through the whole city if only I could have found my clothes and shoes fast enough.
When a group of carolers began making the rounds of dining tables at Hotel Oregon the other night where we were having dinner with my mom, I felt the panic immediately rise in my chest. They paused at each table to sing joyously and await applause. My family was still talking but I couldn't hear them anymore because all I could think about was leaving. It was agony seeing them get closer and closer to our table. Just when they got to our section I shoved my coat on in a rush and cutting off my family's conversation- jetted out of there as though my head were on fire.
As I left I looked back for a moment through the window and very quickly snapped this picture.
Anxiety is a queer creature that lives in your bones and invests itself richly in your blood. The most annoying thing is trying to explain to others the inexplicable. "Why?" they want to know. Sometimes I can grasp at the why because most anxiety is based on rational fear but is then warped and magnified by an irrational reaction to it, but sometimes I can't even offer that. There must be origin, right? There must be cause. Sometimes there just isn't.
When the carolers come- I will run. While this is an easy anxiety for me to make fun of, the panic is very real. Do not underestimate my discomfort in this. Do not marginalize what is, for me, a strong enough discomfort that I will leave my happy little family at a table and go home to avoid having to come in direct contact with the subject of it. You can laugh with me, but only if you promise never to come to my house to sing me a bunch of Christmas songs.
*The exception to my overwhelming hatred** of Christmas music is: classical music such as "Pachelbel's Canon", "The Nutcracker Suite", and (of course) Handel's "Messiah".
**I do try to use this word sparingly and YES I do use it most sincerely in this instance.
When the carolers come- I will run. While this is an easy anxiety for me to make fun of, the panic is very real. Do not underestimate my discomfort in this. Do not marginalize what is, for me, a strong enough discomfort that I will leave my happy little family at a table and go home to avoid having to come in direct contact with the subject of it. You can laugh with me, but only if you promise never to come to my house to sing me a bunch of Christmas songs.
*The exception to my overwhelming hatred** of Christmas music is: classical music such as "Pachelbel's Canon", "The Nutcracker Suite", and (of course) Handel's "Messiah".
**I do try to use this word sparingly and YES I do use it most sincerely in this instance.
Labels: Christmas, mental illness, town life