As I approach my 70th year, I’m falling apart physically and mentally. Although I have the Patrick Melrose novels by Edward St Aubyn, I haven’t read them yet because I don’t want to dwell on the misery at this delicate time. On the other hand, I did watch the complete series on Netflix, and it did me in, but there are similarities between yours truly and dear Patrick. And no, my parents didn’t sexually abuse me, nor am I a drug addict, but I do suffer from anxiety and phobias that come up in the series from time to time. I identify with the social anxiety when I see Patrick interacting with people in his class. A struggle to act normal, whatever that is, and not trying to lose it in front of people. And there is also a lot of grief expressed over the five-hour show, and I can identify with that.
My problem in a social setting is that when I’m talking or listening to someone, I notice a crack on the floor or pavement, and I become fixated on that space and its surroundings. I feel the rupture on the ground is pulling the gravity and energy around the room, and I have to snap out of its powerful hold on me by doing my best to focus on the person I’m talking to. I start to sweat, or at the very least, my hands are wet with perspiration, and I feel if I hold on to something, it will slip out of my fingers. Therefore, if I’m holding a drink in my hands, I’m concerned about dropping it, and I focus on the thought that it may splash on the person I’m talking to. And I can’t remove myself from the company; in fact, my legs are locked in position, and I feel like if I move, I will faint, and once on the ground, will I be able to get up? And if I do fall, and they help me up, what do I say? What would my excuse be?
There is a scene in an early episode of Patrick Melrose where our hero excuses himself from the table in his hotel, and he walks down the aisle, mostly by grasping the wall to keep his balance and sanity in place, which is sipping away. I have felt that way in social situations, and even now, I can be sitting on my couch watching something on TV, and out of nowhere, I feel a wave of anxiety knocking on my head, asking to come in and cause havoc. The only thing I can do is put a super effort into whatever I’m watching and pretend that this is not happening; no, not right now, this can’t be happening.
My wife, Lun*na, told me that when I feel anxiety coming, I say out loud what I see. I see my five fingers, which are moving, attached to the wrist. There is the arm and shoulder, and… I sound like the narrator in the Alain Resnais film Last Year at Marinbad, stating what he sees or what is in his head. There are two forces: one in the natural world, and the other is my nervous system, and it’s off the tracks. Still, her advice is a good one and makes sense.
At times, I wonder if the cause of all this anxiety is my narcissism, which, like the anxiety, I am not sure where or what the source came from. I wake up in the middle of the night with clarity, but by morning, it has returned to being hidden in the subconscious. By choice, I can fear the next moment or series of seconds, but I choose not to or hope to put that command in my head. I did see a therapist at Kaiser, but she told me she usually deals with people who literally can’t get out of their bed, and here I am, in her office, wondering what is the root of my grade-C anxiety. I make no secret that I would love to be on Freud’s couch in a darkened room, talking about my sexual passions and dark dreams to a voice in the darkness, but that is done with great financial expense. I have neither the currency/credit nor the time to take such a deep dive into what makes me tick as a human.
The Patrick Melrose/Hunter Biden type of fellow is way worse than me, but anxiety is very much a solitary journey into a world of not our own choices or making. Lun*na’s suggestion is the most apparent and intelligent approach to what ills me, basically the state of the world. Perhaps anxiety is the natural reflection of a world gone or in the process of going horrific.
Tosh, you write yourself beautiful.
yeah, I should have read the St. Aubyn novels when they first came out. now the world is depressing enough without them.