I don’t consider myself to be a neurotic person.
I say this in spite of having suffered from depressive and anxiety disorders for years. These disorders are bona fide mental illnesses, and between that and a traumatic childhood, I spent several years in therapy sorting myself out. I have always been and always will be triggered by things that other people aren’t. I go through periods where I am absolutely unable to watch the news, because I know it will put me in an emotional hole I won’t be able to climb out of. I have to avoid certain situations, like shopping malls, because the crowds and the various competing stimuli induce panic. Casinos, I once discovered on a trip to Reno, are even worse.
I don’t feel that those things make me “neurotic”. I know that because of my brain chemistry and my background, I react to certain situations in certain ways that other people don’t. I know emotions are simply not subject to conscious control. I have learned to control my exposure to things that I know will trigger me, and I’m much happier and healthier as a result. I feel pretty good about that.
Last night, though, I felt neurotic. I say “neurotic” because it was a feeling that went beyond anxiety to a weird sort of unease, and one in which I my mind was telling me things that were clearly irrational, and that I knew were irrational, but that I was unable to banish.
For various reasons, it was 3 am by the time I went to bed last night. I was already feeling vaguely uneasy for no good reason, and the minute I went upstairs the storm that’s been buffeting California all week intensified. The rain pounded the roof and the wind picked up. I could hear the gutters overflowing, and I swear I heard the wind wuthering. Since my bedroom is in a loft right under the roof, this was all pretty loud, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that the storm was consciously trying to get into the house. I felt as if I was the only human being in the world, and the storm resented this, and was trying to destroy my house out of vengeance and hatred for all things warm-blooded.
I got into bed, but I didn’t want to turn out the light; I got out of bed and wandered around for awhile; I went back upstairs; I got out of bed again; I felt lonely; I desperately wished my partner were home just to have another human being around. I felt a sense of dread that I just couldn’t shake. It was like I was channeling Edgar Allen Poe, and all his characters with their morbid imaginations and “morbidly acute” senses. It wasn’t the anxiety that had me telling myself that I was being neurotic, it was the paranoia, the attribution of malevolent, conscious intent to something that I know is just about warm and cold air masses.
This isn’t usually like me. I haven’t been afraid of the dark since I was a small child. My husband travels a lot, and while I miss him, I’m never afraid to be alone. Like Mrs Whatsit in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time, “wild nights are my glory”; I usually love storms, blizzards, and all sorts of severe weather, and I’m puzzled by people who are afraid of thunder. I grew up in the Midwest, where thunderstorms are frequent, and kids are told from the time they’re born that “thunder is just noise, it can’t hurt you”. Likewise, you’re safe in the basement during severe weather. You’re safe in a blizzard if you stay inside. Unless you live in a flood zone or a trailer park, weather won’t hurt you if you take precautions and use common sense. Weather is something I can usually handle.
I don’t know what it was about last night that had me so worked up. Ultimately, I was extremely grateful for my cat Piglet, a sweet and compliant Maine Coon mix who’s always willing to take care of me. I went down stairs and picked her up, carried her upstairs, and got into bed. She stayed where I put her, purring, half on my chest and half on my arm. When my arm fell asleep (she’s a 16.5 lb cat, after all) she shifted obligingly, staying close and purring. My other cat, CC, came up soon afterward and settled onto my legs. I already felt easier. But I didn’t fall asleep until I heard a fire struck lumber past, assuring me that there was at least one other person out there, awake like me, and ready to come to my defense if the storm tried to get me.
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