Anxiety and Weaving

      "Damn it, my hands are too f*-!%$ up to weave; they won't stop shaking." I am walking home from a class on loss and grief and was recently overwhelmed by the feeling of what I call 'human static' - when too many voices are presented to me and I cannot decipher meaningful conversation. The class on loss and grief is familiar enough to me - 15 people have become familiar enough to me that my anxiety with any one of them would be zero if presented in any situation but the following: everyone chattering and giving well wishes as things wrap up for the end of group - but no, I cannot chatter and give well wishes because I... I am terrified. It was 7:58pm when I fled and it was 8:48pm before I finally began to re-assert control over my anxiety. Why?

    Noise? Thoughts of mixing up that noise for this noise - mixing pieces of human speech into a snythseis ... synthesis of of voices that have no particular meaning or, worse, a a meaningful phrase or sentence or question that was not said, that was not their intent, and that would be strange given the context.

    I must face these challenges all within milliseconds and my brain simply locks up and then another part of my brain takes over: I freeze. I look for fastest route out. I escape.

   What if I had a wife and kids, now, instead of being a bachelor? Perhaps some day they would all decide to surprise me for a birthday party - as they decided to absorb from the television imagery of how these things should go - and I know my response:

    I imagine opening a door, bag or briefcase in hand (exhausted from a day at a cubical farm?) and suddenly there's a blast of 'human static' that somehow amounts to 20 or 30 people saying 'surprise!' or 'surp--se!' or 'wah - blat!' Who knows...

   So - my brain locks up and a different part takes over:

   I snarl, yell back in rage, take a defensive pose, and slam the door closed - to walk quickly away from a suddenly posed threat. I am exhausted and have fallen back on atavistic ways of thinking.

  And imagining this scenario in my head I ask myself '... why?' and there are many conclusions to why:

    - why go out and deal with crowds? where there are humans - they tend to gather.

    - why do I react this way? something happened long ago and far away.

    - why can't I control my fear? fear is not something to be controlled.

    - why must I be so focused to get past my fear? the arrow of my concentration stops fear.

    - why can't I just be still in the midst of the human static? I can't hear everything.