A Modest Proposal Part 1

A representation of me for the last two months.

    We've all been juggling a lot of balls the last two years. While, for the most part,  I've been doing okay with it, this week I finally hit a wall and I'm worn out. So worn out that I have no idea what I want to write this week and while it isn't really the focus of this here blog, I feel like proposing an idea.

Let's Destroy All Upstairs Neighbors*

     In early December, I woke up in the morning and rolled out of bed to hear and feel a splash. There was water covering the majority of my bedroom carpet. To say that I freaked out is an understatement. Me, being the magically self-critical creature that I am, immediately thought what did I do wrong? What have I messed up now?  

Post-30-second wallow I ran to the bathroom; the closest water source. I have a tiny hallway that separates the living area from the bedroom with the bathroom right in between. Picture a “T” with the living/bedroom on opposing sides and the bathroom perpendicular to them. The flood was even higher in the tiny hallway. Cue another 30-second wallow because OMG, I’ve really screwed up badly. I mean I know that my toilet had been running occasionally, but this was gallons and gallons and no water had ever come out before. 

 I took a step forward and looked in the bathroom. There was more water, much much more. I took a step onto the tiled floor, slipped, and immediately fell backward onto my backside also knocking the back of my head hard on the soaked carpet. It hurt and I was now as wet as the floor from head to toe, great. Finally getting my sea legs in this new land of water, I could see that all three of the ocean-creating systems were dry as a bone. Well, the top portion of the toilet was dry which left the bottom standing in about three inches of water. Where had all of this come from? 

Being the absolute genius that I am, I quickly turned with the goal of checking the kitchen sink totally forgetting that the floor was slippery as an eel. Dear readers, do I really have to tell you what happened next? I shouted a lot of words that would make a sailor blush as I lay there, on the wet floor, again. This time the tile had broken my fall...or broke my head, you pick. 

Wringing myself out, I walked into the living room to feel more water (what the hell? Do I now have oceanfront property, and is it high tide?) It was gradually less wet as I got away from the bathroom. Huzzah for some good-ish news! By the time I reached where the carpet switches to the tile of the kitchen, it was dry. I checked the sink anyway just in case.  

I ran back into the bathroom and turned the water off to the toilet and then ran outside to turn the water off to my condo, all the while my anxiety-ridden critical brain is having a running commentary like it’s tied in the ninth of the last game of the World Series and the announcers hate my team. I tell myself to breathe, there must be a reasonable explanation for this. Everything that could be leaking is dry, the water doesn’t seem to be rising, but holy mole, I’m in trouble. Where, for the love of God, did all this water come from? I grab every towel I own and throw it down then grab all of the rugs that I can still lift and toss them out onto the patio.  

Finally, I decided to make the call. You see, my parents own this condo, I just rent from them. That adds a whole new dimension to things as I’m thinking, “I’m a freaking middle-aged adult and am terrified that my mommy is going to kill me!” Whatever, this is adulting and I’d have to make the call even if I had a more normal landlord. (The big difference being a typical landlord isn’t going to try and ground me.) I rang them and started out with something to the effect of “Houston, we have a problem.”  

The call went surprisingly well. I had been scheduled to meet up with my mom to go grocery shopping so I stated the problem, told them the steps I had taken to find the source and that I had shut off the water to the entire unit. I said that our grocery trip was off until I located the problem, and I would continue to search for the cause. 

 

I hung up and went back to spread out towels then wrung them out to use again. It was then that it hit me, if the water didn’t come from me, where did it come from? (Imagine a light bulb over my head.) The unit next to mine is a snowbird and they hadn’t been here for at least two years. The unit above me, however, was occupied so I sent a text asking if they’d had an issue with water.   

The two texts I got in response still flummox and anger me in equal measure today. If you feel like following along, you’ll find out what he said in the next installment of my proposal.  

 
 

*Honestly, my original idea was much harsher than the concept above but in light of our political climate and for fear of being "canceled" I tempered it. 

 

Social Distancing Since Before Times

    I finally found something where my mental health issues are a huge asset rather than a hindrance and that feels weird. In February and March of 2020 the strangest thing happened...everyone was suddenly doing the thing that I had been doing all of my adult life, they were staying home and isolating. Not much changed for me. Well, there were a couple of hurdles, like getting groceries, but in every other aspect of the lockdown, I was eminently qualified for it. 

   

    Suddenly I was the pro at being a hermit and some were coming to me, asking how in the heck I lived like this all of the time. My diagnoses of severe anxiety disorder and PTSD have meant that I already was a hermit. I had been there and done that for years and let me tell you, no one ever thought that being borderline agoraphobic was a good thing until then. My maxi-introvert status meant that I was able to give others a hand with advice, lending an ear, and general pep-talks in a way I'd never been able to before. It was like sharing a cursed expertise that I didn't study for and certainly didn't ask for. It was wild because all of this interacting with others via phone or video chat was a vast change, I was and am suddenly less introverted than I was. Now, I'm not saying that as the risk has lessened I've been going out partying or traveling all over the place, I'm still staying home. I'm more active and social while I'm home though and I look forward to taking baby steps out and about in the future. I've also gone back to school, doing the work to achieve a major yet long-forgotten goal. The change is good and unsettling at the same time and time will tell if it is sustainable. 

    While it's no secret or surprise that the pandemic has exacerbated the strain on an already stressed mental healthcare network, the number of people seeking support for mental health issues has skyrocketed. A study in Lancet study in 2020 alone "found that mental health dramatically declined in that year, with an estimated 53 million additional cases of major depressive disorders and 76 million additional cases of anxiety disorders seen globally." What I haven't seen is a lot of writing about or studies being done is how people that already had documented mental health diagnoses have been dealing with the pandemic. 

    With that in mind, I started journaling more and gathered a group of others that also experienced the pandemic in light of their disorders and encouraging them to share their stories both with me and with publications so that when all is said and done, our group will be represented in the history of the pandemic along with many others. I have a pitch for the book version being shopped around by my agent now but I will continue to document all of the stories that are shared with me no matter what happens.

    I never would have thought that a once-in-a-century event would finally teach me how to be more resilient instead of pointing out, yet again, how much I lack resilience, but here we are.