To the Man at the Store

To the man at the store: I don’t know your name and I know you will probably never read this, but I thought I would write this to you anyway. I am writing it not for you but for myself—and maybe to help others understand.

You didn’t know I have PTSD. We were standing in the same huge aisle in the noisy store, both looking at jugs of cleaners. Other than that we had no connection. You didn’t know that I’d just come from a yoga class and was late with eating lunch. HALT—Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. Those are the conditions I have to monitor all the time; if any of them apply I am much more likely to “have an episode.” I was hungry and tired, but so centered and happy from the yoga class that I thought I could manage shopping even though it was noon on a Saturday. The noisy, bustling store is difficult for me to navigate, but it used to be nearly impossible. I’m coping a lot better these days.

You didn’t know I take three different psychoactive drugs every day to make it through the days and nights. Especially the nights. And I am glad people don’t realize this. I am afraid people will judge those of us with chemical imbalances.

You came up behind me and loudly asked if I knew the difference between the cleaners we were looking at. I tried to hide how much this scared me. I had to leave the aisle quickly, muttering something about the different scents of the cleaners. Rationally, you seemed friendly and not scary at all, but it didn’t matter to me at that moment. I had been momentarily scared and the PTSD took over. Fight, Flight, or Freeze. My amygdala had taken over, my cortisone levels suddenly spiked.

Suddenly my perception of the world around me changed. Everything that a few seconds earlier had just seemed normal now looked like a threat. I was disoriented—things just didn’t look like they were supposed to. It is kind of like being in that funhouse at Silver Dollar City, I used to go there a lot as a kid. In the funhouse, the floors are all tilted and furniture is nailed to the ceiling, everything is designed to produce a disorienting experience. The whole world looks like that to me now when PTSD takes over. Derealization, they say it is called. I feel dizzy, I used to think it was vertigo. The details around me are magnified and distorted. I can’t quite make out the whole picture, I feel lost and afraid.

I struggle to remember why I came to this store. I fight the urge to leave my shopping cart where it is and go to my car. I have done that before, more than once. I take deep breaths and try to focus on my breath as an anchor like I’ve learned in mindfulness classes. At that moment, I can’t remember to practice the grounding techniques that I know. I just want to leave. I need to leave. But we also need dog food and something for dinner. I try to reason with myself, but it is nearly impossible. I know I could take a pill to relax and I might be able to shop more easily, but then I wouldn’t be able to drive home. Breathe deeply. Breathe deeply.

I went quickly to the other side of the store, partially satisfying my urge to run. I managed to pick up the few things I could remember that we needed. Usually I would have had a list on my phone in the order of the aisles of the store just in case. I wasn’t prepared today. I’ve been coping better and then I let my guard down. I completely forgot the jug of cleaner. I didn’t want to even think about going back to that aisle, now I saw it as a dangerous place. Avoidance.

You just wanted to strike up a conversation with the woman in the sweaty yoga clothes that seemed to be trying to decide between the same cleaners as you. Maybe you were lonely. Maybe you were just very friendly. I wish I could wear a sign on my back that says to please not startle me. Please don’t touch me unless I know it is going to happen. Please don’t make loud noises around me. Please don’t stand behind me because I become hyper alert trying to monitor what is going on.

I would love to tell the world I have PTSD so maybe they could understand a little. But if I started a conversation with people about my PTSD I worry that they would want to know why I have it. What awful things happened? I can’t talk to you about it; it isn’t even fully clear in my own head most days. And talking about the stories and the details is triggering—for me, and possibly for you, too. Avoidance—I am sometimes not even sure why I avoid some of the things I do. And avoidance doesn’t just mean that I don’t want to go to some places or talk to some people. It is so much more than that. My brain just works in strange ways—sometimes it lets me see the past in vivid detail, so vivid that I can smell and feel the memories. Other times it locks parts of things away so that I struggle to remember things—maybe even recent things that I’ve done or said. Accept that I have a firm diagnosis, the details of trauma vary from person to person, but the symptoms are similar.

The medications help a lot. But they only work if I can keep a routine, if I continue to practice self-care. Some days I make mistakes or I misjudge what I’m capable of doing. Other times I purposely choose to do too much, it is almost like I just want to be “normal.” Or maybe I want to prove that I can pass for “normal.” Whatever that means. I’m not sure why I was at the club store on a Saturday today, but I was. Your statement from behind me triggered something inside me. And now I will spend the rest of the day trying to recover. Maybe by writing this, someone will read it and understand a little better what is going on when someone else with PTSD in a store gets overwhelmed.