Tag Archives: agoraphobia

June 12, 2012

gratitude at the center of the universe

By arlynnpresser

i have had a third dental surgery in less than as many weeks.  the trouble indicator on my car says “low tire”.  i spent yesterday filling a storage facility with all manner of furniture, boxes, musical instruments and paintings.  only to discover that there’s three overflowing closets in the house that i’m just a little unsure about.  my son broke up with his girlfriend and is considering making his way back home–just as home is being packed up and given over to a new owner.

what to do?  what to do?  what to do?

i don’t have an automatic thank you note generator like the presidents of the united states. but i do write a lot of thank you notes. i don’t send them all because some people who are so very good to me would probably get a little creeped out.

you might think that your day is something that happens to you.  the boss man tells you what to do.  your body parts either work or they don’t work.  people do and say things that are sometimes funny, sometimes loving, sometimes utterly irrational.

but i think life is something we can create.  and i guess i think of creation as including thank you’s.  even if the only thing you can say thank you to is the sun for rising in the east, that’s at least one thing that takes you outside of the controlled box and into the pilot’s seat.  sometimes i can’t think of anything except sun and coffee to be thankful for.  that’s all right.  but today i have a lot of things to be thankful for.  including my dentist.  and i will write him a thank you note.  i might toss that thank you note–which will encompass nancy his receptionist and laura his assistant–but i will write it and remember them.  i feel better already!

in 14 days, the presser home will become someone else’s home.  i am happy for the young couple who have purchased this place.  i am excited and just a titch worried about what happens next.  but i took a bike ride on saturday.  i ended up in phillo, illinois which claims as its village motto to be the “center of the universe”.  i wonder if NASA knows about this.  the center of the universe encompasses slightly under a square mile and has a population of 1,400.  its streets are named for presidents and i respect a town that doesn’t forget millard p. fillmore.

some of the people i have met this year have talked about “safe” places and “safe” people.  particularly the people with agoraphobia, post traumatic stress disorder or just general “damn this world is a lot more chaotic and strange than i think i can handle”. . . i think phillo taught me that the center of the universe, and the safest spot in the universe are always with me. . . . unless there are particular circumstances. . . .

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June 3, 2012

twenty three days before this homeless winnetka matron starts selling streetwise. . .

By arlynnpresser

packing up a quarter century of my life.  my ex-husband’s life.  the lives of my sons joseph and eastman.  and my stepchildren david and elisabeth.  the sighs–oh, that’s the second grade workshop project that eastman made me!  the delights–now i know where the hell the cheese grater ended up!  and the self-reproach–really, did i need four sets of dessert plates when i’m an eat the ice cream right out of the container girl?

and what exactly were seventeen of these doing behind the speakers in eastman’s bedroom?

 

life follows us.  and we decide how we mold our experiences.  i can be worried and scared about being twenty three days away from the closing on the house.  i can be excited because i am being given something that not a lot of people my age have–freedom to do exactly as i please untethered by the weight of responsibility to family or real estate.  i can course up and down through the emotional double helix while packing one set of teacups for my stepdaughter elisabeth.

is there something you’re enduring that you’re not too happy with?  what if you turned it upside down and looked at it as a blessing?  i’m not asking you to change your mind about it.  just two or three moments of thinking “i’m really happy that. . . .”  i’m not convinced i’m all that good at it–and my balloons are still stuck to the telephone wires.

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May 25, 2012

not completely abnormal and the thirteenth tooth.

By arlynnpresser

i was supposed to see two facebook friends today but my teeth got in the way.  specifically the thirteenth tooth.  it cracked open in the middle of the night and, eight advil later, i was sitting on the sidewalk outside my dentist’s office waiting for somebody, anybody to show up for work.

some reflexologists and traditional medicine professionals believe that the large intestines and the lung meridians of the body affect teeth 4, 5, 12 and 13 of the upper jaw. so a disturbance in the thirteenth tooth could be a warning of lung, intestinal, pituitary, and thymus gland problems! i just thought the side of my face was exploding with pain!

 

my dentist said “aren’t you glad this didn’t happen when you were out meeting facebook friends in another country?”  and i think i agree although one thing i found through this journey of meeting all my facebook friends is they have been nearly uniform in their hospitality.  i’m sure if i had been in taiwan, facebook friend warner sills would have found me an endodontist.  that’s a fancy pants name for “person who can get rid of that pain that starts in one tooth and makes you want to rip the side of your face off and wear a mask like that dude in phantom of the opera”.

my dentist sent me posthaste to dr. trina, endodontrial genius and then he called their office to make sure i showed up.  he’s not dumb, my dentist.

a root canal is no fun, particularly when the only drugs you’re getting make you feel as if your face has just ballooned out to the size of a small townhouse.  in the course of the surgery, dr. trina discovered that i have not one but two roots in my thirteenth tooth.  this, she declared, was “not completely abnormal.”

she told me the surgery would take two hours.  she wasn’t inclined towards vicodin, codeine, laughing gas, or even a small martini.   she’s into natural childbirth, natural appendectomy, and natural root canal.  i was on my own.  well, not on my own:  trina had both hands and several surgical instruments in my mouth and an assistant kim who occasionally took a jab at me.  i worried that one or another swab, finger, needle, scapel or drillbit would go down my throat.

i have a number of facebook friends with post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, agoraphobia, ms, fibromyalgia:  some of them have complained about the state of their own teeth.  after all, most dentists don’t do house calls.  and most of these friends are pretty terrified of dentists.

dwayne johnson, aka the rock, starred in the 2010 blockbuster “the tooth fairy” along with the dazzling cast including ashley judd, julie andrews, and stephen merchant. it was a poignant commentary on our belief that after the pain of teeth extraction we should get a reward. what i got was a bill for one thousand smackers and an ibuprofen because dr. trina said in a few hours i was definitely going to feel it.

 

i felt trapped in the chair, trapped by the topical anesthetic, trapped by the pain that the root canal was supposed to cure.  and two hours in a dental chair? trapped, trapped, trapped.

then i remembered the point of the williamsburg bridge experience in which i tried to get to facebook friend #317 michele piersiak who lives in staten island.  i was in brooklyn and mr. mapquest said “walk over that bridge.”  i hadn’t known i was scared of expansion bridges strung up over three lane highways and hundreds of feet above the water.  but once i was in, i had to figure out how to get myself across.  saying thank you helped.  i said thank you to just about everybody and everything on the williamsburg bridge.  i was a blubbering thank you, sobbing, red-faced thank you note.

and i did the same at dr. trina’s office.  i started thinking about how she had spent four years in college, three years at dental school, and another two years in specialized training for endodontics . . .  all so she could stick her hand and her drills into my teeth.  all so she could say that my double rooted tooth number thirteen was “not completely abnormal”. . . . obviously i couldn’t say “thank you thank you” out loud but suddenly, i really DID feel grateful for all that work she put in at school so that she could get rid of the pain.  of course, i’m writing this while my mouth is still just a little bit numb.  supposedly, in an hour or so i’m going to begin a long, dark night of the soul.

but i’ll take not completely abnormal.  not a bad title for the rest of me.

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May 11, 2012

mr. de niro, can you hear me? f2fb friend #317 would love to hear from you!

By arlynnpresser

mapquest said it was going to take me four hours and forty seven minutes to get to f2fb friend #317 if i walked and i just couldn’t believe that a city could be that big.   i also couldn’t believe that the funny, witty, supportive, beautiful facebook friend michele piersiak was housebound.  i figured she’d meet me at the ferry station in staten island.  or that she’d catch me at one of the places downtown.

i was wrong.  well, i wasn’t wrong about her being funny, witty, supportive, and beautiful.  that was definitely the woman who answered the door of the house near forest avenue.  but she is (was) housebound.  for about a year and a half her world consists of reading, the treadmill, dvd’s,  the computer that sits next to the couch in the living room, caring for her pets and keeping a house for her and her boyfriend.

stewie is a caped dragon lizard. she may be very lovely to other caped dragons, but i didn’t find her all that attractive. in fact, i got sort of nervous when michele took her out of the cage. after all, who’s to say that caped dragon lizards want a little fifty one year old human flesh after a regular diet of crickets?

michele can sometimes leave the house for brief periods with her “safe” people–her boyfriend, her parents, her sister.  but by herself, she doesn’t even try to check the mail on the curb.  it’s been this way for a few years but was exacerbated when she lost her job.  i’ve noticed a lot of my agoraphobe friends have a major shift inward when there’s a job loss.  and with eight percent official unemployment, i think there’s a hidden group of people that is affected.

michele wakes up every day mad at herself and sad that she is in this condition.  the couch is starting to feel old.  even playing xbox is feeling pretty old.  for me, since i’ve never done it, i thought it was a kick!

this is not wasted time. well, it’s wasting time for me to be bowling on xbox (and nobody should have to witness me trying to play golf!).  but it isn’t a wasted year for michele to have been housebound for a year and some months.  every day has increased her understanding and sympathy for those who are afflicted with panic attacks, agoraphobia, post traumatic stress disorder, ms, etc.  she has a major goal of someday being someone who helps those people.  i think she definitely has something to offer the world in that respect.  she already has helped–for instance, she set up a group of ten people from around the country who set a goal of walking around the block.  at a prearranged time, everybody got on a conference call with their cell phones and walked around their respective blocks together!  isn’t that an amazing use of technology and an amazing creative idea?

she also has a minor goal.  and it’s something tantalizingly out of reach and will require her to do some work.  some planning.  some practicing.  and it will need YOU!  but i’ll get there.

i was insanely honored that michele let me be a “safe” person for the day. we walked to her boyfriend’s place of employment (man, he was a little freaked out by that!) and then we pushed the boundaries a little further. we saw a house that had a three foot wide, five foot tall shrine out front. i like it when people of all faiths feel good about presenting their beliefs to the world!

so the minor goal, an interim goal if you will, is that michele would like to dine at the robert de niro restaurant laconda verde at 377 greenwich street in new york.  it would require driving to the staten island ferry, taking the ferry into the city, a cab or bus ride, then being in the restaurant and actually staying long enough to eat and then to return home.  to michele it seems out of reach.  but the day after i left staten island, she went on several walks with her parents and her sister, pushing herself a little more than usual, to get a few blocks outside of the “safe” zone.  she has made a deal with me that if i return to new york she will go with me to the restaurant.

mr. de niro, i’m betting the prices at your restaurant are a bit dear. but i’m sure if you’re half as good at cooking as you are at acting, the food’s great! michele probably would also like just to shake your hand. to meet you and say “thank you for motivating me to change myself!”

so this is where YOU come in.  if you know mr. de niro or if you know someone in the restaurant industry, if you know someone in new york, i think a gift certificate to laconda or a menu from the place, a message from de niro — even just an autographed picture — would do the world at motivating michele.  and once she achieves the minor goal, she will know that the major one is, okay, just a little harder but perfectly doable.  and that’s the one that helps everybody!

so i’m happy to hear from YOU about whatever you come up with for ideas or inspiration or maybe mr. de niro, if you’re reading this blog???

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May 10, 2012

panic at williamsburg bridge!

By arlynnpresser

mapquest said it would take me four hours and forty seven minutes.  a fourteen mile walk punctuated by a five mile ferry ride to see f2fb friend #317 michele piersiak.  i sometimes do an eight mile walk around the perimeter of winnetka, so i figured it couldn’t be that bad.

oh how wrong i was.  my theory about new yorkers is that they do fifty three terrifying things and that’s before they get to work.  i didn’t expect to be scared in quite this way.

the williamsburg bridge is the seventy-fifth longest suspension bridge in the world, which makes any american immediately say “pshaw! there are seventy four others that are much tougher!”  still, i got stuck along the 1600 span that towered over the water.  i couldn’t move forward and couldn’t move back.  this happened three times.  each time, i had a vision of me being the homeless chick who lives on the williamsburg bridge, unwilling to leave or to move.  accepting handouts and generally letting personal hygiene take a backseat.  i’d be an object of pity, scorn, and perhaps curiosity.  i’d feed pigeons.  i would have several pet rats who would be attracted by my pungent body odor.  i’d lash myself to the bridge during storms.  i’d lose my cell phone!

i had to get unstuck.  i was so scared my feet had fallen asleep and if i didn’t get moving the legs would be the next to go.  i started saying thank you.  thank you to the rain.  thank you to the shoes i was wearing.  thank you to the guy who had helped when the mapquest directions were just a bit . . . off.  thank you even to mapquest.  i said thank you to my facebook friends, pausing only briefly as i realized the reason i was going across the bridge was to meet f2fb friend #317 who had introduced herself on facebook.  i thanked american airlines for getting me to new york.  i thanked whoever built the bridge (later i learned construction on the bridge began i n1896 with henry hornsbotal as the chief architect and leffert buck as his engineer)

as i approached the end of the bridge i felt an odd exhileration.  and it wasn’t just relief.  it was a sense that i was buoyed up by all the people i had thanked, even by henry and leffert although at that point i didn’t know their names.

and i got off that bridge and found the staten island ferry . . . thanks to five different new yorkers who made me think that new yorkers are the friendliest people on earth!  i thank them too!

i didn’t expect to get choked up by the staue of liberty, so i sat on the side of the ferry that does not get the view of the statue.  but as we approached, i couldn’t help myself.  statue of liberty, dollface, i’m grateful to you!

and so i was wrong.  it could be that bad.  and yet, it also could be wonderful!

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May 7, 2012

am i ready for new york?

By arlynnpresser

this morning, murphy my always and forever cab driver picked me up for the ride to the airport.  i had some exciting news for him.

well, maybe we’re going to have to work on our domestic bliss!  i told murphy i was off to see facebook friends in new york–and he wished me luck and took down my flight information so he could meet me upon my return.

one of the most common things for agoraphobes to do is to want to remain in their “safe” place.  that’s mostly their house, but sometimes it includes other places.  in the past, my “safe” place has, at its best, included my house, downtown winnetka, my kids’ schools, and the place where i climb on a stairmaster in the vainglorious hope that i shall look like elle mcpherson one day.  at its worst, my safe place has been my bedroom.  even the walk across the hall to the bathroom seemed iffy.

but last year, meeting my facebook friends in america and abroad, i have learned to make the safe place wherever i am.  it’s a discipline i have to remember every time i go out.  and sometimes it just doesn’t work.  i had three housebound days this week and i was really worried that i wouldn’t get to the airport.  the airport was crowding because a stormline was coming in and flights were being delayed, canceled, bumped.  i aimed for the nearest bar.

an airport bar is actually a great place to create a safe zone.  forget about those big planes outside the window, forget about the people rushing back and forth, forget about the announcements, just find the place nearest your gate and pretend you’re in your own neighborhood.  amongst friends. ..

 

look!  even mr. clark is making friends!  mr. william clark, as you know is the nineteenth century explorer best known for his travels (1803-1806) through the northwest with merriweather lewis — also known as the lewis and clark expedition.  clark died in 1838 but oddly, he has a facebook profile page, posts daily accounts of his travels and is my facebook friend (f2fb friend #60).  his biographer lanny jones (f2fb friend #59) sent me a Clark doll to remind me to explore fearlessly.  looks like clark’s doing a little exploring of his own. . .

mr. clark getting cozy with a teddy bear who was going home to new york with another traveler. i carry my william clark doll in my bag every flight i take and the back seat of my car? looks like a damn toys r’ us!

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May 5, 2012

batter up! aubrey huff has his days too!

By arlynnpresser

this post, i thought i’d share someone else’s experience:

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Aubrey Huff opens up about his anxiety attacks

Description: http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2012/05/04/sp-huff05_PH1_SFC0110613903_part6.jpgDescription: http://imgs.sfgate.com/graphics/article/articlebox_img_bg.gif

Stephen Lam / Special to The Chronicle

Aubrey Huff says his first panic attack lasted for eight hours.

 

Aubrey Huff was standing in his New York hotel room at 5 o’clock in the morning in the early stages of what would be an eight-hour panic attack. The Giants were to play a doubleheader against the Mets that afternoon and evening. Baseball was the last thing on Huff’s mind.

“I couldn’t breathe,” Huff recalled. “I felt I was taking short breaths. Right then and there I thought I was having a heart attack. I told myself, ‘I’ll be damned if I’m going to be sitting in this hotel room and die of a heart attack. I’ve got to get out of here.’ ”

And so he did, starting the odyssey of a ballplayer who left the Giants two weeks ago to go home to Florida, where he had a second panic attack one day later and, finally, after insisting to the team that he had a “family emergency,” phoned trainers and described what really happened.

Huff told his story for the first time Friday in a 20-minute conversation with The Chronicle at AT&T Park. He returned to San Francisco a week ago to work out with teammates and, for the first time in his life, see a mental health professional. He expects to resume playing in Los Angeles on Monday night, when he is eligible to come off the disabled list.

“Obviously I’ve been seeing somebody here in town to kind of work out some of these issues,” Huff said. “It took everything I could to get up here from Tampa after I freaked out, if you will. But since I got here I’ve been fine.”

Tough years

Huff, a 35-year-old who has played in the majors for 13 seasons, has had a difficult life. His father was murdered in Texas when he was 6. He acknowledged Friday that he has had marital problems that he caused and other issues in the past 2 1/2 years. His poor play in 2011 has weighed on him, too.

But Huff does not have the answer that he, his loved ones and many fans are seeking: Why a player known for his joie de vivre and goofy demeanor was so panic-stricken on the morning of April 23 that he left his team and flew home without permission. That’s not done, and it was a decision that he said would seem “dumb” to a right-thinking person but logical to him at the time.

“Where this panic attack came from, I don’t know,” he said. “All I know is it was there. I can’t explain it. I almost wish I had broken my leg than had that. I can control that. I know what’s happening. This, I didn’t know what was happening. You can’t control it. It’s scary.”

Moved to second

Two days before, the Giants had lost to the Mets at Citi Field after manager Bruce Bochy asked Huff to play second base, for the first time in his career, in the ninth inning. He made a mistake that contributed to the 5-4 defeat.

The next day’s game was rained out, with a doubleheader scheduled for Monday before the team flew to Cincinnati.

That morning, Huff recalled, he woke at 3 o’clock to go to the bathroom, and that’s when it began.

He tossed and turned, unable to sleep, his mind racing with thoughts of struggles on and off the field. At 5 a.m. he decided to get up.

“I open the window and see the New York skyline,” he said. “The sun is starting to come up. I see all the huge buildings. I just freaked out. I don’t know what happened. I couldn’t figure out what it was. The room felt like it was getting smaller, a claustrophobic feeling. I couldn’t control one thought in my head. There were so many thoughts going through.”

Got to get home

His overriding thought, “If I’m going to die of a heart attack, I’m going to at least try to get home.”

Huff packed, put on a suit and took a cab to the airport, where he bought a ticket for Tampa and lay along a wall at the gate, crouched on his bag, comforted by having other people around who could help him if he lost consciousness.

“I was shaking, sweating,” he said. “I was telling myself, ‘Just get on the plane. Just get on the plane.’

Aboard the regional jet, Huff turned the air vent on full blast and spent the entire flight, still panicked, with his suit coat over his head, wondering if he should write a note to his family in case he died on the plane.
Somehow, the pilot’s voice announcing the landing at Tampa finally calmed him, eight hours after the episode had begun. He went home and surprised his wife, Barbara, who thought Huff was joking when he texted he was coming home.

Huff even thought to himself, “What the heck am I doing in Tampa?”

He slept “like a rock” that day, figured it was a one-time episode and booked a flight to Cincinnati the next day to rejoin the team. He planned to stick with the “family emergency” line and hope nobody would be the wiser.

It happens again

However, when the Town Car driver rang his doorbell the next morning, Huff had another panic attack and stayed home. After lying in bed a short while he felt better and thought to himself, “This is ridiculous. I’ve got to call the trainers back.”

Huff finally told the team what happened and was referred to a doctor in Florida who prescribed medication that he continues to take. In San Francisco, he has seen a therapist twice, 90 minutes each time, and has his phone number in case of an emergency.

He has not had to use it.

“Since I’ve been here I’ve had good days and bad days,” he said. “Today’s a great day. Yesterday was a good day. The day before was crappy. I didn’t panic, but I felt a little overwhelmed, a little not normal. All in all, seeing this guy I’m seeing has really helped me.”

Family support

Huff’s wife and children remain his support network and are in San Francisco. Although she filed for divorce in January, he said the proceedings have been “pushed back” and they plan to stay together.

“Having gone through this is weird, because everything in my personal life has gotten better in the last four or five months,” he said. “I did get served, but the last three or four months my family life has been better.

“She’s been there for me since Day One. I’ve put her through so much crap. She’s an amazing woman, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to make her happy.

“For me, the last three years, especially during the World Series, I’ve given my heart and soul to baseball. It seems like sometimes my personal life with my family, I haven’t given as much to them as I have to baseball.”

Huff hopes the help he has gotten and the stress he has released will help him relax more on the field and play better. He also acknowledged a newfound appreciation for people with mental illness.

“To be honest with you, I was always taught that people who had anxiety issues were just weak-minded people,” he said. “Now that it’s happened to me, you see you can’t control it. To people this has happened to, there’s nothing you can say or do on the outside to make somebody feel better because they haven’t experienced it.”

Henry Schulman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.

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May 3, 2012

dr. drew, we’d like a house call please. oh, no, we’ll just take care of it ourselves!

By arlynnpresser

a few months ago i was on the dr. drew show.  i was asked to talk about my new years resolution to meet all of my 325 facebook friends.  it was a resolution i made at the beginning of 2011 and i fulfilled it.  this year, i’ve expanded it to include facebook friends i’ve met since then!

i don’t watch a lot of television so when the producer from dr. drew called, i kept visualizing dr. phil who is a protege of oprah. then when dr. drew was described to me, i got him confused with anderson cooper. really, they should have baseball cards for television dudes.

 

i dutifully arrived at the chicago cnn studio at eight o’clock on a friday night.  there were exactly two people in the office — and eight desks.  it’s really that small.  the cameraman hooked me up to a microphone up under my dress and a n earpiece up under my sleeve.  with the earpiece i could hear the show being taped in los angeles.  in front of me was a camera.  behind me was a fake skyline of chicago to make it look like i was in front of a window.

i don’t wear a lot of makeup except mascara and i can out-kardashian anybody on that black stuff. but the makeup/hair lady for dr. drew really shellaced me to get the “natural” look. then she chastised me for touching my face or hair.

 

i was seated there for an hour and a half while dr. drew taped segments and took breaks and did whatever.  i could hear everything because of my earpiece.  couldn’t see anything because the only thing in front of me was a black camera lens.

and i got antsy.  i got nervous.  i wanted out.  i felt trapped, like the microphone and earpiece wires were chains.  like my skin was on fire.  like my lungs were collapsing.  the hives were so red they showed through the inches thick makeup.  the cameraman and makeup artist knew each other and were gossiping in the hall.  but i was told to stay in my seat.  i thought. . .

I’M GOING TO BE THE FIRST PERSON TO HAVE AN ON-AIR HEART ATTACK ON THE DR. DREW SHOW!!!

and i sort of understand something about people with agoraphobia that other people might not understand:  there is no understanding by the medical community about how to treat this stuff.  we don’t have house calls from doctors.  we don’t have social workers who will really commit to treating progressively from phone calls to house calls, to guided visits.  we have family who says “why don’t you just try harder?”  we have friends who can’t understand what the difference is between the safety of the house and the complete terrifying chaos of the sidewalk.

that’s why a lot of agoraphobics, such as myself, are self treated.  i decided, win or lose, anxiety attack or not, disaster or success,  i would meet all three hundred twenty five of my facebook friends.  cured?  hardly.  i have my days.  i have my weeks.

one of my facebook friends, brandon, lives in los angeles and went through a period of complete agoraphobia.  he understands.  and together, we’ve got something to help out our fellow survivors.

if you are an agoraphobic, someone with panic attacks, or someone who is familiar with someone of this nature, what would you like to see to help???

bestest, arlynn

p.s. i didn’t have a heart attack on the dr. drew show.  i don’t think i was on the show for more than thirty seconds.  the “expert” guest said that my facebook adventure was “dangerous” because people with panic attacks should rely on a professional.  by that time at night, my opinion of professionals was . . . oh, shoot, i shouldn’t use bad words, should i?

 

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April 26, 2012

the homeless agoraphobic

By arlynnpresser

the ex-husband and i edge closer to a house sale.  we have come to an agreement with the buyers on price and they’re doing an inspection with their contractor on monday.  tentatively, we’re closing on june 28.  that’s when i become homeless, but in a very nice way.   it’s not like i’m going to be roaming the streets asking people for spare change and telling them i’m an injured war veteran with six kids to support.

nope, we’re going to rename this blog THE HOMELESS AGORAPHOBIC and figure out what to do with the rest of this life.

nonetheless, it’s difficult as someone who has regarded this as my safe place to know it’s not my safe place anymore.

until i was three years old, i lived with my parents justin and aleta. they put up for adoption and the patrick family of western springs took me in. they immediately had me baptized in the methodist faith. this picture was from that happy sunday. my older sister sandra had also adopted by the patrick family. justin and aleta divorced about a year afterwards. i wasn't reunited with them until i was twenty five.

it’s impossible to hide from a three year old that they have been adopted and that they’re sporting new parents.  my name was changed to lynn melody patrick.  i wasn’t allowed to keep anything justin and aleta may have sent with me.  i was in a new place.  and i had new people to call mom and dad.

sometimes i think agoraphobia is the outsized desire to have the world be safe, manageable and unchanging.  weirdly, the world never is.

mrs. jewell patrick was a beautiful woman who was unable to bear children because of a hysterectomy when she was seventeen. she was quite a disciplinarian, sometimes locking me up in the basement or in a closet for misdeeds. then there was the belt. . . .but i started to be cool with being locked up if i could read a book. i think this is why i'm literate, not the public school system.

 

i ran away from home when i was in my early teens.  i was very proud that i could pack everything i owned in a single hefty garbage back.  i still have some of the books that i took with me.  later, i was placed in different foster homes.  again, it was a good skill to be able to keep all of one’s possessions in a tight space and be able to pack at a moment’s notice.

denise was one of my foster sisters. we exchanged class pictures and i keep hers--well, all of my foster sisters and one brother who is now a sister--in my safety deposit box. denise later became a police officer!

maybe last year was a blessing:  i spent so much time in airplanes, trains, hotels, automobiles, on the road, in the air, at the terminal, standing in line at customs, standing in line at security, that i’m going to be okay about this dislocation.

holly was the most beautiful foster sister i had. when i was in the same home as she was, peter frampton had just come out with his first album. holly would sit in a rocking chair, smoking cigarettes and listening to that album over and over and over again. . . if i ever see mr. frampton, i will implore him to not sing in my presence. it was just too much frampton, too much "do you feel like i do?" oh, shoot, now i'm not going to get that song out of my head. thanks a lot, holly!

 

my biological mother aleta did not appreciate having me find her when i was twenty five.  this was before facebook, before the internet,  jeez, i had to hire a private detective.  she didn’t want me in her life.  not when i was three years old.  not when i was twenty five years old.  and frankly. . . not now either.

i found out several months ago that aleta has a facebook account. i sent her a friendship request and a message telling her that she has two grandsons--joseph and eastman. ixnay.

 

in the meantime, i hope you’re looking up 572 lincoln avenue winnetka illinois on mapquest and thinking about a new or gently used children’s book you want to bring to the face 2 facebook party on saturday night.  starts at five o’clock, courtesy of arthur frank the owner, and concludes at eight.  i’ll be unveiling the new i-book “face 2 facebook”. . . .the first three chapters are free to you!  and if you’re a blogger or a writer–this is the future of how books can be constructed — can’t wait to see you there!

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April 19, 2012

uh oh, some stupid risks i take and that phone app

By arlynnpresser

mr. anonymous (the 314th facebook friend i’ve met since starting this new year’s resolution) was a bit nervous about meeting me.  well, i can assure him that i was nervous too!  it’s hard to meet someone for the first time and as i drove up to his house (thank you gps!) i had a bit of the acid reflux heart fluttering red hives on my face anxiety going.

i ordinarily never visit someone i’ve not met before in their home.  it’s a safety issue.  but there wasn’t any choice because mr. 314 hasn’t left his house much in the past two years.  he’s able to sometimes go to his father’s house (a few blocks away) and to his church (a little further than that).  earlier this year, when he needed to travel six miles to get his drivers’ license renewed, i was so happy for him. he felt like it was an ordeal.

a couple of years ago, he quit his job because of anxiety attacks that persisted no matter what he tried.  then the “safe zone” got smaller and smaller.  his doctor put him on 25 mg. of zoloft.  when he went back for an appointment and said “this isn’t making things any better” the doctor said “let’s try 50 mg”. . .  it’s become even more painful because his wife has just this past week announced that she has filed for a divorce.  his doctor has upped the ante on zoloft, putting him on a prescription for 100 mg.  there is no way that his next few months are going to be easy.

i just wish there was a way to make sure this man knows that he’s not alone.  even when he’s in his house by himself, he’s basically got friends–okay, sometimes they’re “just” facebook friends–who know what he’s going through because they’ve been there too.  i sort of wanted to say that and i’m not sure i was completely successful. . .

i did ask an enormous favor of mr. 314. a phone app and video developer from los angeles has been working on an app to help agoraphobics.  i put the two of them on the phone together.  i hope mr. 314 will agree to be the first tester of this app!

what qualities would you want if your phone could help you get out of the house?  i know mine better say “put that damn flip camera down and drive!”

 

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