Locked up
How quickly fear can change your perspective. It drops on you from nowhere like a thick prickly blanket. The more you try to pull it off your head, the more entangled in its dark folds you become; you can’t see, and it feels as if its dusty fibres are filtering the oxygen out of the air. Panic shoots through you like an electric shock.
I have always had a healthy distrust of anything fully automatic. Perhaps it’s because I don’t like to relinquish control. Yes, that’s it. I like to be in control. It unnerves me when I’m not in control of my own circumstances.
Like before my back surgery, when I lost it – my control, my composure and my nerve – just before being wheeled into the operating theatre. They’d forgotten the pre-meds, the nurse on the ward had told me. I didn’t know what pr-meds were. But they had forgotten them. And so just as my bed was lined up to push through the swing doors, my mood swung off the scale; the reality of the impending procedure became suddenly too frightening and I succumbed to panic and tears.
It's not much better on planes. You give over your control to the pilot. When I fly I have a private battle with a sort of claustrophobia mixed with a straight-out fear of crashing. It’s something I manage to deal with through talking myself into trusting that the pilot knows what he’s doing and eating a whole packet of Minties, focussing on the little cartoons on the wrappers during take-offs and landings.
I don’t like fully automatic cameras because you can’t control the focus or the aperture. Since relegating my old film-loaded SLR camera to the back of the cupboard for the convenience of the digital image, my photography has become dull and ordinary. One day, when my maintenance-hungry house stops sucking my savings I might indulge in a digital SLR – with a manual option.
Even my front-loading washing machine, once I’ve committed to a wash cycle and pressed start, will not let me open the door if I find a forgotten sock at the bottom of the laundry basket.
I don’t like it when I’m not in control. I don’t like the feeling of helplessness. And it is frustrating when fully automatic appliances break down, as they inevitably do.
So, the other day, when I press the button to release me from the confines of an automated public toilet, and nothing happens, I should be prepared for my reaction. But I’m not. My mood changes from one of vexatious resignation at having to use a public toilet, to one of raw fear – in a nanosecond. At the touch of a button.
I’ve been entertained by piped music, had soap and water automatically dispensed to wash my hands – which signals the toilet to flush! – and feeling relatively happy that the only item I need to touch in such a potentially germ-laiden environment is the button to open the door. Which fails to function.
I am trapped.
Panic locks onto my throat and begins to squeeze. The sign on the wall says to open the door manually if the power fails. I pull with all my strength but the door won’t budge. And besides, the power hasn’t failed. The power is actually stopping me from opening the door.
Another sign says the door will open automatically in ten minutes. How many minutes have I been? What if it doesn’t open automatically in ten minutes?
The music pipes away merrily while the walls begin to take on a different feel to when I first arrived. They become the walls of my cell. My suddenly claustrophobic cell. And it is alarming to notice the rapid rate at which my panic is rising.
I yell at the top of my voice to my friend, outside, minding my dog. Hopefully she hasn’t wandered too far away. No response. I yell again, louder, this time. I note a hint of hysteria. A voice casually comes back, ‘Yes?’
‘The door won’t open,’ I shout to her.
Nothing.
‘I can’t get out,’ I scream. ‘Did you hear me?’
‘I heard you,’ she says. She’s too calm.
‘The button won’t work and I can’t open the door manually. I’m stuck in here.’
‘Okay.’
Okay? Doesn’t she understand the direness of this situation? ‘I’m locked in here. I can’t get out!’ Maybe different terminology will help her to acknowledge a bit of the gravitas of this.
‘Press the button again.’
‘I’ve pressed the button about sixty times. I can’t get out!’ Her casual attitude is adding to my anxiety.
Suddenly the music stops and the door opens. The ten minutes must have ticked over. From the outside the red engaged sign has turned to green and my friend has pressed the button from her side.
I walk out a free woman.
And vow never to use one of those toilets again.
Unless I have a crowbar in my handbag.
I have always had a healthy distrust of anything fully automatic. Perhaps it’s because I don’t like to relinquish control. Yes, that’s it. I like to be in control. It unnerves me when I’m not in control of my own circumstances.
Like before my back surgery, when I lost it – my control, my composure and my nerve – just before being wheeled into the operating theatre. They’d forgotten the pre-meds, the nurse on the ward had told me. I didn’t know what pr-meds were. But they had forgotten them. And so just as my bed was lined up to push through the swing doors, my mood swung off the scale; the reality of the impending procedure became suddenly too frightening and I succumbed to panic and tears.
It's not much better on planes. You give over your control to the pilot. When I fly I have a private battle with a sort of claustrophobia mixed with a straight-out fear of crashing. It’s something I manage to deal with through talking myself into trusting that the pilot knows what he’s doing and eating a whole packet of Minties, focussing on the little cartoons on the wrappers during take-offs and landings.
I don’t like fully automatic cameras because you can’t control the focus or the aperture. Since relegating my old film-loaded SLR camera to the back of the cupboard for the convenience of the digital image, my photography has become dull and ordinary. One day, when my maintenance-hungry house stops sucking my savings I might indulge in a digital SLR – with a manual option.
Even my front-loading washing machine, once I’ve committed to a wash cycle and pressed start, will not let me open the door if I find a forgotten sock at the bottom of the laundry basket.
I don’t like it when I’m not in control. I don’t like the feeling of helplessness. And it is frustrating when fully automatic appliances break down, as they inevitably do.
So, the other day, when I press the button to release me from the confines of an automated public toilet, and nothing happens, I should be prepared for my reaction. But I’m not. My mood changes from one of vexatious resignation at having to use a public toilet, to one of raw fear – in a nanosecond. At the touch of a button.
I’ve been entertained by piped music, had soap and water automatically dispensed to wash my hands – which signals the toilet to flush! – and feeling relatively happy that the only item I need to touch in such a potentially germ-laiden environment is the button to open the door. Which fails to function.
I am trapped.
Panic locks onto my throat and begins to squeeze. The sign on the wall says to open the door manually if the power fails. I pull with all my strength but the door won’t budge. And besides, the power hasn’t failed. The power is actually stopping me from opening the door.
Another sign says the door will open automatically in ten minutes. How many minutes have I been? What if it doesn’t open automatically in ten minutes?
The music pipes away merrily while the walls begin to take on a different feel to when I first arrived. They become the walls of my cell. My suddenly claustrophobic cell. And it is alarming to notice the rapid rate at which my panic is rising.
I yell at the top of my voice to my friend, outside, minding my dog. Hopefully she hasn’t wandered too far away. No response. I yell again, louder, this time. I note a hint of hysteria. A voice casually comes back, ‘Yes?’
‘The door won’t open,’ I shout to her.
Nothing.
‘I can’t get out,’ I scream. ‘Did you hear me?’
‘I heard you,’ she says. She’s too calm.
‘The button won’t work and I can’t open the door manually. I’m stuck in here.’
‘Okay.’
Okay? Doesn’t she understand the direness of this situation? ‘I’m locked in here. I can’t get out!’ Maybe different terminology will help her to acknowledge a bit of the gravitas of this.
‘Press the button again.’
‘I’ve pressed the button about sixty times. I can’t get out!’ Her casual attitude is adding to my anxiety.
Suddenly the music stops and the door opens. The ten minutes must have ticked over. From the outside the red engaged sign has turned to green and my friend has pressed the button from her side.
I walk out a free woman.
And vow never to use one of those toilets again.
Unless I have a crowbar in my handbag.
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