“There was a power outage at a department store yesterday. Twenty people were trapped on the escalators.” ~ Stephen Wright
Only use stairs in case of emergency. Alarm will sound if door is opened.
Wait wait wait wait. Just wait a second here. What you’re telling me is that if I wanted to use the stairs to go down, I can’t?! But I want that option. How can you expect someone to wait for the elevator without any control on how fast (or slow) it arrives to pick me up. *Then* I have the double whammy of it possibly getting stuck. What if someone has a panic attack. Do they just have to sit there and take it while waiting for the elevator? How do people stand for these rules!!!!
As I got off the elevator on the second floor of 110 Sutter yesterday, these were my thoughts. For me, not having the option of using stairs to go down translates to “i’m trappped”. I’m trapped translates to danger. Danger translates to panic. Panic is bad.
Now I’ve had hundreds of panic attacks and am very familiar with these type of short term panic scenarios. I say short term because I realize that at most, I’m going to wait for a minute until the elevator arrives and escorts me to back to “safety”.
A minute of full blown panic? No problemo. Not knowing how long I’ll have to wait – an unknown time variable? Gran problema! I’m an agoraphobic – I want full control of where I have to be, when, and how. I could theoretically use the emergency escape and make up some story about how why I took such a dramatic route out of the building. But that could potentially land me in bigger trouble. So I’m really stuck to one exit route here.
Oh, so here’s the deal. Just by thinking these things, I’m setting myself up for panic. I’m reinforcing my perception that I’m in a *dangerous* situation and should ready my body for fight or flight. If I just got off the elevator and never even looked at the exits, the chances that I’d panic would be slim to none. But by taking that step, I in a small way validated my fear and went down the agoraphobic path.
Again, these are just thoughts. The reality was that I walked into the tailors office, got my coat taken in a bit, walked out, and waited for a few seconds for the next elevator going down. I was completely calm the entire time.
I have to go back again next week to pick up my coat. I’m looking forward to it. Maybe I’ll panic – hopefully I’ll panic – I need more evidence that panic isn’t dangerous, it just feels bad.
Avoidance Junkie
