Think of that time an old truck drove past spewing exhaust fumes from a broken tailpipe. Remember the black smoke billowing around your face, noxious half-burned hydrocarbons flooding your nose and stinging your eyes. How you choked and held your breath until it was gone. How when it had passed you waved the fug away with your hand and bent over coughing out the remnants, tears streaming down your cheeks.
Think of that time you stood watching a jet liner take off. Remember the roar of the engines as it taxied into position, how they spooled up louder and louder before the plane started to move. How it screamed down the runway vibrating the windows and shaking the floor. How it overpowered all other sounds, until you covered your ears with your hands to block out the assault. How your ears still rang once it was gone.
Think of that fight the neighbors had, where you could hear them screaming at each other even through two solid walls. Remember the recriminations they hurled, the thrusts at each other’s greatest weaknesses, reviving all accusations of past failures. How raw anger surged, and unreasoning hatred, and bitter tears. Remember how you shrank from the violence and cowered, helpless to fend off the poisonous emotions. How you kept wishing it would end, and how deflated and defeated you felt when a door finally slammed and only sobbing remained.
Think of that night, those many nights, you spent sleepless, as self-recrimination filled your mind to the exclusion of all else. Remember how you relived the mistake over and over, how the shame of it clutched at your heart, and you knew you would never live it down. How all the many futile “if onlys” and “should haves” only made it worse. How you came to the end of it, only to pick it up from the beginning again. How exhausted unconsciousness, when it came, provided neither rest nor release.
Now imagine yourself so sensitive that any faint scent of fragrance or odor of cooking or cleaning detergent or chemical triggers the same reaction as that truck’s exhaust. That the sound of distant traffic is as overwhelming as that jet plane taking off. That you react to mild cross or unkind words just as strongly as to that neighbors’ fierce altercation. That you question and revisit at night every single social interaction that took place during the day. Imagine the constant stress and pain of such a life. Imagine the fatigue and the energy needed to simply survive. Imagine this life continuing day after day, month after month, year after year with no prospect of relief. Imagine the mounting helplessness and hopelessness you would feel.
What strength of character would it take to keep your positive and optimistic spirit? To be understanding and sympathetic and kind, knowing others face their own unique issues. To bear with good nature the well-intentioned advice of oblivious friends (and therapists), when you’ve already explored and exhausted their every naive suggestion to cope.
Could you work at a job like others do? Could you have a relationship like others do? Could you plan for any kind of future, as others do?
Where would you go for sanctuary?
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