Triggers

I never thought about how important sound and noise were to me until earlier this week I made a random comment to my boyfriend - ‘don’t you love the sound of the lock in the door’. A confused, quizzical expression followed with the response ‘Sound seems to be your favourite sensory organ’.

[for added context for the more curious we have a big, chunky blue door that has the old kind of locks that make a very satisfying ker-plunk noise when you turn the key]

As weird as the phrasing is, this struck me as I have never really thought about sound as something that I have consciously paid attention to; thinking about it more I realised I am constantly making comments about the sound of the rain on window, traffic swooshing through water, the screech of the underground, crackling of fire, or the smell of sleep (if you know then you know). In short, I came to realise how much sound shapes my mood and emotions. And the capital is very noisy.

Yes, this is a statement of the obvious. Obviously in a large city it will be noisy duh?! What I didn’t expect, however, was how much this would affect me. Growing up in the Scottish countryside and then moving to a small Yorkshire town I am accustomed to, and value, the quiet and the safety I find in it. Here I feel like I am being bombarded on all sides.

It may go without saying then that loud, constant noise, especially in an unfamiliar place, can make my very anxious. Earlier this week I was sat in a cafe, at the front of a shopping centre that looks out onto the main street. I was already feeling wobbly (for my definition see below) and the noise of the traffic, the shopping centre and the people pushed me over the edge. I made an emergency exit trying to contain my crying as I walked, head-down back to the flat. I had to be somewhere quiet; my mind was already a melting point of overthinking and anxiety.

Sometimes it just gets to much and the front that you put onto the rest of the world comes crumbling down. As someone who is not very good at telling people when something is wrong I try to preserve an outward façade of calm and positivity to conceal the turmoil beneath - fake it to you make it, right? Unfortunately it doesn’t often, if ever, work. Phoning my mum mid-breakdown she said that she had sensed something wasn’t right before I even did. It takes me until the moment where I burst for me to realise that I’m not feeling ok - all the other signs I try to ignore and hope that, by refusing to acknowledge they are there, they will go away.

[Wobbly: feeling anxious, unsure, overwhelmed and not safe. Also used to describe jelly, dancing, and the occasional cloud]

Podcast recommendation:

• My Dad Wrote A Porno (recommended by KV as a sure fire way to make you laugh)

Song recommendations:

• Bust Your Windows: Jazmine Sullivan

• Will We Talk? :Sam Fender

KF