Saturday, July 25, 2009

Bluebeard

*Safety obsession*

You might think that because I was victimized by people I knew, I would not
be concerned with strangers. Well, you would be wrong about that. If my own
family can do that stuff to me, who knows what a stranger is capable of? My
biggest fear is rapists, so I can't live on the first floor of a building,
or house for that matter. I have zero desire to buy a house for that reason,
and because I get anxious in a place that's too big for me know what's going
on. I hate not knowing what's going on. I don't like sitting with my back to
a door. I love my current apartment because I can stand in the hall and see
into all the rooms, and it's on the second floor. I have hyper-vigilance (or
super-alertness) going on, which is a PTSD symptom where you are constantly
on edge, watching for danger. I am fairly obsessed with locking doors. I
always, always check my car doors even though I have the electronic key
thing. I don't trust it. Almost every morning, I start driving away from my
apartment building, and get a bad feeling that I didn't lock the door. (I've
never forgotten to lock the door.) I have to fight the urge to go back to
check.

File this under "control". I see the world as an unpredictable, dangerous
place, so any little thing I can do to reassure myself of some safety is
comforting to me. When the apocalypse comes, that hyper-vigilance will
really come in handy.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just coming in to see how things are going. You're more than a quarter of the way through! Hang in there. :-D

opal said...

Co-workers would always ask me when I was going to buy a house. Never told them the real reason why not. I live on the 2nd floor but still put rods and safety screws in my windows and prop a metal folding chair against the front door at night.