I’m typing away on my computer, toggling between two screens as I move one bit of data to the other when my brain explodes. A shrieking noise flashes in the hallway and I am down, holding my ears as my head rocks side to side and my left side seizes up. As the circuitry in my brain is going ape-shit, there is a part of me that knows it was just a fire alarm. There is a part of me that knows I am safe. There is a part of me that also just got the shit scared out of me and can’t process much beyond that. Someone comes into my office. Someone leaves my office. Someone puts their hand gently on my shoulder and is talking to me.
I try and listen. I try and process what’s being said. “Shut off phone,” I get out in my stuttered speech, as the thunderous voice of Florence and the Machine is just too much as my nerve endings are nuked.
The phone disappears and so too does the person.
The person returns and pushes tissues under my shaking head. Ah. Tears. And I actually put on makeup today! Not that it matters yet. My head hasn’t slowed it’s rocking and I can’t release my hands from protecting my ears.
When I get a break, I realize it’s my pal from across the hall. She is telling me, “That’s right, calm down.” This isn’t her first rodeo with me. “That wasn’t supposed to happen until 1PM.” And yet in my mind I’m already so angry. I’m so angry that I had to sit through a test, that my brain hurts, I’m exhausted now, and can feel the after math as I slowly begin to slump into a bit of a brain-haze, half awake self.
“Need coffee.”
Still can’t talk fully. I take my heavy self out of my chair, jerkily walk over to where we store the coffee, my pal joining me, and make it to where my cup is cleaned out before wave two hits.
Fight or flight they say are ones choices when the nervous system takes over.
I’m under my desk, responding to my instinct to hide, head thrashing against the wood backing, leg spazzing, anger being the second emotion to the panic.
I can hear my pal looking for me, but I can no longer talk and really have to use whatever I can to try and prevent my head from smacking the wall, and try and calm my brain. My boss boss calls during this, and I have to use hand thumbs up or downs to answer his yes or no questions. I stutter out fire alarm and I see the empathy on his face. All week I have avoided the buildings where they were testing yet it seemed no one remembered to tell me my own.
In the end, I tell my boss this is really not ok. I need to know when this is going to happen. In my mind I’m thinking, I’d just like to taser whoever it is that does these tests and see how they like it. I’ve lost three hours of work, my body hurts, I’m exhausted and I had to stutter my way through a presentation with the new teachers, putting my part-time cripple self on display right at day two. I’m so angry I want to cry, not because of that, but because of having to go through the whole experience unnecessarily. But I’m too wiped out to even cry. I sit in Carmen and try and hold myself up and finish the day.
My boss apologizes, as does the fire department who explains it was an accident they set it off. And so ends my lengthy streak of doing well.