What makes you nervous?
Trigger Warning – Story contains references to mental health and PTSD
Being in crowded spaces made him nervous. At a concert, his mind would relentlessly calculate the odds of a fire erupting, or the stage collapsing beneath the excited bodies. If he was on public transport, tiny prayers would escape his lips, fragile origami birds of hope sent fluttering into the universe, each one a whispered plea for the safe return of everyone on board. Whether it was the chilling specter of a crash, or his favourite recent intrusive thought – rising up within him like a poisoned balloon, the sickening image of a terrorist attack – nervousness would plague him before any journey, an unwelcome guest crashing every party. He wanted desperately to enjoy things again, to be ‘normal’, but he didn’t know how. He sometimes tried imagining a Godzilla-type monster lumbering into existence, intent on snacking on their carriage, in the hope that this outlandish impossibility might somehow soothe his frayed nerves. It said a lot about his state of mind that a monster with an appetite for metal and flesh was the landscape of his imagined relaxation.
It had got to the point where he now tried to meticulously avoid travel or meeting friends in public. Movie theatres, with their enclosed darkness and shared air, were also a recurring nightmare, each rustle and cough amplifying his unease.
He dreamed of the mountains and tea ceremonies of Japan but he knew that such a visit was beyond him just the thought of planning it sent him skidding into panic. It was a compassionate friend who gently suggested he might need help, a friend who tentatively offered the possibility of PTSD. And with that diagnosis came an emerging sense of freedom, the sun finally warming his shoulders, and though he still had to travel through some fear, it offered him hope.
But now, as he smiled, genuinely relaxed and perfectly calm on his long-haul flight to Japan, he embraced being gloriously free from that restricting fear, that had become a massive pair of blinkers, obscuring the vibrant panorama of the whole world. He silently thanked God for his great friend, a beacon of compassion who had steadfastly stuck with him throughout his treatment. She had kept him accountable, a steady hand on his journey; checked in on him, a reassuring voice in the darkness; and even subtly ensured others didn’t crowd him upon his tentative return to the familiar confines of the office. Now, the person who had been consumed by that gnawing nervousness felt like a distant memory, a discarded skin. He felt reborn into the radiant light of a broad horizon, as infinite and encompassing as the holy spirit, shining its unwavering grace into all things, for all time.
The World Outside the Window 