'One need not be a chamber to be haunted, One need not be a house. The brain has corridors surpassing material place.' Mama Kat prompted Susan to write about her claustrophobia.
Susan discovered she was thusly afflicted the day her old man requested her assistance holding up a muffler pipe. He put her on the creeper, slid her underneath the car and she crossed a threshold from which she has been unable to return.
Susan can remember every elevator that's pushed her to the brink of hysteria; in a Seattle parking garage, in Macy's, Herald Square and in any office building she's ever worked. She can get on an elevator when there's no other option. But when there is, she's taking the stairs.
Back in her twenties she was still able to maintain her composure as she climbed the narrow staircase of a local lighthouse, but it took tremendous focus. Now, she wouldn't dare try.
The results of each brush with claustrophobia are bad dreams and heightened anxiety. Susan has learned to manage these side effects relatively well because she's had alot of practice.
During a block party a few years back Susan followed her little sister into one of those inflatable jumpy things and was seized with fear when she stuck her face into the little opening.
Small passageways are off limits to Susan now.
That great scene where Uma Thurman busts her way out of the grave in Kill Bill Vol.2...forget it! Susan risks insanity if she watches it again.
She was sedated to get through this situation, had to stop reading halfway through this article and sometimes she gets claustrophobic if she stares at the bottom of the glass while she's drinking.
Crazy, she knows.
