The bus fuss...

I don't know if it is just me, perhaps I have a sign on my face of which I'm unaware or maybe I have the sort of face that says that I am eager to please, but people on buses regularly talk to me. I don't mean 'Ooh, this weather is terrible isn't it?' or 'The price of bus fares gone up again? Gosh, I remember when it was 50p' etc. I'm talking about random non-sequiturs such as 'That was the pub!!! That's where it happened!' or 'Did you have the sprouts?'.

Today was another example of bus passenger conversation that completely threw me. I had to go to the hospital this morning as I was given a set of tests last week and I was told to provide a urine sample. To cut a long story short I messed up the test and, for reasons that will remain undisclosed due to not wanting to get into the ickyness of the situation, I had to return to the hospital to pick up another sample bottle. My OCD has led to extreme agoraphobia over the past few months and on several occasions, going out of the house and even to the hospital has led to panic attacks. Today I was incredibly shaky but I just about coped. Anyway, I was riding along on the bus, attempting to go home when I decided that I would get off at another stop past my flat and then get a bus back - don't ask, there was a logic there but it's probably not worth analysis. Just as I passed the flat an elderly gentleman in the seat in front of me suddenly spun around and said loudly 'I used to live round here you know'. I didn't quite hear him at first as I was wearing headphones and trying to calm down so I took them off and said 'Sorry?' and he repeated himself 'I used to live up there' he said, pointing to the bus window but not in any direction that I could really attribute to a particular location 'Have you heard of *mumble*?' As I didn't hear him and he was a complete stranger to me I felt the need to be polite and I didn't want to seem like I hadn't been listening because I had so I chose the polite option 'No, I don't think I know that' I replied and at which point he looked faintly cross and turned away. I waited for his reply but he returned to staring out of the window. A few people on the bus looked at me bemused but the man didn't turn around again. As I got off the bus a few stops later I turned to the man and said 'Have a good day' but he just looked at me as if I had said 'Screw you!' which incidentally made me obsess at to whether I had been offensive even though I knew that I hadn't - oh the joys of OCD!

Admittedly this isn't the most extreme bus incident that I have been involved in, there have been numerous other bus encounters both good and bad, but it made me think of some of the things that have happened.

Perhaps these things have occurred because of the frequency with which I travel on public transport or maybe I am just a magnet for bus weirdness but you'd think I would be used to it by now. The bus service in Edinburgh is excellent, better than I have experienced anywhere else, the buses are warm, comfortable, reasonably priced and generally on time (prior to the closing of Princes Street and the subsequent tram network building works anyway - but that's a whole different conversation for another day). As anyone who lives in Edinburgh knows, it seems much easier to get around Edinburgh on the buses than by car.

Now, I wouldn't consider myself the most unsociable person in the world but as I'm sure that anyone who knows me would probably tell you that I am utterly inept when it comes to small talk. I don't know what it is but I just can't manage small talk with strangers, I can happily talk to people about anything as if I have known them for years but ask me to have a conversation about the weather and I end up nervously talking about something wholly inappropriate like sex and then I feel embarrassed but can't stop talking. It's not a pretty sight, my burbling nervously away. I also noticed another horrible trait I have when attempting to be polite - I can't seem to control my facial expressions properly. Yesterday on a bus (again!) a little dog was on the bus and was sniffing at my legs inquisitively and the dogs owner said 'Don't worry, she's ok' and I replied 'She's just trying to be friendly' and I smiled but as I caught sight of myself in the reflection in the bus window I looked like a clown attempting to go to the loo! My smile was sort of forced and wonky because I was nervous but I must have looked positively maniacal! I got off the bus shortly afterwards as I was so embarrassed.

I've spent a lot of time on buses over the years, my Dad is a bus driver and I think that my enjoyment of travelling on buses must be in my genes. I love just sitting there watching the scenery go by, perhaps that's one of the reasons on a long list why I have never learned to drive. Anyway, I digress...

Travelling on buses a lot has led to several incidents that I have never forgotten for various reasons and some people I know may have heard about these incidents.

While on an Edinburgh bus I got on and noticed that the bus was crowded but there was one seat facing backwards in front of a rather sleepy looking elderly gentleman. There were people standing in the aisles which should have been an indication to avoid the man but I thought 'how bad can it be?' and I seated myself in front of the man. Within seconds of the bus setting off the man raised his head and bellowed 'MMMMoooooonnn Riiiiivvveerrr!!!!' and proceeded to sing 'Moon River' interspersed with him tapping my leg and yelling 'Come on blondie!!! Sing up!!!'.

I wanted to say no, I wanted to pretend that I hadn't heard him but he continued to yell at me so I ended up loudly singing 'Moon River' and 'Oh Danny Boy' with the man, facing the entire rest of the bewildered bus passengers. I really wanted to get off the bus but I had heavy bags and all I wanted to do was go home so I effectively performed several musical numbers to a busful of people coerced by a random drunken man! Oh the shame!

A few years ago I had been on an all night drinking session with a few mates and I stayed at one of those mate's house. I staggered out of their house at around 9am the next morning having had no sleep at all and for some reason I decided that I wanted to go do a bit of shopping in Princes Street before I went home. After wandering around like a zombie for a few hours I decided that I needed my bed so I caught the bus. Now the only reason I am setting the scene in this way is because I want you to know what state I was in when this occurred. It was summer and it was warm on the bus and it had become infested with flies and wasps. One of the wasps flew to the back of the bus and was zzzing around madly. People were shuffling around and trying to avoid getting stung when this guy stepped forward, took a piece of paper out of his pockets and unceremoniously squished the wasp. A girl cried in horror 'oh, you didnae have to kill it!' at which point the man turned around and on a hugely crowded bus said 'I like killing things'. There was a sort of stunned silence before a guy at the back said 'ooookkkaaayyyy'. The man then asked the passenger next to him the following horrifying question 'Have you ever killed a rat?' and he proceeded to explain how to kill a rat, he moved on to explaining how other animals can be killed and I hurriedly got off the bus in fear. Now, maybe he was just joking or perhaps he was a professional pest controller but I wasn't sticking around to find out. Most of the other bus passengers followed suit and perhaps that was his motive for saying it, it was a crowded bus after all. It was sort of simultaneously horrifying and comedic.

Years ago, while waiting for a bus with my boyfriend at the time an elderly gentleman shuffled up to me and said 'Can you put your hand in my pocket love?'. I must have stared at the guy with astonishment for quite a few seconds as he repeated himself and I ended up replying 'What for?!?'. It turned out that his bus pass was in his back pocket (thankfully not his front pockets although I'm not sure that it made it any better a request!) and he had arthritis in his hands so couldn't retrieve it. Don't get me wrong, it is a perfectly reasonable request and I am always happy to help people but what sort of opening line to a stranger is 'Can you put your hand in my pocket love?'?!?! I retrieved said bus pass and he wandered off leaving my boyfriend at the time howling with laughter and me pondering how he got it in there in the first place...

Ok, I suppose strictly speaking that was a 'waiting for a bus' story rather than a 'bus story' so onto the next one.

Many years ago when I was thinner and much younger I had just had my hair permed and was wearing a vibrant red dress and feeling quite good about myself, an elderly gentleman on the bus leaned over to me and asked the time. I gave him the time and he said 'do you know that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen?'. Judging by the vodka he was swigging and the fact that it didn't look like his first drink of the day, I took the comment with a pinch of salt. I thanked him but he kept insisting that I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and we almost got into a fight as I disagreed. I suppose to be fair, as I didn't know him, I didn't have any previous experience of the women he had seen throughout his life so possibly I was a bit hasty in challenging his view but I'm not exactly Angelina Jolie. So rigid was he in his opinion that I had to get off the bus several stops earlier than I had planned only to find that he followed me to the supermarket I was going to. Thankfully I managed to shake him off before things got out of hand. I'm sure he just wanted me to believe him and I know that it was a lovely compliment but it was also quite a scary experience.

Now I don't want you to think that it's just Edinburgh, I was on a train in New York and a magazine hit me on the head from the rack above. A girl started talking to me, asking me if I was ok when this man further down the train yelled that it was my fault that I was hit on the head by the magazine. I don't know how that was even possible as I hadn't put the magazine in the overhead rack but apparently it was my fault!

Admittedly my bus experiences have generally been in Edinburgh. After a guy on the bus said 'Isn't this snow awful?' I agreed and we were talking about snow in general when this other guy leaned over and angrily said 'Snow! This is nothing! In Canada the snow was up to my neck!' and I said 'Oh it's never been that bad here' and he said 'Well think yourself lucky! You don't know the meaning of the word snow!!' before turning away in disgust. It wasn't a competition! It wasn't even a conversation I was having with him, it was just general British weather chatter. Like I said, I'm not good at small talk.

Another time, while sat on a bus in a traffic jam, a drunken guy was sat in front of me and he kept looking at me and saying 'you alright?' repeatedly to me and each time I said 'yes' he continued in the same tone but when I didn't reply he started shouting it at me until I replied so I moved seats. In the new seat I was accompanied by another guy who said 'That's a wee shame, being shouted at like that, young girl like you, shouldnae have to put up with that'. I politely thanked the man and he asked me if I lived in Edinburgh, I said yes and he asked me if I was married. At the time I wasn't and said so and he asked me if I owned my flat. When I said no he said 'There's a way you could get a house y'know'. By this time you'd have thought I would be used to this but I still said 'How do you mean?' and he said 'Get yourself pregnant, that'd do it. I've got a friend who could get you pregnant if you like?'. Seriously, he asked me if I had thought of it as an option and I said 'Erm, no thank you' and he said 'Oh well if you don't want my advice then!' and turned away! I mean, what can you do! The bus was in a massive traffic jam and there was nowhere for me to escape but back to the 'you alright?' man seat!

The strange thing is, I just want to underline the fact that all of these happened during daylight hours! I dread to think what it's like at night on the buses!

So to all the bus drivers who must experience a lot more than I see, I salute you. If you've had to cope with the superset of my bus experiences, you must have so much patience and a sense of humour! And to the bus driver who said a few months ago 'I could write a book about the mad things that happen on here!', please do, if nothing else it will be cathartic!

The Fear of it all

I saw a psychologist recently to talk about my OCD and general anxiety and I was thinking about the nature of fear, seeing as that seems to be at the root of the vast majority of my problems.

Now you may think that is a pretty miserable way to start a blog post but I have been battling depression my dear reader, I will attempt to keep this post light without straying into the totally morose :) Someone told me recently that they found my blog posts boring which sort of upset me but I decided that I would write this anyway, seeing as I had something to say and wanted to say it. Plus I spend most days alone so it is nice to feel like I am talking to someone, even if no one ever reads this far.

I'm frightened of pretty much everything! I didn't think that this was the case until I was compiling an 'anxiety ladder' - basically a list of things I'm frightened of in order of how terrified I am of each. Now, rather hysterically, this lead me to actually think for once of what I am truly terrified of...and it turns out to be pretty much everything! I suppose realistically I should have made a list of things that were likely to happen and a separate list of things that are very unlikely to happen as adding all my worries to the list made it ludicrously long!

With the psychologist's help I managed to get this down to two main fears - Fear of loneliness and Fear of death for myself or my friends and family - which pretty much encompasses everything! I have always had these two specific fears but ridding myself of these fears appears impossible.

A few years ago I decided to see what actually frightened me TV wise to try and somehow relieve some of the fear. I spent about 6 months watching as many horror films as I could possibly manage in my own obsessively fastidious way. Not only did this lead to a lot of desensitisation but it also lead to some pretty horrendous nightmares and thus the reappearance of my long standing insomnia. I eventually found several TV shows/characters that quite literally terrified me:

1. Ghostwatch - Yep, the BBC drama that launched a vast amount of my teenage nightmares. I watched the show when I was about 15 and despite the warnings and the clearly bizarre ending and the fact that even though Sarah Green disappeared into a cupboard never to be seen again she was on TV during the next few days, it still dug deep into some sort of deeply traumatic part of my psyche. It didn't help that my Dad seemed to think that my fear of a made up ghost on a drama was hilariously funny and this led to him shouting 'Pipes is coming to get you!' at various moments (referring to the ghost within the show). I can laugh about it now but it wasn't enormously funny at the time. In retrospect my fears of this show were laughable but you know what, I bought it on DVD a few years ago and I couldn't bear to watch it. I bought it from a well known retailer during the day and I took it home, put it in the DVD player and attempted to watch it at 2pm in the afternoon and I couldn't get past the DVD menu screen! Somehow this show led to 'a bad taste in the brain' as my husband calls it, the experience of being terrified of something that you didn't think that was that scary long after the films credits have rolled.

2. The Woman in Black - Not sure how many people have seen this drama but it just goes to prove that you don't need a huge budget of special effects and a bevvy of attractive actresses running around screaming to make a truly unsettling TV. The show was based on a novel by Susan Hill and I saw it when I was about 13. There is one specific moment that utterly chills the blood as the main character in the story is lying in bed he awakes to a most extraordinary vision. I wont spoil it for those who wish to see it but it most definitely led to the 'bad taste in the brain' situation for me.

3. Twilight Zone: Nightmare at 20000 feet - This shouldn't be as scary as it is but somehow this sort of plugged into my dual fears of flight and seeing garish faces at the window when you don't quite expect it. I tried to watch this again recently and I just couldn't bring myself to go through it again.

4. Davros: Leader of the Daleks - I utterly adore Doctor Who but just the sight of Davros has me hiding behind the sofa! I just don't know what it is about Davros' terrifying visage that troubles me the most, I think it leads back to my general fear of Daleks in my childhood. The idea that something could be so uncaring and unflinching in it's goal to 'Exterminate!', not allowing any room for compromise or negotiation, just terrifies me. This has not been improved for me seeing as the Daleks can now fly thus rendering the running upstairs for safety option completely useless.

This is just 4 of the most televisually petrifying things for me but I assure you that the full list is pretty long! Surprisingly most of the true horror films didn't really scare me that much and I found that most of the things that I find truly terrifying are those things that seem remotely plausible to actually occur.

I have been reading a book recently that indicates that, although people fear certain situations, the likelihood of these things happening are fairly slim. It gives facts and figures to back up the information but sadly it still doesn't stop me from worrying about meteorites falling on my flat or seeing a face staring through a window several storeys up. I've got that sort of 'The probability of that happening is miniscule...but it's still possible' mentality which is never going to help.

I think most of us live with a general fear day to day, there's so much to worry about and the overriding fears of the general public seem to have changed over the years.

With my OCD I worry about pretty much everything to the point where it affects my day to day functioning, the fear is often overwhelming but sometimes the fear of the opposite of something happening can be just as terrifying. Someone once told me that if a good opportunity comes along you need to grab it and not let fear hold you back. Fear of unemployment many years ago spurred me to walk into an office and ask for a job even though they hadn't advertised one - incidentally they gave me a job apparently because of my sheer courage (and a good reference helped I understand :) ). Fear of missing bugs made me strive to be as good at software testing as I can possibly be so I worked harder (and hopefully smarter). I've said on many occasions that although my OCD can often override my brain, it does have the advantage of making me strive harder at things and you can't beat enthusiasm and determination. I was told recently that my determination is palpable when it comes to beating my OCD but it is simply the fear of not being able to live my life properly that gives me the determination to carry on. So there you go, fear is not all bad I suppose.

Think of all the things you do each day or rather the things you may not do because of fear, you may be surprised. I dyed my hair a few weeks ago for the first time in my 32 year old life, what had always stopped me before was fear - fear I would hate the colour and fear that I would mess it up. I had my hair dyed a vibrant red and you know what, I love it! Fear stopped me doing it before but now I feel like a new woman!

Well, I may always fear the daleks, I may always fear things that go bump in the night but apparently I have been told that the only thing to fear is 'fear itself'...

Great, that's another fear to add to my anxiety ladder...