On pain, fear, touch, and needing people
How attending a tango class restored me
Pain
I’m embarrassed to admit I’m in a great deal of pain, of the psychic sort. I moved to Madrid on December 1st, a dream I’d held for at least a decade, and I’ve found myself twisting and turning in terror, gripped by what my son calls “scarcity mentality” and what I called simple realism. I am genuinely terrified watching the money drain from my savings account, and I do urgently need and want an income. Not only that, but I have much to offer and definitely want to work for the next five to ten years before so-called retirement rolls out the red carpet.
The pain in the form of anxiety is severe. I can become so impaired that I’m almost speechless. My words become halting or staccato, my aspect flattens. Terror has a way of stilling one, but it’s not the kind of beneficial stillness. It may be more like falling into a vat of hardening cement. Inside I’m struggling like mad, while outside, I am freezing in fear. I don’t mean to say I’m practically psychotic, but you know what? These last few weeks, I’ve had several, dare I say episodes, where I’m practically psychotic at times.
My therapist said, I’m worried about you. I said, I’m worried about me too!
Fear
When it comes, the fear is extreme. My mouth becomes cottony, as if filled with sawdust. I can’t see anything. It’s not that I’m blind exactly, but nothing registers. Everything is a blur. Nothing is retained.
My therapist said when I’m in this state, I’m literally not experiencing the moment. I’m so caught up in my head, in my thoughts, thoughts that are spinning me into panic, that I’m literally not present, not experiencing my life.
I become shaky, jumpy, unfocused, and unable to focus. My breath grows shallow. If and when I remember to take a real breath, it feels foreign. The air fights to get in. My chest won’t allow it. I have to concentrate to take a full breath. I liken this state to a bat flying in frenzied, erratic loops, repeatedly striking the walls. That’s how it feels. It’s incredibly painful, scary, and destructive.
In this mode, it becomes impossible to prioritize, to organize, to focus. I don’t know what to do first. Everything rears up at once. Everything seems to need attending to at once. I can spend what seems like hours trying to decide a course of action, and before I know it, the day is over. Nothing has been accomplished, and the terror increases commensurately.
Courage is needed, I realize that. You’re so brave to move to Madrid, just like that, kind people say.
You’re really doing it! my friends say.
Yes, I’m really doing it. Which is why it’s such a shame that I find myself locked in the same prison I was in at home. I “pulled a geographic,” as they say in addiction circles.
I’m codependent, and that’s an addiction, my therapist says. I fear you weren’t able to individuate, he said the last time we spoke.
That’s a scary notion — that one can be 57 years old and still not have “individuated,” i.e., not have developed a stable, distinct, and authentic sense of self.
For my mental prison to be even worse than it was at home seems a kind of cruel joke. At home, I could always say, I’m miserable because I want to move to Spain, and can’t! I want to live in Europe on my EU passport for a few years, and can’t! I’ve waited so long, how will I ever go?
Well, I did go.
Here I am.
Miserable.
My friend C. said, You won’t be destitute!
I managed to squeak, Why not? How do you know?
She said, You have me! You have friends! You have your son! We won’t let that happen to you.
But, dear reader, you know and I know, it does happen to people.
That, and worse.
My son says, Mom, you dreamed of moving to Madrid for ten years, at least. Now, you’re there, and you’re petrified. Live your life. Become embodied. Take a kickboxing class. Do something, anything. Engage. Meet people. Try.
Then he said, Are you going to tango?
Touch
I haven’t been going to tango. In fact, I hadn’t attended a dance class or a milonga (social tango event) in more than a year. I’d entirely stopped going when my children’s father arrived for a what was supposed to be a visit in California last February and devolved into the worst mania we’ve experienced yet.
We all lived through hell for months as my ex- became sicker, increasingly erratice and out of control. (He of course refused to get on the plane to return to his family in Venezuela.) It was a first-order emergency, and there was little that could be done. We simply had to weather the calls, the accidents, the near-arrests, the chaos, the homelessness, the rage, the spin-outs, and the heartbreak that is mental illness and specifically severe bipolar disorder.
That’s another story, and there’s much to be said about all of this, if and when I have the stomach for it.
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Part of why I’m in Madrid now, I believe, is an attempt to escape the mayhem that I’ve navigated vis a vis my children’s father for the last twenty years, as well as the immense amount of care, work, and attention I devoted to getting him seen, managed, medicated (when possible), housed, cared for, fed, stablized. Keeping him safe, as best I could.
Securing his disability benefits alone was an intense five-year process. Caring for him in my home for months during his severe depressions, for years after I’d “left” him. This involved getting him in and out of the bath, trying to keep calories going into him when he was afraid of food, fire, stoves, and was wasting away. Encouraging him to step outside when he was seized by fear of literally everything.
The depressions were scary, painful, and heartbreaking. The manias though? They are hell on wheels. The stories are honestly appalling, and anyone who’s dealt with serious mental illness knows what I’m talking about.
Of course I wanted, perhaps needed, to escape.
And here I am, an ocean and a continent away from my ex-. I’m also painfully far away from my children, however, and that hurts.
I’ve been like a deer in the headlights here for weeks. Too frightened to enjoy myself. Spending hours applying to jobs, poring over various employment platforms, connecting — or attempting to connect — to past and potential colleagues on LinkedIn.
My wise son said, Mom, ground yourself. Embody yourself.
Go to tango.
Tango
On Sunday, I finally went to a milonga. Wouldn’t you know it, the Sunday night milonga that was recommended to me is a stone’s throw from my apartment, maybe a five-minute walk. That’s got to be a sign.
I can’t say the evening was particularly successful. I got only one dance. But, I’m marking it as a success because, 1) I showed up, 2) I strapped on my new tango shoes, 3) I made the acquaintance of a lovely woman who immediately made me feel better about not getting any dances.
They’re very closed here, she said. If they don’t know you, they won’t invite you. My new friend told me about the tango class she attends near Tirso de Molina four subway stops away, and, well, last night I went, and it was a revelation.
As tango so often is.
Embodiment.
I embodied myself last night. That meant I was given the gift, or I gave myself the gift, of being fully present in my body, paying close, careful attention to my feet on the floor, the feel of my hand in my partners’ palms, my left arm just so at their backs, the slightly forward plane of my torso, the torsion in my hips, the eyes of my partners, revealing their own pain, fear, hope, and courage.
The gentle older man who had trouble remembering the move we were supposed to be practicing, the way his tremulousness, so like my own, touched my heart. I wanted to enfold him in my arms, to comfort him, and I did. I closed my eyes, surrendered to his embrace, showed my trust, and followed what he led as sensitively and honestly as I could.
I think he was heartened and surprised by the experience. I even managed to say in some approximation of Spanish, when he apologized a couple of times, No, it’s okay, just dance, do whatever you want. I’m fine.
And I was. Fine, that is. There was another partner who moved me. This man was a bit more experienced, and I missed some of the steps he led. Every time I apologized, he quipped, Don’t worry, be happy.
It was funny at first, and silly. But the third or fourth time he said it, it felt profound and prophetic, like a message from the beyond, delivered in the vehicle of this individual. Don’t worry, be happy. Indeed.
My son says, Mom, how old are you now? Enjoy your life. Enjoy your time. Face your demons. Wrestle them to the ground. Find a donation-only sangha. Meditate. Find a spiritual healer. Fight.
Needing People
After the tango class last night, I made my way to the Metro and discovered my phone still wasn’t working. It’d gone on the fritz earlier that day. I’d been unable to use it to navigate to the tango class and wound up having to catch an eight-Euro cab.
I didn’t want to throw another eight Euros away, so I made my way uncertainly to the Metro. As I stood in the sort of hall or anteroom of the Metro before passing through the gate, scanning the walls for a map or directions of some kind, two men from my class, two of my partners, suddenly appeared. Interestingly, they looked younger and more handsome in the Metro than they had in my class. They are both about my age.
They stopped and inquired, Where are you trying to go?
I looked at them and said, helplessly in bad Spanish, my phone stopped working… They again gently asked where I needed to go. I told them, Conde Duque, my neighborhood. They took a look at the map and said in halting English, Take the blue line one stop to Sol, then catch the yellow line to Plaza de España.
One of the gentlemen traced the route with his index finger.
I thanked them for their help, and it dawned on me how rare it’s become to have the opportunity to interact with relative strangers for help anymore, now that we all have these sophisticated navigation devices in our pockets. It’s become so easy to avoid contact. What are we all so afraid of?
When I got on the Metro, I felt inordinately happy and grateful to my two classmates. And you know what? I’d wager that helping me in my moment of need helped them as well.
It would be interesting to compare notes.
The Work
I have no choice but to do the work. I don’t think I can or will survive the level of anxiety and fear I subject myself to on the regular. I need to get a grip. Find and harness my courage, my strength, and bet on myself. I’ll write about that journey here.
I need to do it for me. It would be good if I can lean less on my son too. I know he’s worried about me too. And I don’t want to drive him away. I want to be a good example to my kids. I can’t get beaten down and cowed by life.
I must be stronger. My son said, Mom, you got this. Tackle it, and write about it. So, I will. I’ll show up diligently here and log my progress. What’s helping, what’s not, how it feels, what unfolds. I’ll be honest and transparent. Thank you for joining me on the journey.
