Hysterical Chlamydia and Other 18th Century Ailments

While doing research for this blog (research that mostly consisted of talking to my girlfriends on the phone while burning dinner. Burning spaghetti, it turns out, is quite an accomplishment) I realized that hysterical Chlamydia is far more widespread than I originally thought. I believed that it was mostly caught after a night of bad decision making, usually involving a bar you would never otherwise go to and an encounter that can best be described as not quite as satisfying as an evening at home, reading Jane Eyre.
A few days later I received a phone call from a friend with whom I had discussed my thoughts about hysterical Chlamydia.

“I went to the doctor,” she said.

“You did?” I asked.

“Yes. And after I told him that I hadn’t had sex since my relationship split up over two years ago he said ‘probably not Chlamydia.’ But he said it with a straight face, which tells me this disorder is far more widespread than we first believed.”

I suffer from hysterical asthma. Like the hysteria of 18th century literature. Hysteria had more street cred back then. People often hear me, in tense classroom situations or at question and answer sessions that turn snarky, sigh loudly. And they laugh. They think this is who I am—the jerk who will sigh loudly, exasperated, when the world turns off center. I let them believe that. The truth is far sadder. I have hysterical asthma. When people, particularly men, but really just anyone, get too close, I can’t breathe. It’s not a feeling like, oh, I do believe I might be having a little difficulty catching my breath. I cannot breathe. My chest is caving in, my lungs are sinking against themselves, my ribs suck closer, and soon, probably in the next three seconds, I am going to start screaming for help before I can’t scream at all. So, in order to harness my hysteria, I sigh. I sigh when someone says something I am really interested in. I sigh when someone makes a point that strikes too close to home. I sigh when the teacher walks in the room (I can’t help it. No matter how old I get, I’m still a student at heart, and I just want the teacher to like me in an A+ kind of way.) I sigh to prove to myself that, no matter how it feels, I can still breathe.

So, I organize my world so that people don’t get too close. I rarely ride the bus (closeness, generally, is not optional). I carry a big bag, one so large it requires its own seat in auditoriums, you know, the seat between me and you, if that’s ok. I smoked during almost all outside conversations so I had an excuse to back up a few steps, turn to the side. No one, not even fellow smokers, wants second hand smoke blown in their face. When I sit on a couch I sit with my feet up (much like second hand smoke, people have an aversion to feet). And, embarrassingly, when faced with my partner’s family, a massive clan that takes every goodbye as an opportunity to hug it out (to the point where I plan thirty minutes for goodbye saying), I spent many years saying, “I have to pee,” and then, after taking as long as humanly possible in the bathroom without raising awkward questions, waving from a corner, protected on two sides by walls. Do not hug me, thanks. I promise, I’ll be back. Dear God, I will come back if only you don’t touch me.

I’m getting better, I think. I hugged someone (actually, two someones) the other day, and I even initiated it. Sigh.