My Personal Hell Is Being In A Grocery Store

I’ve had anxiety as long as I can remember. Mostly, it’s under control with deep breathing, supplements, and some mental gymnastics. But there is nothing that sets it off like a trip to the grocery store with masses of people darting around and all the space sharing we must do and how there are no windows in the store so I feel like I am enclosed in a very bright, very noisy box with one escape hatch that is far away.

Not long ago I ran to the grocery store to buy hairspray, but when I got to the hair products aisle there was a young couple with a baby bickering about baby food right in front of the hairspray. From what I could tell, they were having a heated discussion about what to feed their baby and I felt like I was infringing on and inserting myself into their personal space.

I considered sliding in front of them but their physical proximity made that impossible, unless I forcefully wedged myself between them and the hair product shelf - except the thought of doing that made my anxiety bubble to the surface.

So I sighed inwardly and reviewed my options:

Option 1: I could casually walk to the end of the aisle, act like I was looking for something else, and hope that by the time I strolled back to the hairspray they had moved on. But that would that make me look like a weirdo who wanted hairspray and then scampered away all awkward-like at the last second?

Option 2: I could reach between them and quickly snatch whatever I could while acting like I had more important things to do besides buy hairspray and hadn’t been looking forward to spending a chunk of my afternoon gazing at a shelf of phony hair elixirs and their promises of beauty while carefully reading words like luscious and firm and taking my time to find a new humidity resistant product to try. (I may hate the grocery store but I love buying hair products.)

And lastly, there was Option 3, the one that made the most sense - Saying, “Excuse me” and then taking the room and time needed to find the hairspray I wanted. Except that would have been as possible for me to do as say, playing Brahms's Piano Concerto No 1. blindfolded, wearing mittens, and without ever having a piano lesson because I’ve got this social anxiety thing that occasionally paralyzes me in a grocery store.

So what did I end up doing?

I went with Option 2, meaning I lunged blindly at a random silver can that wasn’t even hairspray. It was extra shine spray, that would make my hair slimy and flat and was the opposite of the volume and hold I wanted.

A “normal” person would have returned the extra shine spray to the shelf – maybe holding a bent arm out, palm up, tilting my head, and smiling just enough to give off an I’m so silly, I almost grabbed the wrong hairspray! vibe - and getting the hairspray I wanted.

But what did I do? I threw the extra shine spray into my basket and high-tailed it to the checkout line because I felt embarrassed and decided to accept the financial punishment for my absurd course of (in)action, and because doing anything else at that point just seemed WAY too hard.

Le sigh.

That is the thing about social anxiety. It sometimes it makes you feel so weird. I say sometimes because in a different place that was not a grocery store would have a different outcome. Like at the pool if I needed my towel but someone was blocking my chair I'd have no qualms saying "Excuse me, I'd like to grab my towel..." But in a grocery store, for some dumb reason, my brain rewires itself in a way that causes my anxiety to burst to the surface.

I think this quote by Albert Camus, a French philosopher, perfectly describes what social anxiety feels like: “Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”

That is my truth. I occasionally expend tremendous energy trying to appear and feel normal (mostly) in the grocery store when I really shouldn’t give a $hit, and oh...here I am with an unwanted can of extra shine spray to show for it.

I’ve talked to my therapist about this and like everything else, it’s all in how you look at it.

Do I want to waste my time mentally berating myself for being self-conscious in the grocery store thus causing myself to be even more self-conscious?

Do I go into Ted Lasso mode and life coach myself into changing how I react and behave in certain situations? You know, like repeating inspirational quotes, "You say impossible, but all I hear is 'I'm possible”

Or maybe I recognize that it’s fine to embrace my flaws and wacky anxiety tendencies and accept the fact that sometimes I will forget how to be human.

I’m never going to be completely cured of this anxiety nonsense so I can either have more situations like that dumb hairspray flail and continue to convince myself that I don’t deserve equal space in a grocery store or I can laugh about my peculiarities, be grateful for my authentic, somewhat eccentric self and be eternally thankful for Walmart's grocery delivery service.

And with that, I will leave you with my favorite Ted Lasso quote: “Be curious, not judgmental.”

Ask me anything about my anxiety and I’ll answer you honestly, but don’t judge me because I have it. We anxiety people are quirky but we are also warriors working hard every day to try to fit in and feel N-O-R-M-A-L like all you un-anxiety folks.