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| A lifelong crippling phobia, gone. I'm free. |
I read a book that retold--practically verbatim--the story of my first meeting a new friend in a London bar, it also engaged squirrels in new and interesting ways, and eventually solved a murder mystery...all while making me laugh out loud every few chapters. People on the bus no longer sit near me.
The Satsuma Complex is written by Bob Mortimer, a comedian from Middlesborough, who has lived a colorful life and pissed in more than one teapot in hotels across England. The germaphobe and tea-lover in me has always wanted to despise him for this, but I can't. He's effin' hilarious, cute for an old dude, comically imaginative, and probably his urine was rinsed out of each pot, eventually--so I like to think.
Many friends and family know of my decades-long scuirophobia. I have been plagued with an irrational wariness of squirrels, since age 9. This cropped up after I learned that the urban grey squirrel is an excellent carrier of rabies...immediately afterward, I was menaced by a squirrel that I took to feeding outside of my bedroom window. No more details, sorry. Needless to say that wariness and fear developed and followed me around for the next 3+ decades.
Not only did I imagine malice in each beady pair of eyes over the years, but I can recall deliberate dark acts perpetrated on me by squirrels--one of the most heinous was the attempted climbing by two battling males, a few Octobers back. Anyway, they have always been out to get me. My imagination never let me down, in devising the various ways. When encountering one or more in the street, I retreated to the other side, sometimes I turned back the way I came to find a safer route, or stood stock still until the danger passed. Oftentimes, this was preceded by a short shrill scream, and accompanied by a racing heart, sweaty palms, and abject panic.
Anyway, back to the recent past. Last week I finish reading the book and head out to walk to work, the first squirrel I encounter caused no flight or fight response. I saw it, it saw me, and we proceeded along our respective ways. It hit me mid-stride that nothing just happened, so I walked on hoping to understand what just happened. Within 3 blocks, I passed a frolicking pair, and again, no panic. It occurred to me then that Mortimer may have cured my phobia. The ridiculous and prescient imaginary conversations that the character, Gary, had with various squirrels, somehow reframed the imaginary conversation that I have in my head with various real squirrels (which was usually something like, 'lets get her', and 'oh dear god, please no.').
Just like that, finger snap, I was cured. Looking forward to reading the Hotel Avocado, which will turn up in the mail sometime this week.
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