Planning Something HUGE as a Mentally Afflicted Person

Nerves and butterflies are fine - they're a physical sign that you're mentally ready and eager. You have to get the butterflies to fly in formation, that's the trick. ~Steve Bull

Of all that 9-1-1 imbued in us, one outstanding lesson was how we plan. How we plan something as typical as a business trip or as special as a long-distance vacation.

I was pretty sure I was well prepared and more than capable of planning anything, as I was raised by a parent who had shit mapped out not only weeks or months but years in advance. When I was in diapers, it was decided who and what I’d do as I toddled, went to kindergarten, and made it through elementary school. When I was in eighth grade, I knew what I was intended to do about college. When I was starting my career as a teacher, I was made aware of the immediate necessity of a nest egg and retirement plans.

But how we plan as people with a mental difference—Asperger’s, ADD, Bi-polar Disorder—is a whole nother phenomenon, trained/prepared for decades or not….

So when I began, six months in advance, to make notes for moving back to my home state after living in California for thirty years, one of the things I began to get anxious about was the planning for the plane process.

Did I need to carry on my external drive, or would it (with its years of writing/files) get wiped out going through the x-ray machines?

Did I want to pack all hard copy files, notebooks, and writing tools and accessories in a second allowed carry on, so that the only way they would be lost would be if I went down with the plane, too, and therefore wouldn’t care about poetry from 1985?

How much could I handle toting through an airport in the Midwest during the too-short period of layover time—having what I recall was typically less than a half an hour to scurry and trundle through a long labyrinth of gates to get to my connecting flight gate?

That brought me to the next level of obsession—what layers to wear, in case I got too hot, too cold, and at the same time avoiding being too bulky for sitting and moving or too unequipped in case we went down and needed to survive in the high Rockies with just the carry on supplies and what we were wearing.

This made me fixate on how much neon emergency paint I could smuggle aboard for SOS signs, or how much chocolate and water I could secure in case we began to starve.

Then the question of what—of thirty years of amassing—I could do without, could not bear to part with, and could deal with compartmentalizing not only in separate regulation-size baggies in the luggage but in requisite baggies, identifiable containers, non-leaking containers, and right, left, center pockets in carry-ons, jackets, and jeans…, for all that would have to be RE-compartmentalized as it came out of said packed locations and was put into designated and SEPARATE airport security bins (which are actually restaurant bus tubs, as far as I’m concerned), and then RE-compartmentalized as it went back into the luggage, jacket, and jeans—along with the watches and jewelry back on the arms, the clothing back on the body, and the shoes back on the feet, all, I anticipated, in time to NOT hold up the passenger behind or NOT be ripped off by the questionable traveler back there where the laptop, cash bucket, or ID baggie gets snagged on the rolling treadmill of the security machine.

Oh, the anxiety of planning. Anxiety you can minimize only to a certain degree by 1) keeping in mind so much is out of your control you have to TRUST it will work out, and smoothly; 2) keeping some sense of balance, of humor, as you are stripped and shuttled in lines like a prisoner deserving the dehumanization; and 3) realizing that you cannot PLAN an outcome, only how you might respond to the outcome…or to several possible outcomes or scenarios. Anxiety you can reduce only to the degree to which the powers that be have control in the form of acceptable policy and logical organizational strategies they have PLANNED in advance and planned well.

When, after 9-1-1, I would take the small chance of risking the emotional upheaval that even a quick weekend trip to Vegas would incur, I found the airport process severely unnerving…even when I had little to plan, pack, carry on, or carry off. I was careful to limit luggage to one piece, with no sharp shit or questionable liquids involved (never mind that still, some six years later, secret service personnel are stinging the hell out of airlines as they miss the easily smuggled explosives and sharp instruments aboard…when you or I have a big hour-long hold-up if we forget to remove our knitting needles or sewing shears). I wore slip-on shoes. I closed my eyes when they did the wand. And I spoke up when they shuffled my containers with the lap top and the keys, insisting I keep an eye (MY eye) on them at all times, as they had to go back in their assigned pockets and pouches immediately after scanning. [As an ADDer, for example, I MUST keep all frequently used or needed valuables in the same place: putting them back in the same place every single time so that each occasion I go to retrieve them, I KNOW EXACTLY WHERE THEY ARE. Far too many hours are wasted for the “where did I put…, where is that…?” scenes I long ago did away with.

When I packed for what I suspect is the rest of my life in a new location (or the location of childhood), however, I started the hamster wheel of concerns over planning and packing for the plane. I studied the Southwestern rules and regulations and suggestions pages online at least once a day, reminding myself how many packs of matches (in books, not in boxes) I could have, how much toothpaste (for God’s sake) I could have, or what exact type of plastic baggie (Ziplock, LARGE only) I had to use.

Going through the first, then second, then third (because I needed to go OUTSIDE the layover terminal to smoke, of course, requiring I go through the security process AGAIN, thanks terrorists) security measures at two different airports, though, after asking my best friends to remind me again how smooth a process it is these days, I was surprisingly stoic, calm, and confident. I took no shame in removing my overcoat and pullover sweater. I had no problem taking shoes off to reveal bare feet that were bloated and ugly. And I kept my composure as I very meticulously lined up four grey bus tubs, unloaded into them all the rightly placed gear that would make up my new life, and then patiently re-loaded the contents of all four tubs BACK to their rightful pockets and pouches and compartments.

Not because I had obsessed, but because 1) the airport system is much tighter yet smoother; 2) the airplane and flight personnel will not leave without a ticketed passenger, so there is no need to freak on being late because of the lengthy security process; and because I had PLANNED to respond as sanely as possible to the insanity-inducing dynamics that are, in this case, traveling regimes.

Whew. Still fully relieved that kind of demand on my psyche is over…for now, anyway.

If it won’t affect you five years from now, let it go now. ~Dan O’Leary, my wise high school Latin teacher