Claustrophobia

Have you ever felt claustrophobic just by looking at something? I have and it's not a pretty feeling. I watched World Trade Center today- the Nicolas Cage movie. Bad movie with very little content, but it left me feeling damn claustrophobic. The entire movie, with two men stuck under a rubble not knowing if they will ever get out left me more queasy than touched.

I have had bad experiences stuck in elevators because of power failures. The ones with collapsible gates are fine with me, but the high end slide door ones still manage to freak me out quite a bit. When I was working in Bangalore, my office was on the 7th floor and once the elevator got stuck somewhere in between and the lights went out. I freaked out. It was an instant feeling of someone choking me to death. Thankfully the generators went on and rather than taking me to the top floor, the elevator went down- all the way to the basement. The building didn't have a basement! The doors opened to reveal a concrete wall I could reach out too. My worst nightmare had come true. I hit all the buttons on the elevator and it thankfully took me to the ground floor next.

I took the staircase that day.

Another time, a nightmare was when I was strapped in for an MRI scan. I just couldn't help but mentally cook up all kinds of disasters- a bomb, a nuclear attack, another WTC on the hospital, where people will leave me stuck there forever. It was an one hour scan and it was the longest one hour of my life. I came out sweaty, scared and freaked out. I promised never to go in that machine again! NEVER!