by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
Have you ever had the same nightmare more than once about the same impossibly unlikely scenario? My own recurring nightmare: I’m walking into Mrs. Webster’s Grade 13 math class (Ontario high schools went up to Grade 13 in those days). I’m about to write my final math exam – until I suddenly remember that I’ve somehow forgotten to go to math class – ALL YEAR!
That’s the kind of dream described as “Kafka-esque”, named for the writer Franz Kafka. Dr. David Pickus explains that word:
“Kafka-esque is primarily a synonym for ‘nightmarish’ or ‘inexplicably bad’ events – especially if they take the form of a strange interruption of everyday life.”
It also struck me that this“strange interruption of everyday life” is precisely how hearing an “inexplicably bad” medical diagnosis so often feels.
- relief at survival
- disbelief and anger that it happened
- grief for everything that was and will be lost
- gratitude to those who helped
- extreme vulnerability in a previously safe world
- fear of what the future might bring
“Almost everyone is feeling insecure these days, whether it’s financial pressures, mental health issues or all-consuming anxiety about the state of the world.”
Coincidentally, I’ve also been feeling particularly insecure around my own home lately. And as I wrote in last week’s post, ongoing severe stress can affect our hearts. Oh, joy. . .
The briefest way that I’m able to describe my real-life nightmare is like this:
- 1. an unhinged neighbour
- 2. police involvement
- 3. a temporary move to my daughter’s home for safety reasons
Kafka, by the way, was apparently a troubled soul who often wrote about characters who felt trapped. I can relate! I too am feeling trapped by circumstances which seem well beyond my control (see #1, above).
In Kafka’s novel called The Trial, for example, the main character Joseph is arrested by the police, but he never discovers what he most needs to know: WHY was he arrested? Joseph consumes himself searching for an acquittal from an unknown offense.
In another of his famous stories called The Metamorphosis, the main character somehow turns into a giant insect, but instead of telling us why, the fantastical plot revolves around how this character is supposed to get out of bed and go to work every day.
But it’s Kafka’s surreal short story,The Burrow (started six months before he died of tuberculosis in 1924 at the age of 40) in which I could recognize my current real-life nightmare.
In this short story, Kafka writes about our quest to feel safe. A badger-like creature is struggling to secure his underground home, filled with many tunnels that he’s carefully excavated. As Dr. Pickus explains the character:
“He wants to be safe. Safety is his principal aim. He cares greatly about security. He wants to be safe, and draws you into his obsession. ‘The Burrow’ is about this need for reassurance – and the consequences of not being able to satisfy it.
“There is no plot. It is just the narrator telling us about underground life in the burrow, primarily about his efforts to stay safe. Deep into the story, he hears a slight hissing noise. Or maybe he didn’t. No, wait. There it is again. He did hear it after all. But he cannot find the source. So maybe it was just the wind?”
That happens to describe my own hyper-alert anxiety about my unhinged neighbour. The local police have opened a file on him, and instructed me to call 911 if he starts another rampage (and we hope they will arrive in time to witness the rampage this time). When he’s being quiet, I worry about when he’ll start up again – or worse. I worry I’ll run into him whenever I leave the apartment to check the mail, or carry out the recycling, or any time I walk into or out of the building by myself. I worry mostly if I’ll ever feel secure in my own home again.
Speaking of this quest to feel safe, Dr. Pickus compares this kind of insecurity to how we felt during the earliest days of the COVID pandemic:
“Kafka’s short story also reminds us of the mental state of someone who could have been exposed to an infectious pathogen, but probably was not – even though some doubt remains.
“They cannot put their mind at rest. Or, putting their mind at rest only serves to provide leisure for unsettling their mind further. A few pages into ‘The Burrow’, for example, Kafka’s creature announces that he has a lot of leisure time because he is sheltering in place, yet this kind of shelter feels neither peaceful nor secure.
“This indeterminate state blends into an exhausting condition of not being able to adapt, and not being able to receive help, and not being able to leave, and not being able to learn, and not being able to rest. . .”
The Massey Lectures this year also mentioned work by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, who was awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize for Literature. His poem called The Second Coming was published in 1919, right after World War I ended. We can imagine the insecurity of our world back in 1919, immediately following a global catastrophe that had killed 20 million people, 10 million of them civilians.
Yeats’ poem starts:
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”
I don’t recall reading either Kafka or Yeats in school – or perhaps I did, but neither spoke to me at the time in the way both do now, when I find myself feeling that my own centre cannot hold, that the life I formerly knew seems to have swiftly fallen apart.
Right now, there is no useless ‘what-doesn’t-kill-you-makes-you-stronger’ platitude to uplift this ongoing nightmare.
Much like the creature in ‘The Burrow’ short story, I just want to feel safe again.
♥
Image: statue by sculptor Jaroslav Rona depicting Franz Kafka riding on the shoulders of a headless figure, in the Jewish Quarter of Prague’s Old Town. Photo by Olga Oginskaya at Pixabay.
♥
NOTE FROM CAROLYN: I wrote more about those swirling emotions in my book, A Woman’s Guide to Living With Heart Disease (Johns Hopkins University Press). You can ask for it at your local bookshop (please support your favourite independent bookseller) or order it online (paperback, hardcover or e-book) at Amazon – or order it directly from my publisher, Johns Hopkins University Press (use their code HTWN to save 30% off the list price).
Q: Have you ever experienced that distressing sense of insecurity as if “things fall apart, and the centre cannot hold”?
See also: The 2023 Massey Lectures broadcast on CBC Radio are also available as a book, The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, from House of Anansi Press.
Heart Sisters 
Hi Carolyn, what an excellent, insightful post. And I’m so sorry about your safety issues with your neighbor. That would make anyone feel unhinged.
I haven’t told a lot of people about this, but years ago I had a stalker follow me everywhere for years. We knew each other but he became obsessed and the police and eventually the courts got involved. There was no sense of safety, and it took years for me to feel safer, never safe, but safer.
I was an English major and truly believe our society needs to look for truths in literature such as the Kafka and Yeats examples show.
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Hello Beth – thank you for sharing your own experience here.
When this nightmare first started on November 16th, I did think: “I wonder if this is how women who are tormented by stalkers must feel?!” Always looking over one shoulder, terrified that I might accidentally run into him at the mailbox or the parking lot, and every unusual sound tensing up every muscle in my body just in case the rampage is about to start again. And never feeling safe.
I’m sorry you had to endure that nightmare. I too wonder how long it will take to “feel safer, never safe, but SAFER…” And I agree about truth in literature – I was mesmerized when I happened upon first Kafka and then Yeats on the same day – each somehow able to precisely describe my own torment.
Take care and thanks again, Beth. . . ❤️
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Dearest Carolyn…. as you work your way through what can only be described as PTD: I recommend Dr Bach’s Rescue Remedy to calm the psyche and allow you to make your very best decisions 🙏
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Oh my. I think I HAVE some in my bathroom cabinet right now and hadn’t even thought of this! Thanks Jill! ❤️
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Carolyn– faithful reader here who has found much valuable information, comfort and understanding in your regular posts.
I’m so sorry your home has been disrupted by this scary situation. I lived as a battered woman for a number of years and understand how hypervigilance takes over your nervous system.
I’ve had dreams of my husband for decades, often in the dreams I find him in a room in my house and think, “Oh dear, I forgot to divorce you!” Thankfully I’ve long been safe.
I also have recurring dreams of being at work as a nurse in a birthing center and then in the dream I think, “Why haven’t I retired, I’m 80!” I think of these dreams of compost. May your neighbor move, or you find a safe and delightful new home soon.
Sara
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Hello Sara – thank you so much for your kind words. You’re exactly right – that sudden hypervigilance takes over EVERYTHING! It’s another similarity to those early days following a new cardiac diagnosis: then, once I was back home from the hospital, every bubble or squeak felt like another heart attack.
Now, I feel like I’m on edge all the time. Whenever I leave the building – even briefly – to run to the store or take out the recycling, for example – I feel like I’m on high alert, slowly scanning around carefully to make sure he’s not anywhere nearby, and then I feel a deep flood of relief once I’m safely back inside my little home with the deadbolt securely locked. I made it!! It’s exhausting.
I too hope that he moves, or that I find that “safe and delightful new home” – just as Susan describes in her comment (above). My daughter and I went to view two places yesterday, a first scouting trip just to see what’s out there.
Take care, thanks again. . .❤️
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Praying that your situation changes and you no longer have to angst over what the day will bring…🙏🏻
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Thank you very much, Lorraine. . . ❤️
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Hi Carolyn, I too was tormented by a crazy dangerous neighbor. I had to pass by his apartment to get my elderly dog to the elevator because I couldn’t carry her down the stairs. The police came out on so many occasions.
I finally found another place to live that I love! I have the nicest neighbors and am so happy he can’t harm me or my dog anymore. I was lucky I found a way out of there.
Sending you lots of love with hopes your living situation improves.
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Hello Susan and thanks for your kind words. I can completely relate to the distress of needing to pass by your neighbour’s apartment to the elevator, and both the dread of getting closer to a door that might be thrown open at any moment and the relief of making it safely inside the elevator. Living like that is SO stressful – even when nothing bad happens (this time!)
I’m so happy for you about your new safe home, surrounded by nice (meaning, “normal”) neighbours! I too am considering the need to move from my lovely little apartment – just to protect my mental health!
Take care. . . ❤️
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Am I allowed 2 comments in one day? LOL
I was just thinking about “Metamorphosis” the one Kafka book I read years ago… and I realized that I need to remember this book on the mornings when it is very tough to roll out of bed.
I don’t like to start the day in a negative mood, whining to myself about my current aches and pains. However, if I imagine rolling out of bed and discovering my body is now that of a cockroach, I start to laugh. What a great way to start the day. . . laughing!
I don’t laugh nearly as much as I used to, and I know there are many studies on the physical and mental health benefits of laughter. Wasn’t it Norman Cousins who cured himself of a chronic disease by locking himself in a room and watching comedy movies for days?
I hope you feel safe soon ❤️!
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Hi again Jill – yes of course you are allowed two comments (or even three!) 🙂
The fantastical thing about “The Metamorphosis” story is that the writer’s focus isn’t on how on earth did this poor man turn into a cockroach overnight, but the very mundane reality of how he’s ever going to manage getting out of bed and making his way to work today?!? It’s both hilarious and horrifying!
And thanks for that reminder of Norman Cousins who yes indeed did laugh his way out of a debilitating connective tissue diagnosis, as he wrote about in his 1979 book, “Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient: Reflections on Healing and Regeneration” — the year after he joined the UCLA School of Medicine faculty! I just looked him up again – He described watching old Marx Brothers films and reruns of TV’s Candid Camera, among others. His doctors were skeptical, but amazingly, he laughed his way to a successful recovery.
I’m off to search for Marx Brothers and Candid Camera now. . .❤️
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Here is my third and final comment ( for now LOL !)
I have been focusing for a while on how I transition from sleeping to waking and rolling out of bed. I think when we sleep, our soul travels to a much less dense level of consciousness, with no need for our body except to breathe, so it can return.
In the morning, when it returns to the body, it is a bit of a shock! Kind of like when a plane hits the tarmac on landing.
I roll out of bed, my sciatica pinging, I scan my blood sugar, weigh myself, take my insulin, lasix and other meds and limp to my recliner. Heart pounding until my calcium channel blocker kicks in and in those very physical moments I often wonder. . . How can I face this day? Am I able to be active or is it an “inactive” day? Stopping my mind from beating me up if I must cancel an activity and stay in my recliner for 1/2 a day or a whole one.
I can’t change the circumstances, I am doing everything I can to maximize my physical body. The only thing I can do is change my attitude about the circumstances.
So I am going to try the morning laughter intervention. . .and maybe look for some of those movies!
Blessings and Laughter😎
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Hi again Jill – it’s so funny you should mention that ‘waking up moment’ (not funny-Ha-Ha, but funny-weird).
In my average day (and every day is different depending on symptoms, or if I overdid it yesterday) but generally, I am a very early riser (typically the clock has the number 4 in front of the time (4:20, 4:45) at which time I am peaking mentally and physically compared to the rest of the day once noon passes. I often say I’m like a balloon with a pinhole in it, slowly fading hour by hour as my symptoms increase – until I can finally drag myself back to bed again each evening.
I do all my writing/thinking/walking/visiting in the a.m. In fact, when I have tried to write in the p.m., the next morning I’m bound to open up the draft article and wonder who the heck wrote the gobbledeygook on my laptop screen – which now needs to be deleted!
Each morning, I go from opening one eye to literally bouncing up to get the coffee on. This transition is not so much a “transition” as it is an off/on switch!
I completely agree with your attitude: I can’t do anything about the reality around me or about what others are doing, I only have control over myself and my own responses to that (thank you, Al-Anon for years of helpful meetings that taught me that that lesson!)
This experience with the unhinged neighbour upstairs has really shaken me to the core (mostly because he seems SO unhinged that I no longer doubt that screaming and swearing at me can and will escalate to violence in a heartbeat (I just don’t know WHEN) and the official warning letters he has received from our condo board so far simply serve to make him angrier – at ME! I’ve been browsing real estate listings this past week just to see what’s available out there, and such a decision oddly gives me some sense that I am making decisions (to move or not to move) instead of just cowering and waiting for him to have another meltdown. Susan’s comment (above) on finding a new home that she loves, shares what I hope WILL happen if I do move on (although I do love my little home and at first did NOT want to think about the stress of packing/moving/unpacking etc) – but I’m now weighing the pros and cons (stress of moving vs. the stress of spending years with a dangerous person directly overhead) – which option will be better or worse in the long run?
Meanwhile, my brain is strained from thinking about either option! Now to find those Marx Brothers movies!!! No brain power required. . . 🙂 ❤️
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Feeling safe is so primal!
I remember in nursing school learning about Maslow’s Priority of Needs. A pyramid of human needs with self-actualization at the top. Our physiological needs to stay alive form the base: food, air, water, shelter. The very next layer is composed of safety and security needs. Above that is a layer of the need to belong, and above that self-esteem.
Health and a self-actualized life begin with food, air, water, shelter and safety.
I have experienced many many times, in which my pyramid was rattled…more often by occurrences happening to my children than to myself.
Where exactly is our center? How do we maintain it when we feel threatened? For me my center is that eternal seed within “me” that goes on long after this body leaves the earth.
I spend time everyday feeding that part of me, feeding my soul and quieting my mind (Which always wants to dramatize and think of the absolute worst possibilities). That way, when the inevitable storms of life come along, I know where the storm cellar is, the Center of my being, my Heart and Soul. Where my attention needs to be always.
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Hello Jill – first, I’m impressed that teaching Maslow was part of your nursing school education – so important for young nurses to know. Thanks for the reminder that those safety and security needs are right there so close to the most basic life requirements of food, air, water, shelter – and that the most important shelter need is wrapped up tightly in feeling safe and secure.
I’m very lucky to live in my lovely little home, but even a lovely little home can feel like I’m trapped inside. So what has always been a safe place no longer feels safe to me. The police have attended twice, but after the last visit told me to just call 911 “next time” – which propels me directly into those “absolute worst possibilities” you mention. What will the “next time” look like? When will it happen?
I appreciate your wisdom on the need to feed my soul and quiet my mind (which frankly is on overdrive right now). I need way more practice in both at this point. Thank you Jill. . . ❤️
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Thank you. My entire world feels like it has fallen apart, and no one around me understands. I’m even depressing my therapist, but there is no “how to” on dying slowing, most days just feel like an endless painful torture, where your body has turned against you, yet you are still expected to function and live as normal.
Today is a bad day, reading this however let me feel understood if only for a brief few minutes, and it is written so well it reminded me of a past dream to write and enjoy reading well written things.
Alas i feel too exhausted to pursue that long forgotten dream anymore, but it was a lovely one to have. Thank you.
One of your many Heart Sisters.
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Hello Lysandra – I suspect that it’s really challenging – during those moments when we feel like our world is falling apart – for others around us to truly understand. Those closest want and need us to be “better” so they can stop worrying, too. I get that. I’m glad that reading this today reminded you of your own ‘long-forgotten dream’ – even if just for those brief minutes. I’m sorry about your exhaustion, and I hope that if you start small one day (reading things that help you, for example) you can somehow hold onto that dream. As the late tennis star Arthur Ashe once wrote: “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” That’s helpful no matter how low we start.
Take care. . . ❤️
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I’m so sorry for the circumstances that surround your home and have taken away the security of what should be your peaceful refuge.
You have always made us feel better when we tell you our medical woes. Thank you for always listening to us. May the Lord give you peace and the comfort of security as the issue with your neighbor is sorted out.
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Thank you so much for your kind words, Jennifer. ❤️
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