Frozen Oranges
Frozen oranges are a strange thing to find in a freezer, but not at our house.
Sandi knows the signs. She knows what to look for. Intricate details in a macroscopic life. She knows when my mood changes and sees when the thoughts become too much. She recognizes patterns in my behavior that she’s learned through the years to watch out for. Excessive stemming, pacing, avoiding eye contact, vocalizing racing thoughts that are out of control — and these are just the easy ones.
These are signs that my fight-or-flight mechanism has taken over and an unavoidable chain of events is taking place. Neuron after neuron is firing, increasing heart rate, sweating, breathing, and slowing digestion; tensing muscles to react and pupils dilating to increase light sensitivity. These are all physiological changes occurring inside my body as a result of, in some cases, a single thought ranging from — you’re not good enough — you’re worthless — you’ll end up just like your father.
I recently finished a miniseries on the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster of 1986. In an interesting series of events, the control room operators did everything right. When the number 4 reactor reached a critical point during a safety test, they pressed the button to lower the Boron control rods back into the core to stop the runaway reaction; not knowing that by doing so, they had just caused — what some claim to be — the worst man-made disaster on the planet.
You see, the control Rods were meant to stop the fission reaction taking place but, to save money, the tips of the rods were made of graphite. When the tips of the rods were lowered into place the reaction increased, causing a massive build-up of steam that burst pips, stopping the rods in place, holding the graphite tips inside the core, which only caused more reaction. Eventually, the top of the nuclear core exploded and dumped radiation into the air which eventually led to the deaths of thousands of people. The issue was a design flaw to save money, which the USSR eventually admitted it.
I see my body, and my mind for that matter, in the same way as those control rods. Nature’s own design flaw. What was meant to keep humans safe on the African planes from lions has to lead to the emergence of a global pandemic of anxiety disorders.
We’ve worked through a myriad of treatments for this condition. Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, EMDR, generic talk therapy, and a whole slew of different medications. But one unique skill I picked up at a treatment center we found works well for me. In fact, if you come over to our house and look in our freezer you’ll find two small oranges. Frozen Oranges. These act as those control rods in the nuclear power plant, to stop the reaction dead in its tracks.
It is a known phenomenon that the human body cannot experience both extreme cold and anxiety at the same time. You see the body, as illustrious as it is, has a fail-safe switch — prioritize the core organs. The human body is not as egalitarian as we would like to believe. If the body experiences extreme cold it slows the heart rate and breathing and prioritizes blood flow to vital organs, redirecting it from extremities. This is why frostbite affects fingers and toes first. We can use this information to trick the body.
During times of extreme anxiety, when heart rate and breathing are increased, we can introduce ‘extreme’ cold, in the form of frozen oranges in the hands. The body, in an attempt to save itself, reacts to the cold and slows the heart rate and breathing, thereby stopping the anxiety attack.
And so, Sandi sees the signs. She sees the blinking lights of the alarms just like those control room operators that dark night in 1986. She reacts. First, isolate the problem: get me to a room where I cannot hurt myself or anyone else (usually the bathroom). Second, secure the children in their room, close the door. And last, drop the control rods to stop the reaction, give me the frozen oranges, and just like that, it stops. Breathing slows, heart rate drops, and the ‘postictal’ stage begins. She reminds me of who I am, where I am, and what’s just happened.
And this is why you’ll always find frozen oranges in our freezer.
Find more of my stories on my blog
-Jesse
