a Scarlet D

It’s a modern looking pen. The thrust device (I looked up pen nomenclature) was unique, almost a button and a lever combined. Push the button, Click. Push the lever, Click. Click. Orange metallic with black highlights. Normal length for a pen, maybe a little bit thicker.

I noticed it the other day. The click, that is. It was a simple background noise, on the other side of the room. So it was quieter. click. Annoying, but drowned out by the rest of the noise in the room.

Today he was sitting right next to me. Click. I’ve decided he’s a nervous individual in general. Thus the habit. Click. It wasn’t until after lunch that I connected to it. Click. In the past I’ve been sensitive to people eating food loudly, or other annoying noises, but I’ve had it under control in the last few years. Click. Today, however, it was too close, too loud, and constant but irregular. Click. I would watch his hands, waiting for him to set it down, to give me some time to recover and get my footing. But he always picked it back up. Click.

It grew from annoying to highly distracting. Click. Eventually it must have plucked the right chord because the anxiety attacks began. Click. Flush, heart beating out of my chest, fire burning in my stomach. My concentration was focused on that one thing only. Click. I couldn’t understand why nobody else noticed it. It was so loud and so percussive. Click. I looked around the room and nobody even seemed bothered. Click. How was it that a room full of people in some form of mental health crisis weren’t picking up on this? Click. Why was it just me?

“Urge surfing is a mindfulness-based technique, often used in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), to manage cravings and impulses by riding them out like a wave rather than trying to suppress or give in to them. It involves acknowledging the urge, observing its physical sensations and emotions without judgment, and allowing it to pass naturally, like a wave receding.” — google

I’ve used urge surfing Click before, but it’s hard. To me, it’s like Click just letting the thing overwhelm you and wash over you Click as long as it’s near. So in this Click case it was just letting the Click anxiety flow through me Click like boiling water. Click Just have to endure it until it Click stops. In some Click ways it’s nice Click to know Click that’s as bad as it Click will be, and that Click it’ll end eventually. Yeah, I just Click read what I just wrote, whatever.

So I spent Click the rest of the Click afternoon urge surfing and Click failing at telekinesis. By Click the time it was Click a problem we were just starting Click the last session, and I Click just white knuckled it through. Click Yes, I am well aware I could Click have politely Click asked him not Click to click the pen. But Click I was too far Click gone by Click then. Click So Click I Click just Click rode Click it Click out.

It eventually stopped (he left) and I was left with sweet sweet relative silence. I still couldn’t believe nobody was bothered by it, so I asked a woman on the other side of the room. It was like she had been holding her breath. She had been going just as crazy as I was. Someone else piped up – and within a minute everyone in the room was talking about how maddening it was. I’m still going to be the one asking him to stop clicking, unfortunately. Everyone agreed.

The moral is twofold. First, don’t click your damn pen. Second, just because someone looks like they can’t hear a pen clicking, it doesn’t mean they’re not dying inside.