I have an Idiocyncracy

I have an idiosyncrasy. I prefer for people to walk ahead of me when I walk up the stairs. I don’t like to walk up the steps first. This behavior does not apply in places like a train station or an airport where I am surrounded by strangers.  I am okay walking up steps when I don’t personally know the people walking behind me. My bizzarro-ness on the stairwell is prompted only by being with someone or a group of people I know.

If put in a situation where I have no choice but to go ahead of people on the stairwell, I will turn and walk either sideways or backwards—it is necessary for me at all times to observe the behavior of the people accompanying me. And so as to not to make my behavior seem obvious, I engage in conversation as I walk. I compensate for my peculiarity by seeming so deeply engaged in discourse that I seek constant eye contact as I walk. Now imagine how particularly difficult it was for me when I was younger in Catholic school and I was forbidden to speak and had to face forward in a single line as I walked. I had to manage the best I could with my mania without either getting into trouble, or letting out my secret.

My PTSS—Post Traumatic Stair Syndrome stems from early childhood. When I was little, my brother Mark, who was 4 years older than I, was taught ladies go first. And he used that social rule to mess with me. When I would walk up the steps ahead of him as mandated by the ladies go first rule he would pull my ankles so I would fall. He thought this was hilarious. I of course did not. And because he was so much bigger physically than I was, no matter how fast I tried to run up those stairs, he would succeed in making me fall. It wasn’t as painful when the stairs were carpeted-- the pain was mostly from rug burn because of the underpadding.  But when the stairs were asbestos tile with metal capping, boy did that hurt. And my brother Mark was skilled. There hardly ever were any witnesses. And so my cries for help went almost entirely unanswered.

On the rare occasion when my brother got caught, he was made to apologize and promise never to do it again. But my brother had watched too many Charles Schultz Peanut Cartoons. Like Lucy with the football promising Charlie Brown she would not pull the ball away when he kicked, the thought of initiating the fall of a flailing, tumbling victim was just too irresistible to pass up. And Like Charlie Brown, I fell every time. And I mean, every time.

Trauma is pretty interesting. Despite the fact that I understand intellectually that when for example I am walking ahead of my friends they would never intentionally make me fall, the bizzaro-monster in my head has huge doubts and encourages me to be safe rather than sorry. And I wonder whether now that I have come clean about my emotional affliction, the catharsis of it all might abate my anxiety. Maybe now I will feel free. I doubt it—until VH-1 gives Dr. Drew a new show: Non-Celebrity Stairwell Rehab, I will be forever scarred.