A Phone Message From the Past
by Nancy King
For years I resisted buying a smartphone. I didn’t want or need instant connection, texting, or Internet. All I wanted and needed was to make and receive phone calls, which I could do easily on my flip phone. But as the years went by and technology changed, it became harder and harder to deal with the everyday demands of life. When I brought skirts to be hemmed, I was told, “We’ll text you when your order is ready.”
“I don’t text.”
Pause. “Then just call us or just come by and wait if they’re not ready."
It got worse. People wanted to WhatsApp me. I didn’t know what it was and my flip phone didn’t give me the option. In order to validate warrantees I had to download apps I couldn’t access and didn’t know how to use. I clung to my landline and my flip phone. I felt increasingly resentful and angry. It was like trying to push the river. And no matter how willful I am, I know I can’t push the river.
One day, in a moment of abandon, to celebrate my 84th birthday, I saw a flyer from a progressive phone company offering a $200.00 rebate on a new smartphone. Without thinking about what I was doing, I called, spoke to a persuasive salesman, and ordered the phone. As soon as I hung up I thought about cancelling the order but it seemed like too much trouble. I didn’t tell anyone I’d bought a smartphone.
It arrived. I opened the box, took out the phone, and immediately began to shake. Nausea. Stomach ache. Overwhelming feelings of terror. I dropped the phone into the box, but that didn’t stop the reaction. My home phone rang, and I answered it because I know it was my publisher. When he asked how I was I responded, “Can I tell you the truth?” He said yes. I told him about my reaction to the phone and then, as I was talking to him, images formed in my mind. He asked if the reaction was caused by something from my past. I didn’t reply. We had business to do and I focused on that instead.
As soon as our conversation ended, the images in my head turned into a horror film. I’ve dealt with PTSD all my life. I know how to observe frightening images without getting hooked and how to allow visceral reactions to come so they can go. I’ve written a memoir about abuse. But this time it was different: I was in a movie with sound, taste, and visceral reactions like none I remember experiencing. I careened back to a time when I was three, when my mother broke my shoulder, collar, and rib bones. She yelled at me and blamed me for being careless and causing so much trouble. When my parents took me to the ER, I was told to hold a box while they took X-rays. I was shaking so hard I dropped the box. My mother screamed that it was my fault and I was so stupid I couldn’t even hold a box. My father took my mother out of the room, leaving me alone, in pain, with strangers.
I told myself the smartphone was just a phone. I’m not a defenseless, three-year-old-child. The horror story with my mother happened a long time ago. But every time I picked up the phone I had the same reaction. How could I “allow” the past to affect me so profoundly? So many people use a smartphone every minute of every day. Why not me? A few days later, determined to use the smartphone, I went to the house of friends who set up my new phone—a process that took six hours, two computers, several talks with the phone and computer companies, and two trips to my house to get information I needed. I came home shaken and exhausted. I put the phone in its box and lived without a cell phone, relieved that my two friends were the only people who knew I’d bought an iPhone. A week later, the flashback to early childhood wasn’t quite as devastating. I had moments when my visceral reactions were subdued. I felt ready to contact my “computer guy” and ask for his help. He hooked up my new wi-fi modem, simplified the phone setup, and added WhatsApp and a hiking app that allows me to know where I am so I can tell others if I need help. With great patience and kindness, he taught me how to make a phone call, create a contact, and text. After he left, I took a deep breath, held the phone, and told myself, “I can do this." I could separate the past from the present and dissolve, or at least lessen, the damage caused by a traumatic past and unloving family. But I couldn’t do this. Overwhelmed and drained, I turned off the phone and put it away, relieved that since no one else knew I had bought a smartphone, there would be no texts or WhatsApps coming in.
Days passed. I was hiking in the mountains with a friend and my iPhone rang with an unfamiliar, lilting ring; I had forgotten to turn it off. When I had the flip phone it was always turned off so it never rang while I was hiking. “What’s that?” he asked. I giggled, nervously taking the phone out of my backpack. He was astonished and visibly proud of me for buying it. He quickly offered any help I might need. I told him a little about the shaking and flashback miseries that were diminishing but hadn’t stopped. He muttered comforting words and began to show me a few easy things I could do with my phone, it was impossible to simultaneously learn, keep social distance, and hike up steep hills. By mutual consent, we focused on the hike.
Another week has passed. I can now make phone calls, text, add a contact, and use the health app to track how far I walk or hike without shaking and with only minimal nausea. When I feel ready, I will learn to do emails and WhatsApp. The rest will have to wait. The flashback and accompanying physical reactions are dissolving, although not gone. I am still daunted by the persistence and impact of childhood abuse on my current life. Buying and learning to use a smartphone has been an arduous, terror-filled process, but I’m doing it—with the help of friends who cheer me on, every step of the way.
Santa Fe-based Nancy King’s new memoir, Breaking the Silence, (Terra Nova Press) has just been published. It is available online at bookshop.org and amazon.com Please visit www.nancykingstories.com where you order her books, read excerpts of memoir and novels, learn about her nonfiction dealing with the power of stories, imagination, and creativity, as well as information about Nancy’s workshops. You can also order books from Nancy by contacting her at nanking1224@earthlink.net
Photo by SK Lund
