Through a series of unfortunate events, I found myself accompanying my daughter to a gig. Black Pink live at the BST Hyde Park, with a host of accompanying acts.
My wife was supposed to be the one going but my wife fell ill, and that meant I would have to suck in my anxiety and do a whole bunch of things that are massive anxiety triggers for me.
1) I had to get into London on public transport (Task 1)
2) I had to plan it in such a way that we would actually also be able to get BACK from London and get home afterwards
3) I had to negotiate the modern gig ticketing experience. Me being a mobile phone naysayer and (hah) owning a phone that is too old to run most of the apps
4) I had to queue in amongst thousands of people, for hours
5) Once we got into the venue I had to share a very small space with said thousands of people for 8 ½ hours
6) I had to make sure my kid had a good time and that no one annoyed her or got in her way
The way I deal with anxiety is to break a mountain of triggers down into smaller tasks and mentally tick them off in my head as they are completed. If something goes wrong (and when you suffer from anxiety attacks in your head you imagine every scenario around things going wrong but never things going right) then I try to imagine a path to the next task and how I can work around the problem to get to the next without causing any more issues or upset.
A gig challenges someone like me on many levels. I hate people. That is a broad sweeping statement that should be subheaded with "the majority of people at least". Over the last 30 to 40 years people have definitely become more selfish, self absorbed, entitled and generally fucking annoying to the point of inciting violence with their every action. When you're an anxiety sufferer, people are usually the source of most of your triggers so being thrown into a situation with the worst of the worst (as many gig-goers are), you have to adopt a concrete mask and just let it all wash over you, all that annoying entitled behaviour.
List all the human traits that annoy you and there'll be thousands of people at a large gig like this one exhibiting at least a dozen or so of those traits. Everything from smoking, to queue jumping, to littering, spitting, sticking their kids on their shoulders so you can't actually see the stage, holding their phones up and filming the whole thing so all you see of the gig is someone's tiny shitty little phone screen. I could go on and on but that's not really what we're here for.
Teenagers, thankfully (at least mine) seem to deal with this shit on a far more subliminal level, to enjoy the moment as it is and get what they want out of it - and by gad I wish I had the secret of how to do that, it must feel amazing. One thing I did realise while typing this was that as an adult, as the responsible adult (hah) in charge of a day like this, you are the one facing all the pressure to ensure its success and that's a big pile of responsibilities for anyone to deal with, let alone an anxiety sufferer.
People think they know what relief is. Relief was that moment where I was sitting on the coach home with my daughter, utterly physically and mentally exhausted, knowing that whatever else happened that day was back under my control and 'dealable with'. The gig itself was worth it just to see her face and to hear her describe it as 'the best day ever' was enough for me. I can bank that. I can bank the fact that a useless piece of shit like me was able to give my daughter a hell of a memorable experience that she'll think about hopefully for years to come, and let's face it that's what being a dad is about.
One more musing on all of this stuff. I feel like the person that others rely on a lot more than they should. The assumption (in some cases, the 'taking for granted') that I can do all this stuff and not be fucked up by it for a long time afterwards is sometimes quite irritating. But I guess I should think myself lucky that I am still physically able to do this stuff even if mentally I'm still a wreck.
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