On Thin Ice
Winter used to be my favorite season.
Growing up in the South, it was the only time of year when I wasn’t overheated all the time and trying to get back indoors whenever I had to leave. I always imagined a “real” winter as filled with white, fluffy snow that I could use to build snowmen and then come inside and drink hot chocolate. I kept this image in my mind when I moved to upstate New York for college, and on the first day it snowed, I took a video where I enthusiastically squealed into the camera about how excited I was.
But even in that first video, a clue of my future problem appears: as I turn the camera, the video shows a patch of ice on the sidewalk. “That actually looks kinda dangerous,” I giggle. A few hours later, I tried to go to the library to study, and even with holding the banister, I fell and badly bruised my tailbone.
My college never put salt on icy patches, and after my first fall, and after the New York weather covered the entire campus in thick ice, I found myself facing extreme anxiety to get anywhere when the ground was slippery.
After a while, I developed a system where my friends who weren’t afraid would hold my hand, and although I felt like a little kid, it was often the only way I could go downhill on a campus mostly composed of hills. Whenever I was alone, even when there was a banister, my pace would creep so slowly that I would often take five or six times longer than usual to get anywhere simply because of shuffling my feet so slowly or having to psych myself up just to take a step at all. If that single step seemed like too much, I would sit down on the ice, no matter how cold it was - I couldn’t get hurt by falling if I was already on the ground, after all - and scoot my way down the flight of stairs or steep hill.
Even in winter boots with thick treads, anxiety plagued my every step in winter. It never got any better, and I spent four years learning how to walk on the grass so if I fell it would be soft, to plan my walks around my friends’ schedules, to stay inside whenever I could. I hated that anxiety and fear were keeping me from the winters I’d always imagined.
I went through college without building a single snowman, and still haven’t to this day. Wherever I’ve moved, I somehow find myself in a place where the residential area isn’t properly salted, and that curtails my activity as much as the overbearing heat of Southern summers used to in my childhood.
This even applies to Chicago - although the areas I go to in the Loop are usually salted, my neighborhood depends on individual stores and apartment buildings to clean in front of them, and many remain icy. Last month, on my way back from my book club, I took a bus that dropped me off five blocks from home. A walk that usually takes me ten minutes took me over an hour of clinging to fence posts, shuffling through the slush in the streets, and frantically talking to my mom on the phone for support.
I envied the people all around me who were walking quickly, who could slide and keep moving, who got to their warm homes long before me. I wished that I could just walk, just get over this fear keeping me inside during what should be the happiest time of the year. Instead of praying for snow like I used to when I was little, I now pray that the weather stays cold but clear all winter, if only that I don’t have to deal with this anxiety as much.
I’ve started trying to do exposure therapy about my fear of falling on ice. I use motives like rare pokemon in Pokemon Go to get me out of the house on icy days, and take short and mostly manageable trips. I have what most people would consider proper gear, and I still keep those old waterproof pants around in case it gets truly terrible.
I hope that one day, I’ll be able to get to the point where I don’t take an hour to walk five blocks, where I’m out in the cold until I can’t feel my fingers and toes. I hope I can learn how to enjoy an actual winter rather than the idea I imagined in my childhood, and winter won’t be a thing OCD takes away from me any more than it already has.
As winter is quickly approaching, I can’t deny that I’m looking forward to my family’s annual trip to Florida to escape the potential ice for a week, but I also want to learn to love Chicago winters. But just as I learned to love dogs and try new foods, I will challenge myself this winter to be brave on ice and win another victory in the war against my OCD.
Ellie, a writer new to the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.