Claustrophobia Attack

I used to read about claustrophobia and thought to myself that it could simply be just panic attack. I thought it was just the medical professionals coining another term. This was until I seemed to suffer my first bout of claustrophobia that all doubts about the existence of this condition was swept away.

Friends who knew me would know I was not one who openly celebrated crowds. Only once in a blue moon would I feel excited about squeezing with people to feel the festive ambience. Most of the time I would prefer space and I stressed again I meant adequate and comfortable space for myself.

The journey to-and-fro work was often an ordeal as we were packed like sardines within the train cabin. Morbid thoughts, along the line of mass stampede if something dangerous were to happen, were often generated during that short span of 15 minutes. This discomfort was certainly increasing in intensity and no matter how early or late I could push my going to office or home time, the train was constantly packed to the brim.

More often than not, you would see me spending the eve of public holidays at home, instead of partying in clubs or Orchard Road for countdown or mass dance. Again, crowd was a strangely huge deterrent for me to want to celebrate with the whole of Singapore.

Perhaps it was because my recent recovery of flu and the weakening of my body, when I stepped into the lift or train cabin during peak hours, I felt a sudden lack of air, increasing rate of heart pumping and breathlessness. A 5 minute life ride or a 15 minute train ride felt like an eternity. The closed-up feeling was increasingly difficult to bear. As soon as I stepped into open space, the pent-up feeling dissipated as quickly as it appeared when I stepped into the lift or cabin. This happened a couple of times and I knew this was what claustrophobic people felt. I knew then that I had 'endeared' myself to claustrophobia.

Some people emigrated out of Singapore because of better opportunities and living environment. Some did that because of language - there was a time when parents were emigrating to Australia to lighten the study load of their children as passing of Chinese was a prerequisite for advancement into tertiary institutions. If I were to leave Singapore, I believed the reason would be none other than the increasing crowd of Singapore.