Due to the pandemic, I have not seen the inside of a grocery store in almost 3 months. I’ve been having my groceries delivered every week. Last week, the state of Florida started reopening and I felt that it was safe to go shopping by myself.
A little back story, I have pretty significant anxiety. I’m scared of basically everything. But grocery shopping is my favorite form of adulting because cooking is my favorite hobby so I was excited all week to go buy my own groceries.
Yesterday (Sunday) I embarked on my journey with my face mask in tow. I grabbed a cart, threw my reusable grocery bags in, and headed towards the entrance where I was greeted by spray bottles full of disinfectant. I entered the building with a now soaking wet cart and my mask on. When I walked in, I saw the expected signage: arrows on the floor directing traffic down the aisles and “Please remain 6 feet apart” plastered everywhere as well as a recorded message played on the intercom every 30 minutes. The chaos ensued very quickly. No one was social distancing or respecting personal space (one of my most senstive triggers). People were pushing their way past me, touching my cart, walking down aisles in the wrong direction while also stopping in the middle of the aisle so no one could pass them. I saw families walking in and breaking the one person per cart rule. I instantly became overwhelmed and over stimulated. I started throwing random items into my card and got yelled at for accidentally walking down an aisle in the wrong direction. I fielded what felt like a thousand judgmental eyes staring at me and wondering why I was taking so long to pick out parmesan cheese. Shredded or flaked, shredded or flaked, shredded or flaked. It all started sounding foreign and feeling like I was in a different country where I didn’t know the language. I found myself hyperventilating in the birthday card section where albeit I needed to pick up some cards anyway. I took off my mask in an effort to get some oxygen into my lungs when a young woman about my age walked passed me going in the wrong direction giving me side eye. I grabbed my cards, put my mask back on, and headed to the toiletries aisle for razors and tampons. I pushed my way to the self check out counter and like I always used to do, set my reusable bags up so I could scan and sort efficiently. I get half way through my cart when an employee approaches me and says I am not allowed to have reusable bags in the store because they don’t know where I have been (little did they know that I’ve been no where...I’m a shut in because like I said, I’m scared of everything). My panic heights about 200% and I chaotically try finishing up as fast as possible. I’m surrounded by 3-4 other FAMILIES waiting to use my specific station. I’m sweating and my hands are shaking. My card isn’t working because I inserted it into the reader too quickly. Finally, I get my receipt and push my cart outside as fast as I can manage while feeling eyes like lazers all over my body. I get to my car, load up my groceries, look at my receipt, and realize I spent twice my budget. I immediately start crying. I cried all the way home. I pull up to my apartment where my boyfriend meets me outside and asks why I look so tired. My bottom lip starts trembling and he ushers me upstairs empty handed while he carries all our groceries by himself. He asks me what happened and I just started sobbing. It took me three attempts to actually get the words out. First, “It was scary.” Second, “I’m overwhelmed.” Finally, I word vomited my entire experience and had a 20-25 minute meltdown in my kitchen. My boyfriend made the executive decision that we’d go back to grocery delivery until further notice.
The moral of the story is this: this pandemic isn’t happening to just you, it’s happening to everyone. Politicians preach that we’re all in this together but it made itself very evident that that just isn’t true. I was silently bullied for two hours just trying to get groceries and I went into the store with the intention of being polite and respectful of other people’s space and stress. Unfortunately, it felt like no one else had that same intent. I urge everyone to be more self aware of how they’re treating each other because yesterday should not have gone how it did.
