Bus and Me, The Fight Against Anxiety and Trauma I Still Avoid at All Cost

Image credit: Nubia Navarro (nubikini)

I know this might sound ridiculous, but I'm scared of taking bus alone.

It's ironic because taking a bus was a necessity back when I was still in middle school. I had to take a bus every day because my school was too far and my father's work was in the opposite way, so he couldn't take me to school. And the most unbelievable thing, despite my tantrums and anxiety about taking a bus, I still managed to finish my three years in middle school even though up until now I still consider middle school as the most terrible times of my life). But right after graduating middle school, I did everything I could to avoid having to take a bus anywhere. That also becomes one of many reasons why I chose my current college and why I bought a bicycle last semester.

Well, in my defense, I am not talking about bus in general. When I talk about riding a bus, I'm talking specifically about buses in my hometown. Though it doesn't stop me from avoiding bus in other cities too.

The bus in my hometown is still the old-fashioned one, even years after I graduated from middle school. Usually there are one driver and two conductors, each in every door. I'm not actually sure whether "conductor" is the right term of it in English, but in where I live in, the word sounds pretty similar to that. The conductor in the back door is the one who pays attention to passenger getting on and asks them for the bus fare. Yeah, we still use cash and the conductor asks for them manually. Meanwhile, the conductor in the front door usually makes sure every passenger gets on and off the bus safely and then tells the driver that they can go on again.

One of my biggest fears when taking a bus is when there is only one conductor. This means when I want to get off and there is no conductor at the door I'm getting off, I have to yell to the driver where I want to get off. Oh and how much I despise yelling. I am soft-spoken by nature, quiet, terribly shy, and well, yeah, have anxiety. The other scenario that might happens is there is no conductor at the back and the other passengers will tell me to get off using the front door. Which means I need to walk back again to the front. This is not an easy task when the bus is extra crowded, and it happens pretty often during rush hours. Sometimes, I missed my stop because I was too struggling to get to the door.

Image credit: Burak K

That reason might sounds ridiculous, but I still have more. The bus drivers in my hometown are definitely not the cautious type. They drive too fast and never stop long enough for the passenger to get on/off the bus. There were countless times when right after my feet touched the ground, the bus was already leaving. There was also this one time when I got dragged because the bus already moved when only one of my feet was on the bus and I lost balance immediately.  Thankfully, the front door conductor immediately yelled, telling the driver to stop. The back door conductor helped me got on the bus and I did my best to keep my composure (easy thing, because it's too traumatic that I could barely feel anything at the time). The shock finally wore off when I reached home half an hour later and I instantly broke down crying, but not telling my mother the reason why. I just cried.

Another episode was when I got sexual harassed during one of the bus's most crowded moments. It was the morning on my way to school, around 6 o'clock. The harasser stood beside me for around fifteen minutes. The bus got more and more crowded, so when his thigh and left hand were pressed against mine I barely noticed anything. Then the hand moved and I was so terrified. I didn't know what to feel. I didn't know what to do. I got off one stop earlier than I was supposed to and tried my best not to cry while walking around one kilometer to my school. I couldn't feel my legs and my hands were trembling, but I kept walking anyway. The classroom was still empty when I got there, so I burst into tears and cried quietly. Moments later though, I washed my face and pretended that nothing had ever happened. But it happened, and now you can say that my experience with bus is not exactly full of rainbows.

Image credit: Scott Webb

Some of you might think that not all of my reasoning is irrational. Or that many of these problems can be fixed with a simple solution. But well, let me tell you, anxiety is mostly irrational. I know I just need to brace myself, figure out some easy solutions, or just do something, but I just... I don't know. The fear defeats me every time. And so I just go on living my life avoiding bus at all cost.

I'm not exactly sure whether my anxiety, the dragging accident, or the sexual harassment affects my fear about bus more. But for sure, it's all piling up and then I have no courage nor determination in me to fight the fear. I already associate bus as something scary and unsafe. I just don't want to have anything to do with bus anymore.

If you ask me about other ways of transportation, I honestly don't have much problem with them. I ride bicycle to college nowadays. And when I'm sick, too tired, or need to bring heavy things, I take online transportation such as Go-Jek or Grab. I walk if it's less than two kilometers. I take train every time I need to go somewhere quite far. I'm not even intimidated by the thought of taking an airplane or ship alone. But bus... Oh, I never ride them by myself anymore. My college has free bus that we can use inside the campus area, but I never rode them alone. It's always with at least one friend or not at all. And even then, I still ask whether we truly need to use bus. If it's not too far, they are usually okay with walking instead of taking a bus (and you don't know how grateful I am every time my friends do that for me. I love them, seriously).

Truth be told, I know I can't avoid bus forever. There will be time when bus is the only transportation available in some situations. There will be time when I need to ride them alone. And when that time comes, I don't know whether I will be able to face the fear or not. I don't even know if I want the fear to disappear. It already becomes a part of me, and currently, I'm living quite well without having to ride any bus alone.