- May 14, 2024
Panic Attack
In the morning, it’s bright. The sun peeks through my blinds to say hello in rays of sunlight across the floor. Dust floats in streaks. My blankets are warm and the outside air is crisp on my cheeks pulled fresh from the pillows. There’s a certain innocence to the morning, to a new and naïve day. It has no idea what’s about to come.
Getting out of bed is never too much of a struggle for me, because the allure of breakfast is always too much for me to resist. I am naïve in the morning, disillusioned by sunlight.
I creep down the hall, tip-toes on the hardwood floor. I live with a heavy sleeper who I constantly fear I’ll wake up. Reaching the kitchen warrants a sigh of relief as I open the cabinets holding my happiness. Coffee comes first, then comes a muffin. The small things make me feel human; the aroma of cinnamon dancing out of the toaster oven, the warm touch of caffeine radiating through my coffee mug. Every little piece counts when you’re putting the puzzle together.
Mornings grow late, and their magic wears off. Tiredness creeps back in once the routine goes full swing. Slowly, every movement becomes a chore. Thoughts of the impending day overwhelm my consciousness.
The walls have grown so plain, decorated only with wilting photographs and vintage dust. Smoke from the fireplace left ashy marks on the ceilings of every room, and painting them every few years became a forgettable task. The walls used to be deep blue, but it felt wrong, so they were painted white. The white floods every crevice and sometimes it’s easy to forget where the walls and ceiling end.
The carpet is a soft gray, I find myself on the floor again. My skin is thirsty for the sea of cool, calm bristles. The hands of the clock whirl in circles with the sun. My mind is full of obligations unfulfilled; empty desk chairs where I should be, a clock left un-punched. But I’m sucked down by the gray current.
I submerge my face to the sea, turning the water into salt. Water falls from my eyes and soaks through my hands. The grey turns to blue, turns to grey, turns to darkness behind eyelids as I slip into a trance of breathing patterns. The air sucks dust into my lungs and sends sandstorms whirling through my ribcage. My heart rattles in the fierce winds. My brain watches helplessly from above; it starts frantically battening down the hatches to prepare for the storm, but the howling from outside bursts through the locks.
The sun says goodbye with golden streaks, splashing the white walls with nostalgic hope. Cars lights start to illuminate their paths home, where dinner tables and hungry families await. Grass and pavement lay in a pattern made romantic by the rose skylight. The world feels foreign through the cold glass of my window.
I’m tempted by the shine of my door handle, beckoned by what’s on the other side. As I move towards my exit, I’m reminded of the emptiness that resonates through these walls. There’s no solace passed the doorframe.
White fills my vision and the ceiling looks like snow. My limbs find their resting place as dark hues crawl like vines up my legs. My mind has exhausted its fuel supply, it jolts and grunts and clatters to a stop.
It Takes a Village
The first time I had a panic attack was in the 8th grade. I was doing my Algebra homework on Study Island, which was some website our teacher assigned most of our work on. Equations would appear on the stark white screen while a little timer ticked away in the top right corner. Math and I were already sworn enemies, but add a timer on top of that and you have an equation for my demise.
I was halfway through the assignment when I came across a question I couldn’t solve. Having been on the honor roll my entire young life, not being able to answer a homework question felt like the end of the world to me. If I couldn’t answer it, I would fail the assignment, then probably fail the class, possibly fail the entire 8th grade, be the laughing stock of my middle school, disappoint my teacher, disappoint my parents, and essentially my life would be completely over because I couldn’t solve for x. I would be known worldwide as “The Girl Who Couldn’t Finish Her Study Island Assignment”.
The onslaught of these thoughts quickly became more overwhelming than I could handle. The thoughts bounced and ran and crashed against the walls of my brain, vibrating my entire being. The air felt like it was leaking out of my body and no amount of deep breathing could relieve the lack of oxygen. Salty tears stained my blush-caked cheeks and noises fell out of my mouth that sounded like no cry I had ever experienced before. I had no idea what was going on with my body.
Seven years later, I found myself in a doctors’ office with thighs stuck to a bed covered in parchment paper. He was asking me questions that sounded ridiculous, and that I felt ridiculous answering. “Do you have trouble continuing with daily activities? How often do you feel tired, uninterested, or like you can’t focus? Have you ever thought about suicide?” As I responded, his fingers danced across the keyboard, analyzing the words I couldn’t make sense of myself. After the questioning, he provided his diagnosis, simply stating, “Well, you’re definitely depressed, and anxious for sure”. As if it had been that simple all along.
Depression and anxiety consumed me more wholly than ever before during my junior year of college. Panic attacks rattled my body and wore me down to almost nothing. I hid behind the façade of a good GPA, an internship, a part time job, oversized sweaters, and smiling faces on social media. I’d come home from class with a pile of homework and sob because I was so mentally and physically drained. I’d run to my car after a meeting at my internship and burst into panic because I didn’t feel like I was good enough to be there. I’d spend weekends locked in my room, laying my face on wet pillows partly because the thought of socializing made me sick to my stomach and partly because I felt like I had no purpose, no people who wanted me, no reason to exist. Every day it became harder to hide, and every day I isolated myself further to make sure no one would find out what I was doing behind closed doors.
There was only so much running I could do before my energy depleted completely. The anxiety and depression caught me, forced me to the ground and rubbed my face in the dirt. It took the last bit of strength I could muster to finally ask for help. And as embarrassed, ashamed, and afraid as I was to speak up about my struggles after a lifetime of silence, it was the most important thing I could have ever done for myself.
Too often I see people being put down for being open about their mental health issues, or being ridiculed for having some sort of episode in the public eye. I see people mock the “emo” kid for cutting his wrists. I see people point fingers at celebrities who get wrapped up in drug addiction and spiral into insanity while the paparazzi document each moment. I see people call the suicidal selfish. I see people hysterical over scenes in movies and on TV that portray therapy as a place entitled crybabies go to whine. I see people posting on social media bashing the use of prescription medication because mental illness doesn’t require real treatment. People laugh at crazy, scoff at weakness, and gawk at what they don’t understand. We treat mental illness like a spectator sport.
It’s no wonder why I took so long to speak up about my mental health. It’s also no wonder why millions of people worldwide are still biting their tongue. It’s scary to try and fight mental illness alone, but the thought of subjecting oneself to a sea of ridicule at the mention of mental instability is, without a doubt, twice as terrifying. Asking for help is essential, but actually doing it feels impossible.
It takes a village to raise someone above their mental illness. I know I wouldn’t be able to get through life without the help of mine. When you’re dealing with anxiety, depression, or other illnesses, everything you absorb affects you deeply. Experiencing negativity towards mental health from friends, family, on social media, or anywhere can have an impact, and can make people feel invalid, misunderstood, or insignificant. We can all become members of the same village if we can all work together to end the prejudiced and harmful stigma surrounding mental illness. Instead of judging others who act in ways we don’t understand, we should be open to the things that make people different. We should try to understand before we make assumptions about what we don’t know. Chances are you will encounter someone in life who struggles with their mental health, if you don’t struggle with it yourself. When you do, be the person you would want to have in your village if it were you with a mental illness. Be the person who takes another step towards making this world a more comfortable place for us all to thrive.
There is no need to suffer in silence, no need to fight all of you battles alone. Lend a helping hand, but never be afraid to reach for one yourself.
All Together
“We’re all just walking contradictions, really, if you think about time in a nonlinear sense. Everything that happens has always happened, everything that will happen will always happen, and well, you get the idea. There’s no changing things, it’s all already done, I suppose. Everything just happens, all at once, and we’re experiencing it moment by moment. I’m not so good at explanations. But it’s contradictory. I will always be sleeping, and always be awake. I will always be hungry, and always stuffed full. It goes deeper. I will always be telling lies that people believe, and always telling truths they don’t. I will always be the one begging for forgiveness, and always the one refusing to forgive. I will always be trying to create happiness, I will always be searching for pain. All together, all the time, always. I’m getting preachy now. But do you see what I’m getting at?”
He smiled, let out the shortest chuckle, and said “You’re really something. All together, all the time, always.”
Dr. Lucy
“Excuse me? I’m not sure I’m in the right place. Is Dr. Lucy’s office near here?”
“Oh, yes, see that door? It’s right there.” The lady at the desk pointed to a door down the hall with a piece of paper taped to it. “I’ll tell her you’re here. Fill out this paperwork, should be five pages.”
“Uh, okay. Thank you.” I took a seat next to a coffee table covered in magazines and went to work on the clipboard. Usually, a therapist’s office welcomes you with the sound of humming noise machines or zen music. This one, however, had the pleasant sound of dental drills and root canals as a soundtrack. You read that right – this doctor’s therapeutic practice was in the middle of a dentist office.
A bubbling woman towering over every dentist came strutting down the hall, coming right for me. “Sara?”
“That’s me,” I said while fumbling my pen.
“Dr. Lucy is ready for you. Just follow me,” she said with a warming smile.
I walked into the room to find Dr. Lucy reclined in her leather chair, surrounded by unlit candles and lotus flower decor. She directed me to her matching leather couch, which I reluctantly stuck my thighs to. She took the clipboard and proceeded to flip through the pages, squinting and nodding.
“So, you live with whom?”
“Uh, my mom. And my brother. When I’m not at school, I mean.”
“I see, and do you get along?”
“Yeah, as much as normal families do.”
“Okay, okay. Are you on any medications? Or any that you recently stopped?”
“Nope.”
“Do you have a thyroid problem?”
Confused, I shook my head no.
“Oh, well sometimes that can cause anxiety and depression. You should get that checked out, make a doctor’s appointment.”
All I could manage was a nod.
“Any significant trauma, accidents, recently?”
She was getting right to it. “I, uh, well, yeah I had an accident not that long ago. I totaled my car. Broke my arm, but otherwise I was lucky to be okay.”
“Wow, totaled? That’s crazy, you are lucky. You know, I know someone about your age – how old are you?”
“20.”
“Right, someone about your age, totaled his car and crushed both his legs. Couldn’t walk. Life can be so crazy sometimes, accidents can happen to anyone. It was so sad, you’re lucky you’re okay. But, moving on, did you have any nightmares following the accident?”
“Not really,” but now I might. I was starting to get over the whole ordeal; I didn’t need to be reminded that my legs could have been crushed.
I looked down to notice my thumb nail was thinly coated in bright red blood. I had picked my cuticle clean off, and though it was tiny, the slit in my skin was oozing a significant amount of fluids. I looked up to notice Dr. Lucy was still talking.
“So, you’re in college? What’s your-” she was interrupted by a startling buzz coming from her side table. “Oh, shoot, I have to take this. One second.” And just like that, she was out the door.
I’m paying for this.
Well, my insurance company is. But I have to cover the co-pay. And sessions go by the hour, so every minute counts. And here she was, a seasoned professional, wasting my minutes away. I don’t normally sweat the small stuff but I came here because I have a serious problem, not because I needed a casual chat. If I wanted someone to ignore me for their phone I would have saved myself some cash and taken a friend out to coffee.
While waiting, I began to study my surroundings. A chill came from the air conditioner stationed in the corner, which simultaneously blocked out the sounds of teeth cleaning and human torture. A forest green filing cabinet sat underneath an elephant lamp and a matching business card holder. Deep brown bookshelves were screwed into beige walls, holding psychology texts and east-Asian knickknacks. The carpet was a soothing red with splashes of brown. Dr. Lucy’s desk was coated in ink-stained papers, neon highlighters, plain pens, and somewhere in the pile, a laptop stuck out. The room smelled of artificial cool air.
The door creaked open. “Sorry about that. My mother is sick, and I have to handle her doctors appointments.”
“That’s okay,” I responded. Dr. Lucy was no spring chicken, so I imagine her mother must be fairly fragile, so to speak.
“Which reminds me, I should mention, I’ll be taking the next two months or so off to help care for my mother. I just can’t have all this interrupting my practice, you know? So if you do want to schedule another appointment, it may have to be for September or so. Seems like we both have our problems,” she scoffed.
“Oh, um, alright.” At this point, saying anything became difficult, because I knew it was all a waste of breath. I didn’t want to explain my entire situation to another therapist I’d never see again.
“So, anyway, you’re in college. What’s your major?”
“Communication, with a minor in film studies.”
“Oh, you should definitely get a job in that field. I tell ya, my son had a girlfriend who majored in communications at Drexel. She started working for Comcast right after she graduated, and was making $80,000 a year.”
“Wow.”
“I know, $80,000 a year, right out of college! Actually, it might have been like $76,000, but still.”
“Not a bad deal.”
“Not at all, it takes most people years to get that. You should really keep Comcast in mind. I don’t know much about communications, but I assume that’s all in the same ballpark. And get close with your professors, you never know the connections they might have.”
Was this lady really giving me career advice right now? Am I at therapy or my school’s Career Services office?
“You know, my son had three internships at Drexel. Drexel was a good school. With that experience he got a job right away, he did a five-year program though. I don’t know if you plan to do that. But it’s all about those connections, which you have time to make. I wouldn’t worry about the future so much if I were you.”
If she were me, she’d know I never said I worry about the future at all.
Just as it seemed like she was about to pull up a job search website for me, the ding-dong of the doorbell saved my life.
“Oh, it looks like our time is up. My next appointment is here. You’ve been here before, right? Go find Janet at the front desk. I’ll see you later,” she guided me out the door and closed it on my back. I have never been here before, so I started wandering and stumbled upon the pure horror that is a dental health routine. The dentist peered up from his moist cave to point me towards the exit.
I noticed that the door came before Janet’s desk. I’d have to walk past the door, and then to her alcove. Or, I could say fuck Janet, and make a quick exit while saving $35 on the co-pay.
Fuck Janet.
Wounds
“Look! I got this giant bruise on my leg. No clue where it came from.” She pulled up her skirt to reveal a black and blue mass the size of a baseball on her leg. Against her pale skin, it looked severe enough to cause memorable pain.
“Jesus, that looks like it hurts!”
“It doesn’t really. I can’t even think of how I got it, but this shit happens all the time. I must be a violent sleeper or something.”
She never really paid much attention to it. After all, it was nothing too unusual. People get mysterious bruises, happens all the time. Maybe she bumped a table without realizing, maybe it happened while she was drunk. Whatever it was, it was nothing to be concerned about.
A violent sleeper, she really wasn’t. A heavy sleeper she was. Once she fell asleep, she’d lay there like a rock until her thunderous alarm woke her up in the morning. Seriously, that thing was loud enough to wake the neighbors. It must suck to be her roommate.
So that night she knocked out around 1:00 a.m., not out of the ordinary for a college student in the summer. The next morning, to her surprise, she woke up before her alarm. After settling in the morning confusion after an unexpected wake up, she tried to recall what it was that broke her slumber. A dream? Definitely a dream. Scary dream, too. She started to piece something together. She was running through the woods, it was dark, typical scary dream junk. She couldn’t quite remember why she was running, what was chasing her. So, she brushed it off and rolled out of bed into her morning routine.
She walked by the full length mirror in her bedroom and did a double take. Another bruise. This one on her ankle, all the way around it like a bracelet. That was a new one.
This was starting to get weird, but she didn’t want to think about it. It still didn’t seem serious enough to warrant a doctor’s visit or anything, so she brushed it off once again. But it kept happening.
I guess you want me to tell you why now, right? Enough talking, where are the bruises coming from? I get it, so here we go. You asked.
Another night, and our protagonist falls asleep. Like a rock. But this rock gets rolling. Up out of bed, out the door, unnoticed. Heavy sleeping must run in the family.
I watch her walk out the door. Down the steps, through the yard, and into those woods from her dreams. She’s just wandering, seeming like she’s enjoying it. That’s when I start following. I’m trying not to be seen, because when she sees me she starts running. And I’m not really trying to hurt her, there’s no need for her to run.
I guess I made too much noise or something, because she turns around just in time to catch me staring. She wasn’t happy to see me I guess, because off she ran. But this time I’m tired of her getting away, so I start running too.
She’s dodging trees, running as fast as she can in her pink underwear and old grey t-shirt. We’re getting deeper and deeper into the forest, and I can see the trail of blood she’s leaving behind from the fresh cuts in her feet. It’s all untamed out here. I know she’s going to stop soon.
I’m getting closer, close enough to hear her running out of breath. Then my opportunity comes. She trips on a branch and face plants into the dirt. I keep running and jump on her back. She moans a little, and her eyes start to flutter. Shit.
“Don’t wake up,” I whisper.
A College Story
It was raining, the next morning. My eyes blinked open, brushing off leftover mascara. I tried to wipe off my inevitable raccoon eyes, when I realized my arm was tied down by his. So I left it, because I wasn’t ready for him to wake up yet.
His window was open and it was raining. But I couldn’t feel the rain, only the cold. It was kind of nice, because the body heat on my skin was getting a little too warm. It was still technically summer, after all.
It was quiet apart from a few pans banging downstairs and the sound of the rain. I could gently hear him breathing. I was waiting for a change in pattern, his first breath of the day. But he stayed sleeping, and I stayed resting, listening to gentle drops rustling through the trees.
I wiggled a little to let the cool mist of the rain into the crevices between him and I. I don’t know what he was dreaming of, but when I moved he only pulled me tighter, like he was scared I’d roll away.
I felt safe, even in an unsafe city, in a house filled with 6 dumb college boys. But the feeling of having a body bigger than mine, wiser than mine, wrapped around me like a shield of armor had me feeling like nothing could get to me, nothing but the cool mist of the rain.
Time passed. I don’t know how much, because it passed in the way time does when you’re in a daze. I lost track of the breathing and was mesmerized by the rain when suddenly, I felt my skin unstick from his. Good morning, morning breath, end of daze.
“What time is it? My phone is lost in your bed somewhere.”
“I think I was sleeping on it. Here.”
As soon as I turned it back on, that phone started vibrating to a constant beat.
“Someone’s popular,” he yawned.
“It’s all those birthday texts, early morning relatives.”
“10 o’clock isn’t that early.”
“Shit, it’s 10?”
“Yeah.” His arms slid around me. “Can’t we just stay in bed all day?”
“No, my parents are going to be here in like a half hour actually and I’m going to need you to drive me to my dorm.” I forced myself out of his warmth and put my feet on the cold wood floor.
“You don’t even want coffee?”
“Raincheck.”
With that, he threw on his shirt and walked me to the door. I collected my roommate from the couch downstairs and we set off on our journey back.
The car ride was quiet and I thought about how love was starting to seem so disposable. How you could share such an intimate moment with a person and it’ll feel like love, it’ll feel like heaven, but that’s not what it is. How that person doesn’t love you, how you don’t love that person, how that person can be forgotten so quickly. How maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe it means I’ll see more love, I’ll feel more heartbeats and hear more drunken secrets. Maybe I’m meant for this. Maybes go on; but I know for certain, disposable love is better than no love at all.