Liars and Losers Like Us(70)
“Sure,” I say. I take another couple sips of water and wish I’d brought a full bottle. Apparently counseling makes me thirsty. “I get little stomachaches when I’m worried about something. And my heart races. Like, a lot. My hands get sweaty and sometimes it feels like I won’t be able to breathe. It can feel like something is clogging my throat and my lungs are having to do triple the work to, I don’t know, keep me breathing. When I’m really anxious, it’s like I’m seconds away from suffocating.” My eyes tear up. “I guess I’m just kind of a freak about some things, you know.”
She jots down a note or two, and then raises her head again. “What types of situations are you in when you get this anxiety?”
The view of the parking lot from the window up here is pretty clear and I wonder if anyone can see me. I slump farther in my seat. “All kinds of situations, I guess. Like going to parties or being at a party. Sometimes just walking into the cafeteria even when I know I already have friends to sit by. I feel like I’m overthinking every little thing, even when good things are happening. Sometimes it’s little things but then sometimes it’s not.” I rub my finger against the ridges of the water bottle. “I don’t know. This is kind of embarrassing.”
She tilts her head. “What do you mean by embarrassing?”
“Telling you about how I overreact to things. Some of these things shouldn’t bother me.” I frown and give the water bottle one last sip of air. I shake the empty bottle and drop it into my bag.
“It sounds like you’re an introvert and sometimes lots of people can be overwhelming. Why do you feel you shouldn’t be bothered by these things?”
“It just doesn’t feel normal. So many things stress me out. Usually it’s the stuff I told you about, but today I woke up and wasn’t even thinking about anything yet. My heart started beating really, really fast. It felt like I was having a heart attack or something. It was scary.”
“How did you know you weren’t?”
“It happened so fast that I didn’t have much time to think. I just had time to tell myself to stop freaking out. Then, as my breath started coming back to me, I realized that the whole thing felt a lot like the other times. Except this time I wasn’t even stressing about anything. No one was fighting, no one had just died, I just woke up.” I sigh and make eye contact before staring back to the floor and the scuffs on my old red Converse. “What’s wrong with me? Is this something crazy or do I have heart problems?”
“Well,” Donna smiles. “I’m not one for the word crazy, but either way, no. You’re having some physical reactions to your anxiety and you’ve probably experienced a panic attack or two. But it’s nothing you can’t handle.”
I narrow my eyes with a slight smile. “Can you just prescribe me a pill so I can chill out? You know, a chill pill?”
She returns my smile. “You’d need a psychiatrist for that. But I can definitely work with you on some ways to deal with your anxiety. So far, you talked a bit about little things bothering you. But you did mention something about fighting and dying. Are those things you worry about?”
“Yeah,” I say as the muscles in my back tighten. I hunch over, folding my arms tightly across my lap. “Those are a couple of the things I’ve been dealing with lately. My parents fought a lot. A lot. It was a lot of screaming and yelling. Then they divorced. And one of my classmates, someone I knew, died. I didn’t help her and she died. It’s like everything is broken and since I can’t fix anything, so am I.”
My breaths quicken and my knee bounces again as I wait for this lady to tell me how much of a mess I am.
Donna’s eyes meet mine. She doesn’t frown or look like she feels sorry for me. Her face is certain and sure. She nods. “This makes sense, Bree. You were alone in a house with two adults, fighting and yelling. But those were their problems. Let the adults be the adults. There was nothing you could do to stop it. And now you’ve lost someone? These are life-changing events. It sounds like you’re holding on to a lot of guilt for choices you didn’t make. All of these things would be stressful for anyone in your situation. It’s not out of the ordinary to feel the way you’ve been feeling. Even without the ‘big things’ as you called them, anything and everything you’re dealing with is real. You get worried about things, places, people. Other situations that are unknown to you, things you might not be able to control. Your mind gets put on ‘alert’ and your body responds to that as well. That is your reality. It’s how you’ve dealt with things in order to survive. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
The second I realize she’s telling me it’s okay to feel the way I’ve been feeling, I lose it. My shoulders shake as a sob falls from my mouth. A huge, giant wave comes over me and a million sighs of relief pour down my face disguised as teardrops.
Donna steps over to me and for a second I’m worried she’s going to hug me but she doesn’t. She reaches for the tissues on the table next to me and sets the box in my palm. As she sits back down, I probably use a hundred tissues to blow my nose and wipe my face.
Once I finish crying, Donna leans back in her chair and asks, “Crying can be really cathartic. How does it feel to release those emotions?”
“It’s a little awkward, I guess. Not in a bad way, but just because I’m surprised it was easy to talk to you.” I sniff and wipe my nose again. “It feels like someone saw everything I’m dealing with and finally heard me. And you still said I’m okay.”