of the waiting room in Health Services.
I’ve been in a bunch of times
for back pain, sinus pressure, dizziness,
a hemorrhoid that I thought was ass cancer.
I like how the blood pressure cuff feels
tight around my arm,
the way the nurses put the cold stethoscope
to my chest and listen,
listen,
listen.
Rebecca, her friends, and I
hang out a lot now,
but I’m pretty sure they think I’m crazy.
One minute I’m fine, talking about homework,
eating lasagna in the dining hall,
and the next I’m complaining
about how dim the lighting is
and running out the door
to get back to my room
and under the covers.
We go to Freshman Seminar together,
but sitting with half the freshman class
crammed into the theater is more than I can take.
Sometimes I go to the bathroom
and don’t come back.
I have moved from the front row
of all my classes to the back.
I can’t take the feeling of people
looking at me, burning holes in my back.
Back here I can hide
my shaking hands and feet.
I have resigned myself
to the fact that I have gone insane.
I am too tired
to keep fighting
the empty feeling in my stomach
and the buzzing in my head.
This was not supposed to be how things turned out.
There were steps taken, expectations—
a specialized kindergarten and elementary school,
a prestigious private high school
complete with a kilt and knee socks,
summer study programs disguised as camp.
This is not
how things are supposed to be.
Sitting in class has become dangerous.
If I’m not worried about my arms or legs twitching,
I’m worried about screaming out
embarrassing things about myself.
I feel like a marionette—
like someone else is pulling the strings
and I have no choice but to comply.
I’ve started telling my teachers,
the ones who look like they care
and the ones I care about,
that I am claustrophobic,
because some problems
are easier to talk about than others.
I tell them, “Sometimes I need to leave, get some air.”
And when I say, “Don’t worry, it isn’t your lecture,”
we share a laugh
and I am thankful for my half-truth
because it feels good to confess something.
Not long after I tell one of my English teachers,
there is a note on our door.
Class has been moved across campus to a bigger room.
He never says it was because of me,
but I like to think it was.
Still, it doesn’t take long
before I have to leave class,
get some water, sit on the toilet,
and stare at the tiles on the floor
until it is safe to return.
I am in Health Services again,
waiting for the nurse to look me over
with her heavily shadowed eyes,
to take my temperature,
measure my pressure,
listen to my heart and lungs,
to tell me with her sticky pink lips
that I am okay,
when I see a poster on the wall
that says, Having Panic Attacks?
For the first time in weeks
things make sense.
It is surprisingly easy.
I walk across the hall to the Counseling Center
and make an appointment.
Two days later I’m at the therapist’s office
and I’m not sure when to begin.
I sit down in a deep, comfortable chair
facing a picture window with a view
of the snow that has come too early.
Jean is sitting in an identical chair across from me.
She asks, “What brings you here today, Samantha?”
and there is something about the way she says my name
that sounds empty.
It is a simple question,
but I don’t have a simple answer.
I tell her I’ve been freaking out,
but she wants to know what that means.
I say, sometimes I feel out of control,
like I am going crazy when I’m in class,
or the dining hall, and sometimes when I get stoned.
And I start crying, just like that.
All I can think is,
she doesn’t know me.
I am sweating a lot, and I wonder if she can tell.
We go on like that for a while.
She asks me questions
about my friends and family
and where I’m from
and I answer, sweat, and blow my nose.
I don’t tell her everything.
A lot of it is embarrassing
and she is a stranger,
but I tell her enough to feel lighter.
The psychiatrist’s office
is smaller, darker.
There is a regular chair next to his desk for me.
He has already talked to my therapist
but wants to hear from me what I have
been feeling and how long I have been feeling it.
After fifteen minutes I
leave with a prescription.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders says
anxiety disorders include:
panic disorder with and without agoraphobia,
agoraphobia with and without panic disorder,
generalized anxiety disorder,
specific phobia,
obsessive-compulsive disorder,
post-traumatic stress disorder.
I am
panic disorder
without agoraphobia.
I qualify because I have experienced
more than two
unexpected panic attacks
in six months
and have persistent concern
about having other attacks.
Sometimes I have five a day.
Panic attacks are
intense periods of fear or discomfort
with at least four symptoms including:
palpitations,
sweating,
trembling,
shortness of breath,
sensations of choking or smothering,
chest pain,
nausea,
gastrointestinal distress,
dizziness,
light-headedness,
tingling sensations,
chills,
blushing
hot flashes.
I have all of them
except for chest pains.
I report feelings of
dying,
going crazy,
losing control of emotions and behavior.
I have the urge to
escape or flee
the place where the attack began.
This is my life.
The next time I see Jean she explains
that panic attacks
are part of “fight or flight,”
the body’s natural reaction to danger,
only I get confused.
I think there’s danger when there isn’t.
I want to run.
I want to scream.
She says it’s like a switch—
a big red PANIC switch—
gets flipped in my head
and I can’t turn it off.
She says we’re going to figure out
how to turn it off.
Things I hate:
Dimly lit rooms
Music that is so loud I can’t hear anything else
Letting doors close in front of me
Walking across the dining hall
Sitting in front rows
Having diarrhea all the time
Crowded rooms
Falling asleep in front of anyone
The weight I’ve gained since September
People staring at me
Feeling like I am going to faint
The sound of a CD skipping
Facing a wall at a restaurant
Sleeping with the pattern on my comforter upside down
Klonopin 0.5 mg.
I take one in the morning
and one at night.
It makes me sleep,
makes me get drunk from one drink,
makes the panic a voice in the distance—
loud enough to hear,
but quiet enough to ignore.
I talk to Jean a lot about my family.
There are four of us:
Me, my dad, my mom, and sister.
That’s it.
We are alone—
flanked by dysfunction on all sides.
All four grandparents are dead.
My father’s sisters are strangers to us
and maybe to him too.
My mother’s sister
forbids all contact
and her children are too old to care.
I could walk past all six of my cousins on the street
and never know it.
I hear stories from my mom
about why things are the way they are
and take them with a grain of salt,
knowing we can’t be completely without blame.
I wonder
what’s so wrong with us
that we have no family?
I am on my way home for Thanksgiving.
I’ll be there in a few minutes
and I am scared
that there will be a DO NOT ENTER sign on the door.
I am scared that this is not my home anymore,
that it is just a place with a spare bed.
The moment I drove away in September
I felt like someone was following our car
with an eraser, rubbing out my old life.
Only what was ahead meant anything.
All I want to do is see Jason.
Being here in my room,
where we were together so many times, is hard.
My foundation is in this house, in this neighborhood,
but I feel it crumbling—
it cannot hold this weight.
I hate this.
I hate that I want to hold Jason again.
I hate that I am desperate
and predictable.
I feel guilty sitting across the dining room table
and not telling my parents
that I have a therapist,
that I am on medication,
and that things are such a mess.
But I don’t want them to worry.
I don’t want them to think
that I can’t handle things.
Because I can.
I am.
Things may be bad
but I am trying to make them better.
We go around the Thanksgiving table
saying what we are thankful for.
I don’t want it to be my turn.
I don’t want to say something generic
like, I am thankful to have my family together,
when we’re not all here.
What I want to say is,
I am thankful for Rebecca’s support,
for Klonopin,
for Jean.
Being back home is wonderful
and awful.
I’m glad to see my friends,
glad to not have to do work,
but being back in this house,
being treated like a child
and given a curfew
after I’ve been on my own
is unbearable.
Audrey is having some kids over.
Her parents don’t seem to care what we do.
We make a weak attempt to blow smoke out the cellar door,
but the basement still stinks like cigarettes
and the sound of beers clinking is unmistakable.
Jason doesn’t show and this feeling
of being alone is familiar.
When a joint gets passed around
there’s no reason to say no.
I spend most of the night on the couch
talking to Nate, Jason’s best friend.
I don’t think I ever realized
how Nate’s eyes are crisp blue
and that he speaks softly, like he’s whispering,
like he’s afraid someone will hear.
Matt comes over and sits on the other side of me,
interrupts, starts flirting,
tells me how good it is to see me, how good I look.
Nate can’t compete and I can’t resist.
When Matt makes his move
all three of us know what’s happening.
I can see the hurt in Nate’s eyes,
but I need to be with someone.
The next night I am in Jason’s car.
I am staring at the bay
through his windshield,
protected from the wind and cold.
I wonder if he knows I was with Matt
and I can’t decide which would be worse:
him knowing or not.
I think my love for Jason
was really envy.
He’s careless, reckless, irresponsible,
and at the same time irresistible.
Two days later I’m back at Audrey’s.
There are just a few of us.
I am on the couch, sandwiched tightly between Abe,
the first boy I ever kissed, and Nate.
We are talking about kissing.
I say Abe bites when he kisses
They have a drunken debate over who is a better kisser
and decide the only way to settle it
is to elect me judge.
Abe and I kiss first
and I am smiling so wide
it is difficult to kiss.
Abe still bites, but this time he is more careful—
only lightly tugs on my lower lip.
I can feel Nate watching us.
I think, this is ridiculous,
but I like that they are fighting for my attention.
Abe smiles, like it’s a job well done,
and I turn to Nate and lean in.
All I can think is, I’ve never been this near to him
and he smells like clean laundry and deodorant.
His mouth is soft, his kiss
is barely there,
and my chest aches.
It is no contest.
My parents and I are in the car
on the way to a post-Thanksgiving party.
They talk about what they are going to say
if someone asks why my sister is not in school.
I don’t understand why saying she’s taking time off
isn’t good enough.
I swear to them
if they make anything up,
I will tell the truth
and everyone at the party will know
that they are liars
and that we aren’t perfect.
They don’t say a word at the party
and maybe to prove how imperfect I am
I tell them in the car on the way home
that I have panic disorder,
that I had a panic attack at the party,
that I have a therapist
and a ps
ychiatrist,
that I am on medication.
They want information.
They want to understand.
My mother cries, says she should have seen it.
When I tell them about the stress
and the pressure they put on me, they say
not to take everything they say so seriously.
The next morning
Amanda comes to drive me back to school.
My mother has not spoken to me since last night.
When I hear Amanda pull into the driveway
I hug my father good-bye.
He instructs me to say good-bye to my mother
as if I wouldn’t.
When I kiss her on the cheek and turn to leave
she is silent.
My stomach turns inside out.
I am going to puke,
but not here,
not in this house.
I am on my way home,
but I don’t know where home is.
Is it my parents’ house?
Is it school?
I am too tired.
It hurts to think.
It hurts to care.
My eyes won’t stay open.
My hands keep shaking.
I can’t think—
too much noise,
too much clutter.
At my next appointment with Jean
I tell her what happened with my parents.
I wear my mother’s silence like a badge—
like an I told you so.
My mother must think I’m blaming them,
but that’s not what I tried to say.
I wanted them to understand
that their words have weight—
that the things they do and say
contribute to my anxiety.
Only she didn’t hear it that way.
She must have been thinking,
How could you have problems?
Your grandmother grew up poor
and she never complained.
We have given you everything
you ever needed, ever wanted.
We have created a stable home life for you.
Your father and I are not divorced.
We are not alcoholics or drug addicts.
Your father doesn’t beat me.
What could possibly be so wrong with your life?
iv.
The deeper we get into winter
the quieter things become.
I don’t have as much anxiety
as I did in September.
In its place is exhaustion
and a different kind of fear.
I am scared
that the only reason I am getting better
is because of these little yellow pills,
that nothing has really changed