Tell me, what is it you plan to do / With your one wild and precious life?
In the universe of people who like putting quotes on walls, this one is pretty good, but there were other motivational posters around it covered in unicorns and football players and children holding hands that sort of took away from the poem.
Drake was staring at me expectantly like he didn’t know his question was obnoxious. He was leaning back in his chair eating an apple, letting the flecks of juice spray from the fruit as he chomped it like a velociraptor.
Mr. Thomas stopped typing and pretended to be interested in random paperwork on his desk.
“Your face,” Drake said. “You look like something hurts or you’re trying to take a dump.”
“Stomachache,” I said.
Drake gave a quick nod as if this answer satisfied his need for information and human contact. Then he eyed my burrito and said, “That burrito is garbage. If you’re not constipated now, you will be.” Then he tossed me another apple from his bag and leaned back in his chair again with his headphones.
Huge headphones that completely covered his ears, so he couldn’t hear me say, “Thank you.”
My Yia Yia would have said: People are not one kind of thing, agapi mou.
But an apple doesn’t mean I want to open up about how my stomach hurts because it’s holding every poisonous thought I’ve ever had.
And despite my dad’s stellar supportive attitude, I’ve learned that worry is okay. There’s nothing wrong with worrying about stuff. Everybody does it.
But it isn’t just regular worry that takes over my life and beats me over the head with skull-crushing panic.
It’s the excessive, persistent worry that takes over. It has power. And it’s those repeated episodes of intense fear that really pose a problem. Panic attacks. Anxiety attacks. Those things that immobilize you. You’re trapped in a cyclone of worry that you can’t reason your way out of and your body, the traitor, responds to it.
Usually with stomachaches. But sometimes, for fun, it’s shortness of breath. Sweating. Then it messes with your sleep. Feeling tired is normal too.
Telling someone you’re tired is the most boring thing you can say. But for me it’s true, because I don’t think I ever feel well rested. Even in the morning, when I wake up after eight hours of sleep, I get out of bed and my brain starts running. It’s a little bit like being on a treadmill, forever, but you don’t want to tell anyone you can’t find the switch to turn it off, because you assume everyone is on their own treadmill and they’re handling it fine.
Everyone else is always handling it better, I think.
I avoid crowds. Loud noises. Big gatherings. They make me feel like I’m walking through Jell-O and can’t run.
There’s actually a recurring nightmare I have where everyone starts running. Everyone but me, because I can’t. And nobody really knows what they’re running from, but they’re all able to get away, and I’m trying to lift my feet with my hands because they’re stuck. Then I wake up.
In middle school, I tried to figure out what was wrong with me, and I started ruling out all the stuff that I wasn’t through internet searches.
Even though social situations weren’t my favorite, I didn’t have a fear of leaving the house or going outside, so agoraphobia was out.
I never found myself unable to speak, so selective mutism was out.
I didn’t have specific phobias that I could name, so those were ruled out as well.
Substance-induced anxiety disorder and social anxiety sounded good, but neither of them fit. I wasn’t on any substances, and I didn’t really engage in enough social activity to deem it a threat to my mental health.
When I started high school, I came across two conditions that made perfect sense. Generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder.
Generalized anxiety disorder includes persistent and excessive anxiety and worry about activities or events—even ordinary, routine issues. The worry is out of proportion to the actual circumstance, is difficult to control, and affects how you feel physically. It often occurs along with other anxiety disorders or depression.
Panic disorder involves repeated episodes of sudden feelings of intense anxiety and fear or terror that reach a peak within minutes (panic attacks). You may have feelings of impending doom, shortness of breath, chest pain, or a rapid, fluttering, or pounding heart (heart palpitations). These panic attacks may lead to worrying about them happening again or avoiding situations in which they’ve occurred.
Both could fit, but generalized anxiety fit best. It was like my brain was choosing from a buffet of symptoms and I imagined myself piling it all on a giant platter to carry back to my table.
Feeling nervous, restless, or tense—CHECK.
Having a sense of impending doom—ONLY ALL THE TIME. CHECK!
Having an increased heart rate—CHECK.
Breathing rapidly (hyperventilation)—YUP.
Sweating—YUP.
Trembling—CHECK.
Feeling weak or tired—CHECK.
Having trouble concentrating or thinking about anything other than the present worry—CHECK.
Having trouble sleeping—SOMETIMES YUP.
Experiencing gastrointestinal (GI) problems—ONLY ALWAYS.
Having difficulty controlling worry—DUH.
And I probably could have left it at that with my own self-diagnosis if I hadn’t had a minor panic attack during my first (and last) driver’s ed class, which ended with me driving into a SLOW CHILDREN AT PLAY sign in the empty parking lot of my old elementary school.
I started sweating and breathing weird, and the instructor called my Yia Yia to come get me.
She made me see a doctor, who confirmed my findings, which I hear is what happens for most people with anxiety.
We already know we’re anxious. When we finally go in to talk to a doctor, it’s to determine the degree of our anxiety.
Anyway, that doctor visit was a couple of years ago.
And to be honest, I prefer to have as little to do with doctors as possible. I saw them a lot when Mom was sick. It’s their job to deal with sick people, so I get that they can’t be super emotionally invested in every patient at every checkup, but the detached look of a doctor doing rounds while your mom is having chemo—that stays with you. And you sort of hope the next doctor might be a little nicer, maybe spend a little more time.
Anyway, Yia Yia wanted me to feel like I had something if I needed it, which is why she talked my dad into letting me try a medication my doctor recommended. I didn’t keep taking it, but I have a prescription in case I need it.