With You

One

CLAIRE:
3 months earlier:

"How do you feel?" Dr. Cameron asked.

Sitting in a small cafe a few blocks from her office I couldn't focus on anything. My eyes were jumping from point to point, my nose was filled with too many smells, and my ears were listening to too many  sounds surrounding us. It was as if my senses were trying to take in as much information as possible but my brain was not able to process it all; my senses went in overdrive, assessing all of my surroundings but because they were trying to digest too much of the environment we were in, I couldn't focus on anything.

Everything became too much: too bright, too loud, too extreme. My ears began ringing and my hands began to tremble. I tried to focus on something, to pour all my attention to one thing but as it turned out, that was a terrible idea. I focused on the sound of  my heart. The more attention I paid to it, the more the noises in the background were fading. Unfortunately, the sound of my heart continued to become louder until it became overbearingly loud. I swear I could feel my heart beat with such intensity to the point where my chest was physically in pain, as if all of the sudden my heart had become so big that it threatened to push against my rib cage.

I tried to diverge my attention to something else but once again my senses were focusing on everything at once. However only this time I had this massive pounding of my heart to top it all of. Everything felt too much. Too loud, too bright, too hot, too many people. Suddenly I felt like there was not enough air for me to breathe.

Oh great, perfect timing for some casual hyperventilation, I thought.

"Claire, how do you feel?" She asked again.

Sitting across from her I tried one more time to focus on one thing; I decided to focus on her. I saw her lips move but nothing was registering.

"What Dr. C?" I tried to ask in the most conversational tone I could muster but it came out more as a whisper.

As she finally took in my pre-panic attack state, she quickly came to my rescue. "Focus Claire. Remember the grounding exercises we talked about. Focus on things you can see, touch, and hear. Just breathe. Slowly breathe in and breathe out. Look at me and listen to my voice".

As I was following her directions, everything began to slow down. The overbearing ringing was finally slowly going away and with it the sound of my own heart beating was becoming more end more silent and my chest eventually stopped hurting. The conversations around the cafe were quieting down as well and it didn't feel like people were yelling anymore. The colors were still too bright to the point where they were hurting my eyes so I tried to focus on the black table at which we were sitting.

"Better?" She asked.

I just nodded my head. I wrapped my hands around my hazelnut cappuccino suddenly seeking some type of warmth. I felt completely exhausted.

"I asked how do you feel," she repeated one more time.

I couldn't find the right answer. You'd think after hearing this question so often, I'd perfect my answer to 5 possible choices, easy to use and always at my disposal. However, hearing her ask this question, yet again, I was left answerless. Instead, I just shrugged my shoulders.

A long pause followed, each one of us waiting for the other. The silence continued for the next minute or so until Dr. C sighed, "you do understand why we are doing this don't you?"

Again, I just nodded my head. I continued to look down, focusing on my cappuccino, sad to see that the froth design had fully disappeared. Instead of the cute coffee art, an ugly blob was staring back at me. Finally looking away from it and glancing around the cafe I whispered, "I feel uncomfortable. There's way too many people."