Washout

Looking Forward.

"Describe it." Helen says, leaning across the table. She studies me with her eyes. I squirm under her piercing stare.
I look at my lap.
"Just... tell me how it happens. What does it feel like?" She coaxes.
I look around her office. She has a few plaques hung up, and some drawings patients had made for her, I guessed.
A picture on her desk shows her and two smiling children, at the beach perhaps, judging by the sun and sand in the background.
Another photo shows her and what I assumed to be her husband, she was wearing a wedding gown. She couldn't have been more than 30 in either of the pictures, and though she's much older now, I still think she's too pretty to be a therapist.
She's watching me look around her room, and I suddenly wonder if even at this moment, she's calculating my every move, breath, the flutter of my eyelashes.
Can someone be a therapist and still manage to hold a normal conversation, without constantly looking for an irregularity that could lead to some unknown predicament?
Finally, I speak. "It feels... when I feel it coming, I feel scared, almost."
She nods thoughtfully. "Talk about scared." She says.
I clear my throat. "Maybe scared isn't right. Nervous is closer. I feel nervous."
Again, she nods. "You know when they're coming?"
I nod, looking out the window. "There are symptoms, I can... read them."
"Tell me about symptoms." She presses gently.
I exhale slowly. "My palms get sweaty. It's harder to breathe- no, not harder, just different. It's like I'm panting, what's that word?"
"Gasping." She says, still nodding.
I nod. "Right, and I start to feel anxious, and panicked. And I feel dizzy and disoriented..." I trail off.
"Talk about dizzy." She urges.
"It's- it's like my mind is a whirlpool. Everything is spinning so fast, every feeling, every memory, just whizzing by me. And I feel dizzy."
"But you can stop them sometimes. You're getting better. Tell me more about that." She says gently.
I bob my head. "I feel sick and disoriented. My mind is so frantic, it's drowning, and it reaches out to grasp something."
"A- a line from a poem. Or a name. Or song lyrics. And- and it's like it holds that, like driftwood, or one of those floaty thingies. It holds it and it keeps it from drowning." I shift again in my seat.

"But that doesn't always work." She says quietly.
"No." I whisper. "Sometimes, it's like I can't find anything. There's nothing to hang on to. So my mind drowns. And I have an anxiety attack."
She nods. "Can you always see them coming?"
"Yes." I say. "But sometimes I'm not ready enough, it takes me by surprise, or I'm too tired or worn out and I can't grasp anything. And sometimes something comes to me randomly, and I can use it to stay afloat."
"How do you get ready?" She asks.
I breathe out, slowly. "If I'm nervous, and I think I'll have an attack. I'll look up song lyrics. Anything. Old stuff, Cyndi Lauper, Richard Marx. Or Bruno Mars or Jason Mraz. I just learn the lyrics, it gives my mind something to hold."
    She nods, like she's completely focused on every word I'm saying, like she knows how to react.
     "I know you've told me before, Hope. But for the sake of conversation, let's say you haven't."
     She leans across the table towards me. "Why do you have anxiety attacks?"
    I look at the door behind me. My father is out there, grumbling because he doesn't like to have to take me to appointments.
    I look at the clock on the wall. 3:54. 6 minutes. Then I suppose Helen has another patient coming in.
Answer the question, Hope. My mind tells me. I breathe out.
No. I tell my mind.
    "I don't know." I say, looking at my hands, folded in my lap.
     Helen sighs and leans back. I looked up at her. "I don't know." I say again.
Hope, you shit. My mind tells me. I just shrug, as if my conscience is another person in the room.
    "C'mon Hope." Helen says. "You've told me before. Why can't you just tell me now?"
I shrug again. I smile, slightly.
Helen sighs again. "Hope, I'm here to help you. Your dad is here to help you. Why won't you let us?"
     I shrug again but suddenly I don't feel very happy anymore. I feel like I'm about to cry. 
C'mon Hope.
Why won't you let them?
      "I don't know!" I scream, clutching my ears. I'm dimly aware that I'm talking to myself out loud, but it's the only way I can.
Sometimes it feels like my conscience is another person, always following me around.
      "Easy Hope." Helen says. She guides me out the door, into the waiting room. My dad is there.
      "Sit here for a moment. Let me talk to your father." Gently, my therapist pushes me into a plastic chair.
     My dad sighs, runs a hand through his hair, and follows Helen into the hallway.
You should have just told her.
     "I know." I whisper.
But you couldn't.
     "I'm sorry." I say again. A woman looks at me, and moves to the next chair over.
      I look around the bare walls of the waiting room. Sometimes I feel so trapped in my head, like I'm in quicksand. I don't know why I make the decisions I make, and I can't control why I make them. I hat it so much.
You can control them. It's your mind.
     I look up carefully. I can see Helen's and my father's shadows talking on the wall. My dad keeps ruining his hand through his hair.
    I look at the waiting room door, and I sigh. When we leave, my dad will drive me to my mom's house in silence, then he'll murmur a goodbye, and next week we'll do it all over again.
     Or will we? Can I stop it? I have a disease, I know, it's called social anxiety. I can explain it, but people don't always understand.
    'I feel so embarrassed' I say. 'Why?' People wonder. 'Who feels embarrassed ordering food, or buying dance tickets?'
    Me. I do. Or at least I did. In the past. And maybe I will in the future. Maybe weekly therapy isn't helping.
     But I will keep coming. Because I need to do something. I need to keep looking forward. Like Sacajawea, and Ghandi. Maybe those are bad examples, but I don't care. They are in the past, and the past is behind us.
     Let's talk about the now. And the now is me deciding. Maybe it's a small decision, but it's a start. And we have to start someplace.