i used to ride those boxcar toys up and down my blanket, pretending they were racing until they reached my face
they let my mind have fun, they let me imagine. each destination was the same place, my head. whoever could get there first would win. but there was no real winner, i was both cars. i remember thinking "which one should win this time?" i didnt know that neither of them would win, i was competing against myself, i had found a part of me that could be different then the rest. it dared to wonder off, and pretend. but that part of me started realizing what it was really being exposed to, what it would soon become. and that part of me.. the part that played the red boxcar against blue, the one that dared to wonder and set my mind free, became my biggest enemy where to this day i am still competing against. but it won my race, it got to my head first. this free side of my mind had a name, anxiety.
as a 5th grader, everything made me wonder but i was afraid of wonder now, so i locked it up inside. i remember staring outside the window when ms. bailey would read the book "the sacrafice" to us. i saw green trees swaying in the wind and blue skies engulfing my home. but i forgot about my wonder, my wonder was let free and that day, the day when Maddy O asked if i wanted to come over, the day when Lindsey H discovered doodle jump on her ipod, my whole mind was fear. i didnt watch my wonder and it became poisoned, diseased, and contagious.
"mom i dont feel good i need to stay home" i would say
i didnt want to go to school
i didnt want to go outside
i didnt want to see my friends
i was scared. i was scared that somehow, in someway everything would go wrong. my stomach starts getting that feeling. you know that feeling? when you're excited right below your ribs, except it wasnt excitement. it wasnt anything close. its that fucking feeling that i get everytime something goes wrong, everytime i let my mind wonder.
6th grade. im okay but im weird, i dont act like my friends. im annoying and i am crazy. but most of all I am sick. i am sick in more than my thoughts, my head is not only infected by fear, it is infected physically. id blow my nose and cough and have asthma attacks and cry thinking "what did i do to deserve the way my life has become" id ask myself under the MRI, or with the EEG on my head for 3 days. Id ask myself when the IV would shoot up my arm the cold saline solution that tasted as bitter as i was. i would ask myself when i plugged my nose to swallow my medicine without gagging. i asked myself why i was put on this earth when the doctor would call and talk on the phone with my mom, telling her my own brain was infected. i asked myself why i was even alive, i asked until i fought, and i fought until i was okay again. coming back to school was not what i needed. but i did it, for myself. but i am still miserable, i can still hear the sound of my wrist cracking on the table as i needed a reason to cry. i needed a reason to cover up what was inside. and 13 times i have broken, i have fractured, i have shattered. when it was an accident, i didnt cry. why would i cry? its just pain. its just like every other day so why would i cry? i didnt. 7th grade i started off really good. i finally thought to myself" im going to remember the first day of 7th grade this will be a great year."
i have a minor surgery and i wake up and they give me pain medication. that small amount of red liquid in that small plastic cup. it erased me. my mind was gone, everything. the first day of 7th grade? i didnt know my name. i didnt know 7th grade. i didnt know. i lost the one thing i had to hang on to. my memory. you'd think it would be nice, you know. to forget all the nasty stuff that haunts you every day of your life, but i am honest when i tell you it isn't. its scary when you are told things about yourself, when you don't even know yourself. i was a newborn mind in a 12 year olds body.
8th grade. lets try this again. nothing else could possibly happen right?
no. 3 months in i get a cold. just a cold. i didnt know my whole body worked against itself. i didnt know that sneezing would tighten my lungs and turn me into a gasping, desperate, sick, sad person. my head hurt again. but it never stopped. that migrane lasted 4 months. i became weak. my coordination decreased, i couldnt play soccer anymore, i couldnt do gymnastics, when id run id say "i dont feel good mom."
"emilie do you want to go to the beach with your friends cmon lets do something."
"no i dont feel good."
i would cry myself to sleep. i thought i was going to die. i thought, this is it. somethings wrong. i was diagnosed with POTS syndrome, hypoglycemia, scoliosis, chronic sinusitis, GAD, depression, and anemia. I would stand up in the morning and feel the blood leave my heart as I would fall back onto my bed from the weight of my own body that i could not hold. my panic attacks, they wanted to kill me too. my heart beat too fast for my asthma medicine and i passed out into my mothers arms while she screamed my name as i woke up.
"what happened? am i dying?" she always told me no and never to worry about that. she couldnt tell me that. the doctor couldnt tell me that. the cold EKG monitor felt my heart more than i ever had. the hospital bed was safer than i have ever felt. i felt monitored, i could let fear go, i could feel safety, and i could feel in general. and that is when i learned, i realized that i am not helping myself anymore. i only ever hurt myself. i left that hospital with a new wonder. part of my wonder came back, because i didnt give up. i never ever gave up. i redid 8th grade in the summer, and then i found my school now. I am not afraid there. i feel safe. safer than the hospital bed. my wonder is being used for science, not easiest ways to kill myself. my mind isnt wondering "am i going to die" its wondering "what do i want to do next." part of my wonder is always going to be missing with my red boxcar toy. and even though my spine may be curved, i may have scars from needles in the crease above my elbow and on my wrists, and radiation inside of me that no one my age should have, I may have fragile bones, hands that shake because my brain cant work 100%, a sensitive spot in my mind and a constant feeling beneath my ribs everyday that just makes me feel like the most petrified person on earth. but now i am stronger than any fear, and im far too mad that i spent my life like this than i am scared of what will happen. so im done hiding, if i dont feel good, im going outside and running until i pass out or i break my ankle because i am NEVER giving into this again.
