Project X

Prologue

I remember the first time I got a C. I went home, smashed my fist through the wall, and then somehow managed to fall up the stairs into my room, where I kicked my shoes off, curled up on my bed and cried.

I was 15. It had been a pop quiz in math, a subject that had never been my strong suit. Technically, I had not failed, because while a C is a pretty awful grade, it counts as a pass, just about. However, it fell well below my expectations of myself and drove me to attack math class with a wild fervour, so determined to do well that my grandmother - the woman who'd spent her life impressing the importance of education into me - trudged up to my bedroom one night and told me that if I didn't close the textbook and go to sleep, she'd crack the damn thing over my head. I told her my Afro would cushion the blow, and she whacked my knees with her walking stick and asked me if I wanted warm milk.

She was a good woman, my grandmother. I called her Gammy, because it was the closest I could come to saying 'Granny' when I was a toddler, and the name just stuck, as names do. Gammy's wrinkled brown face cracking into a warm smile, the sharp intelligence in her eyes crackling away behind the whitening sheen of cataracts, a wickedly dirty joke always on the tip of her tongue when I needed cheering up - those were the three things that I could always depend on. She was both the driving force behind my desire to succeed, and the brakes for when I hurtled a little too fast, a little too wild, towards whatever goal I was heading towards. I do miss her.

Gammy had been the one to find me crying in my room that day with the test paper in my hand, the red 'C' branded onto the sheet, a testament to my shame. She'd given it a disinterested glance, brushed the hair out of my face and the tears from my cheeks and held my face in her hands, giving me a look that was both fierce and tender.

"Chin up and get, child. World ain't worth no mo' pain than it take already."

I worked my ass off for the rest of the semester, and managed to drag my grade average to an A plus in that math class by the end of the year. My teacher was delighted. Shocked, but delighted. I mainly recall the relief, how it displaced any other emotion I could have felt, like happiness or pride, how it poured with delicious, invigorating coolness through my torso and limbs, soothing the burning worry and self-doubt.

Mrs Trainor - my teacher - came very close to ruining it for me, although I'm sure she meant well. She insisted upon heaping praise upon me like they heap coal over the firebox to power a train, in front of the entire class. I appreciated her encouragement, but it was excruciating to sit through. A teenager's worst nightmare, even a teenager like I had been - about as far from being the typical 'cool' kid as Henry VIII was to being a good husband - is being publicly showered with glory and admiration from an adult, but there was nothing I could do besides stare down at my desk, my cheeks burning, practically nauseated with discomfort and embarrassment as she went on about my grit and determination and how the others should learn something from me. My friends teased me for weeks. It was worth it, though, because I had gotten the best grade one could get, in a subject that I hated.

When I got the final report card back, I peered at the bold black A on the white paper, all straight lines and opaque ink, the little '+' sign above and to the right, like a rakishly placed crown. The relief was still there, bubbling soothingly under my skin. But so was the worry. The little seed of fear and insecurity would never leave, and would follow me throughout my years in education, and throughout my professional career, and I feel it even now, sometimes. But I learned to live with it. I even could sometimes harness it and use it as motivation, something to push me to always do more, to do better. And if it grew too big, I could keep it in check, snip at its snarling tendrils, trim its serrated leaves, tame it into something manageable. That was an analogy that I sometimes used with several of my anxiety patients; visualise your insecurities as a plant, and whip out gardening gloves as needed. Sometimes it was helpful, sometimes it wasn't. Clinical psychology is not an exact science.