In My Blood || S.M. (oneshot) [PT-EN]

SINGLE CHAPTER [EN]

"You were created by me. You were created by my seclusion. You were raised in the poisonous defense. You are made of fear and lies. Fear of unilateral promises and of losing confidence so seldom given. You have been forming through all my life. Each day stronger. They keep telling me to breath. I can feel my chest moving up and down. But why do I feel that I'm being suffocated? I put my hand under my nose, certifying there's air, but I still can not breathe. Cuts so deep it's as if they would never heal. Pain so real, almost unbearable. I became this... This cut, this wound. All I know is this same pain, sharp breath, empty eyes, shaking hands. I'm afraid to live and I'm afraid to die. What a way to exist. "

—Joy Katie Crawford on Anxiety Disorder.

The first contact

When I was eight years old, I was diagnosed with anxiety by the pediatrician from a small public health clinic in a neighborhood that was forgotten by God in the far east of the city of São Paulo. I was an overweight child and my bad cholesterol was exacerbated above normal even for an adult. At the age of eight, this doctor who I have no idea what his name is today, diagnosed me with Eating Disorder caused by Anxiety. The doctor tried to explain to my mother, with all his medical and scientific terms, how anxiety acted mentally and that in my case it was physically affecting me with binge eating. Then he said that a drastic change would have to be made so that binge eating and anxiety were controlled. My mother left doctor's office with a strict diet to apply to my routine and heart broken. Knowing the mother I have, I'm sure she felt the worst mother in the world with all that situation. I remember that while we were in the car on the way home, I made my first question about my diagnosis.

"Mama, what is anxiety?" I asked curiously. "And why did the doctor say I have this?"

Mama turned to me and smiled. But her smile didn't reach her eyes that were tired, apprehensive and distant.

"Anxiety, Helena, it's when we get anxious." She explained. "That's when we're counting the days for something to happen, you know?" She caressed my hair. "Remember when you couldn't wait to go back to school so you could see Rebekah and Leticia?"

I nodded assertively.

"So... that's what it feels like to be anxious, honey" She said.

Although I understood her explanation, I was confused. What had that to do with my health?

"But Mama," I said, "I'm not anxious. This doctor is crazy, how does he know I was anxious? I'm not anxious today. It was just that day. If that's the problem, I swear I won't be anxious anymore. I swear, Mama.

The dark-haired woman with sad eyes beside me smiled once again at me.

"Oh, Helena" She exclaimed. "You don't have to worry about that right now, okay?" She looked at me with her hazel eyes and caressed my cheeks.

And that was my first contact with Anxiety.

  ♦ ♦ ♦  

As far as I remember, I've always been a person of excesses. Excessive loneliness, excessive passion, excessive tension. Excess in the love, the pain, the sarcasm and the little joke I learned with my Dad. Excess of fat, excess of impatience, excess of madness. An excessively scary luggage that would make an entire airport hate me just because I decided to take a short trip. But I admit that I never thought that one day, part of these excesses that compose myself, would cause me so much headache - figuratively and literally.

Excessive worry, excessive anticipation, excessive thinking and excessive fear: The quartet that causes me insomnia. That makes me sweat cold hands and wander silently through the waters of the river of paranoia.