In His Silence [1] 》Edward Cullen ✓

une ✓

Warning: This entire story is based on a boy who suffers from severe general anxiety, social anxiety disorder and panic disorder. Read at your own discretion.

Une: Phoebe and Sekhani.

Sekhani liked to believe that he was a cautious person. He would even consider himself to be an aware person. Though he knew in his heart, that he was actually an over-thinker and an over-analyzer. He spent most of his time wondering why certain people said or did what they did and looking for a deeper meaning than there actually was in everything.

He hated it. But it was who he was and he had learned to live with that.

Talking wasn't something he enjoyed and he didn't see the need to change that. He believes that when you are quiet, you are more aware of everything and your observance level skyrockets. His mind was a dangerous place, filled with thoughts that mostly begin with the words,"What if?". He would often think of situations that probably would never even occur and it would always stress him out to the point where he couldn't do normal things such as eat or sleep.

He remembers when his mother took him to 'get help' because she didn't understand why her son seemed so disconnected from the world. He barely talked to anyone at all and it always worried Segra Reed. She would see her son zone out when certain things played out, it was like he physically went into his head and couldn't come out. His body was there present but he was not there mentally. The worry only intensified when she found her son curled in a corner one day, hyperventilating while holding his chest, he was having a panic attack. She immediately took him to go see a psychologist. The doctor chalked it up to one word that would change his life forever; anxiety.

Anxiety. Fourteen year old Sekhani remembers staring at the doctor with a curious look, his head tilted like it always was when he didn't understand something.

The doctor quickly caught on to his expression and further explained,"You seem to be suffering from anxiety. Anxiety is a natural human reaction,your mind, amygdala, is sensing your adrenal glands to start pumping stress hormones. The amygdala senses a real danger or a perceived danger. What you have seems to be centered around perceived danger. Perceived danger is worrying that something catastrophic will happen. When the amygdala has sensed you are in danger, its job is not over when the hormones begin. Its job is also to be aware of any more danger or negative because this is a human function designed to keep you alive. This is why you seem to be only focused on all that can go wrong and the longer you have experienced anxiety, the more likely it is that you may become even questioning when you're not feeling anxiety."

Fourteen year old Sekhani didn't fully understand all the words the doctor was using but he listened to the man ramble for hours about terms, precautions and medications. The orange pill bottle labeled,' Sekhani Reed' containing small white Xanax tablets, felt heavier than it actually was as he held it close to his chest. It was that day that Sekhani realized that he hated tablets. He hated the weird feeling of swallowing it and knowing that it was changing the way he acted.