Call Your Girlfriend

Part 27: In Which Helen's Thanksgiving Turns Sour then Sweet

He won't stop saying sorry.

He won't look at me.

He won't move from my chest.

He won't stop crying.

Iggy and Vijay come in and examine Max from a few feet away. They both know the mental breakthrough has now become a mental breakdown.

"Max, can you look up at me for a moment?" Iggy asks and Max is unmoved. With my back against the couch base and Max in between my legs crying and haphazardly apologizing- I feel like I've ruined everything for opening my big mouth. "Max, you're apologizing...why? Find your words. Come Max- you can do this."

"Max, I need you to look at me." Vijay says as he sits on the left of me on the couch, this giving him a bit of a better angle of Max's face.

"What's going on?" Lauren comes in and Iggy waves her away. She backs up and leaves the room. Max has his arms tight around me.

"Max, you need to take a deep breath- okay?" His grip around me feels like a vice. It actually hurt rather bad. "Helen, are you okay?"

"Yeah...he's just...squeezing kind...of hard..." I say through heavy gasping breaths. Something is definitely wrong with him.

"Max! You need to let go." Iggy says and he doesn't register anything. His body is stiff and a convulsive jerk happens periodically. Vijay lifts open one of his eyelids.

"He is having a pseudoseizure. Brought on from stress or heavy emotions- tension, conflict." Vijay states and Max just keeps squeezing.

"How do we get him out of it before he ends up hurting Helen?"

"Unfortunately, there is no getting home out of it. He needs to just relax and calm down on his own. The dissociative seizure is one that can happen at any time and causes the rest alert' signal in the patients head to go off. They are often viewed as a cyclic seizure because the stress they have and the nature of them in the medical field are often scrutinized. Patients feel as if they are a shameful person and any strong negative emotion can trigger them at any time. The more he has- the more likely he will start the cycle of these breakdowns. We mustn't put too much emphasis on them and focus at the root of the problem which is getting him to relax and talk about his emotional core issues." Vijay states and all I can do is close my eyes and rub my hand over the back of his head.

"Do you think he's dangerous Vijay. Do you think that all these problems are going to get worse?" Iggy asks as he looks at Max.

"I don't know. I think therapy can work through the inappropriate and mental state of his mind. To say Max is dangerous is only to put more stress upon him. It is important that we acknowledge him as our friend and not a hazard." 

"I need both of you to go back to the party."

"But Helen..."

"You heard Vijay. This needs to be handled calmly and like it's nothing. Now, please...I'll be fine." They stand up and leave. Iggy hesitates before closing the door. "Max, I love you- baby....please come back to me."

For the next ten minutes, we stay like this. Him jerking and convulsing and squeezing me tightly, but I feel him slowly relaxing, bit by bit. Finally, he comes out of it and seems so confused. His eyes open and his grip loosens. I can finally breathe fully. He looks up at me.

"Hi..." I say and run my fingers through the back of his hair.

"Hi..." He quietly and tiredly says back to me. I lean down and kiss his lips.

"You alright?" He glances you at me takes his own deep breath.

"Ye...ah..."

"Thought I lost you for a moment." There are tears daring to breech my eyes as I look down at him. What has his life become?