I Don't Hear From My Friends Anymore • The Autobiography of Kiana Jimenez

i can't breathe mama...

anx•i•e•ty

noun

a nervous disorder characterized by a state of excessive uneasiness and apprehension, typically with compulsive behavior or panic attacks

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When I was much younger, I thought the overwhelming heaviness resting on my chest was a sign that I was going to die right there on the spot. It sure seemed like it; the sudden heavy breathing, shaky limbs, sweaty palms, the feeling that my entire body was being licked with flames, 9-year-old me was positive it was the end. I would feverishly claw at my skin until it had cooled, and then I wouldn't tell a soul. As I got older, it only got worse. I would pace around my room, kick my wall, knock over items on my dresser, then finally I would sit on my closet floor and pull my hair till I was gripping chunks of curls.

This progressed to ripping off my arm hair and plucking off my eyelashes when the weight on my chest became unbearable. I'd rip my hair off in school, so whenever I would come to school with the braids my mother would intricately place in my long hair, school officials would tie up my hair in a knot to prevent me from yanking it out. It was humiliating. I never understood why the kids were so cruel.

It wasn't until I was 11 that I understood that what I had experienced were multiple waves of panic and anxiety attacks. I tried to think about what could have caused this, I was so happy and energetic, and so full of life. Everyone came to me when they needed a smile put on their face. I had always been a very ambitious child and was always ready to take on the world. Perhaps I had seen too much of the world already.

The first time I ever experienced any sort of hallucination, I was just about to enter 7th grade. I was laying in my bed at three in the morning during my last few blissful days of summertime. I was struggling to sleep when I began hearing white noise. I had heard this noise millions of times growing up. My mother said it was because I always had my headphones in, blasting music. I was able to brush aside the sudden intrusion for several minutes until it had grown louder. I sat up in bed and instinctively covered my ears as if the sound was coming from an outside source. It only worsened and turned into a horrible static with underlying muttering and the occasional scream. I had an awful panic attack that night and the noise didn't subside for hours. The next morning my mom asked me why I looked so exhausted, but instead of being honest I lied through my teeth and told her I had been reading books all night, something that was already pretty typical of me to do. The truth was only for me to know.

I should've told her right then and there, but I couldn't. I wouldn't be taken seriously. She just would have told me to shut up and look at me sideways for the rest of my life. Mental health is extremely disregarded in my culture and is often mocked and ridiculed. Coming from a family where absolutely nobody had publicly suffered through mental illness, it was frustrating to come to terms that I needed help. I was positive that I was just going through a phase and if I stopped thinking about it, it would go away, until I landed myself in a psychiatric hospital in 7th grade. I was home alone when the voices came back, the blood-curdling screams and the intense static was too much for me to handle. I practically collapsed onto my dining room floor and called my mom begging her to make this stop. She called my sister and pulled her out of her lecture at the nearby community college, and when my sister came home she had to drag me to the car to drive me to the emergency room. My mother rushed in from work, my father stayed silent with his head bowed, and I had never been so confused. I just needed somebody to talk to. Before I could even comprehend what was happening, I was in an ambulance being taken to another hospital. Nobody explained anything to me and none of my questions were answered.

The walls on the children's wing of New York Presbyterian's behavioral center were white, and the floor had white and green tiles. The hallways were always freezing, the bathrooms cramped, and the speakers played Kidz Bop while we were confined in our rooms. I remember when my parents came to visit me for the first time, and I asked my mom where I was. She told me that I was in a psychiatric hospital and I cried and asked her when she would take me home. She sighed deeply. I didn't go home that night like I wanted to.