HEALTH
W
henever I feel
anxious, I look
down at my fingernails. If the tips are
crested with white half
moons, I know I’m okay;
if the ends are jagged,
bloody, and raw, I know I
need to see my therapist.
This is my tell — the
way I know that my anxiety
is drawing backward like a
tsunami, preparing to crush
me at the breaching shoreline. I pick away at the
skin, the nails, scratching,
ripping, tearing away with
every rapid heartbeat.
Now it’s been over a
year since my last major attack. I like to think
somehow the few therapy
sessions I attended “fixed”
me. But in the most basic
sense, I escaped. The Voices don’t invade me on a
weekly basis anymore.
“
I’m still
living with
the hardest
side effect of
mental illness
— trying to live
through it.
”
In a deeper sense, I’m
still living with the hardest side effect of mental
illness — trying to live
through it. There are moments when I drive alone
that I feel the Voices vacuum any sense of security
from my chest, and sudI made it stop. It worked.
denly the silence isn’t silent. I made it stop.
The roar begins, so I quickly
I’m better at it now, after
turn the volume dial up until some practice and a lot of
it is so distractingly loud that healing.
there isn’t room for anything
My foot eases off the gas
else in my head.
as I realize I’m going too
fast, an unconscious reaction to escape the madness.
My eyes focus on my fingertips, crested with little white
half moons. I take one deep,
calming breath. I’m okay.