I Don't Want to Be Crazy (9 page)

Going to the spring formal
marks another ending,
another thing that my friends and I
will never do again.
I watch everyone move around the banquet hall.
They go from the bar to the buffet
to the bar to the dance floor
and back to the bar.
Everyone is drunk and falling over themselves.

My stomach starts, just like that.
First there are sharp pains in my side
that come and go.
Then I get sweating hot
and goose-bump cold.
I take deep breaths and try to let it pass,
but the pain deepens.
I am going to be sick.
In the bathroom
there are girls in fancy dresses
wiping their mouths after puking
and fixing their makeup.

I pull up my skirt and sit on the toilet,
press my chest against my thighs,
and stare at the tiles
and wait to be sick.
I wait,
but nothing happens.

The pain subsides and I get some water
and go back to the patio where my friends are.
They ask how I am, but it’s old news.
They’ve all seen this happen before.
When the pain comes back
I ask my friends not to leave the patio.
I tell them I’ll be back in a few minutes.

In the bathroom
I take my seat,
put my chest on my thighs,
my chin on my knees,
wrap my arms around my calves,
and get sick.

When I get back to the patio
they are all gone.
I look by the bar.

No one.
I look by the buffet.
No one.
I was only gone a few minutes.
Why wouldn’t they wait?
I look on the dance floor.
No one.
I know they are still here,
but this place is too big.
I am never going to find them.
I go back to where they were last.
No one.
I asked them to stay
because I didn’t want to end up alone,
searching for them.
I can’t believe they would do this.
They knew I was sick.
They couldn’t wait five minutes for me?
It’s loud and crowded
and I am sick
and I want to leave
and I can’t believe them.
When I run into some kids driving back to campus
I ask to go with them.

This is my out
and I am not going to let it pass.

As I am heading for the door
I see Rebecca.
I tell her I’m leaving.
She’s confused about the urgency
and why I am so mad.
I ask her why they left the patio.
She apologizes,
says she didn’t realize everyone was getting up.
But it doesn’t matter.
I am taking my out.

My whole life has changed,
or at least I think it has.
It’s hard to tell what would have been—
what I would have been,
if I never had anxiety disorder.

I never stay out very late.
My friends all understand—
they are with me enough
to see the complete picture,
but when I am out with acquaintances
they sometimes catch on
and see that I am always the first to leave.
It’s like a timer goes off in my head
and I know it’s time to go.
Maybe I am trying to outrun the panic.
I figure if I’ve made it
this long without panicking
then I shouldn’t push my luck.

There are other things that I do.
I always have to be in control.
If I am going out with friends
I like to be the one who chooses where we go.
I have to know what we are doing,
where we are going,
how we are getting there,
and how long we’ll be staying.

I don’t remember being like this
in high school, before I was diagnosed,
and I hate that I don’t know
if all these things are me
becoming me
or me because of the anxiety.

There’s a banner in the student center
that counts down the days until graduation.
Today the banner says thirty-two.
I can’t believe this is it.
This was college.
It’s over.
I am leaving soon.

I try to send out my résumé,
but it’s too soon.
They all tell me to call back
when I get home and can interview.
But waiting is killing me.
Don’t they understand?
Don’t they remember what it feels like?
I want to have things settled.
I can’t stand the idea of not knowing.

I can’t believe that I am doing this again.
Graduation is in a week
and I have to start packing.
I have moved more than ten times
in the last four years—

I just want to sit still.
I just want to be left alone.

Senior Week is about to begin.
I’m not looking forward
to a week of organized drinking.
If I could have my way
I’d stay home with my friends
and watch movies and bake cookies.

The night before graduation
my family and my parents’ friends
go to dinner at a tiny restaurant.
I am exhausted
and this place is too dark and too loud.
How do people expect you to eat in the dark?
I am fading.
My stomach is in knots
and eating is out of the question.
I do not have the strength for this.
I am like a newborn
who cannot even hold up her head.
My father jokes,
puts his elbow on the table
and palm out for me to rest my head on.
I lean against his warm hand,
breathe in his cologne,
and shut my eyes.

Graduation morning is cold.
The ceremony takes too long
and all my friends and I
are freezing in our summer dresses.
There are too many speakers,
too many names called,
and in the end,
we don’t even get our diplomas—
that comes later, in the mail.

There is hugging
and pictures,
and introducing my parents to
friends and teachers.
And that’s it.
It is over.
All that’s left to do
is put my stuff in the car.

All those garbage bags
and plastic bins are back in my room
and instead of being yelled at to pack,
I am being yelled at to unpack.
It doesn’t seem right to be here—
in this house,
in this room
with this stupid flowered wallpaper,
but I have no where else to go.
I have no money.
I have no job.

My parents allow me
one week before I have to start job hunting.
I want more time.
I want to relax
and be with my friends,
but when the week is up,
my dad leaves the classifieds in my room.

I look for a job,
but I don’t know what I want to do.

I don’t know what I can do.
I make phone calls and send out my résumé
for jobs that I’m not sure I want.
No one calls me back.

After two unsuccessful weeks
I take a temp job at a hedge fund.
I’m not interested in finance,
but it pays well.
I make phone calls and copies.
I go to the drugstore
to get my boss’s prescriptions
and look up what they’re for on the Internet.
Weeks pass and all I learn
is to stay out of my boss’s way
when the stock market does badly.

After a few weeks
I get a job at a publishing house.
The pay is terrible, but at least it’s a career—
something I can see myself doing
for more than a few weeks.
The work is still crap.
I still make phone calls and copies,
but at least now
the product is something tangible,
something I can be proud of.
I can deal with all the busywork,
but my boss is awful.
She rubs all my mistakes in my face
like a dog that shit on the rug.
She treats me like an idiot,
like I don’t have the right to a learning curve.
Most days I go home crying
and my dad tells me
welcome to the real world.

Fall is coming
and I feel like I’ve fallen off the map.
It’s the first time in eighteen years
that I am not getting ready to go to school.
Since the age of three I’ve been on a track—
preschool, elementary school,
middle school, high school, college—
with never more than a summer in between.
I wish I could have waited
between high school and college.

I wish I could have moved more slowly,
but that wasn’t part of the plan.

I have found myself talking about the weather a lot.
I think that means I have entered the real world,
that I am an adult,
because now I have awful gaps in time
to fill as I wait for trains and elevators
to take me to places I do not want to go.

This city is ugly
and the concrete is hard on my feet.
Everyone pushes and is angry
at the people who push them.

I am not happy.
I am not unhappy.
I am frozen somewhere in the middle
that is so much worse.
I am NOWHERE.
Nothing is happening
and I am getting more and more sad.

Is this what all the years of schooling were for?
To prepare me for this
sense of being stuck in the middle?
What was the point?
No one said I was going to be this sad.
No one said I would still be crying.

I am so lonely.
Every day is the same—
trying to move slower than the rest,
to not be so angry,
so serious in the morning,
to not make myself crazy.

I stand on the packed subway
jammed in, pushed too far
to hold on to the sticky poles.
There are bags pressing against my thighs,
hands touching mine,
a man’s chest against my shoulder.
I would stay on the subway longer,
let the crowd rub up against me
as the subway rocks,
but I have to get to work.

I don’t think that I am happy,
but then again, I don’t know.
Sometimes I get so caught up
in the process of living—
of eating, dressing, taking the train to work,
that I don’t give it enough thought.
Maybe happiness is being content.
But is this really it?

I am only twenty-one.
I have been out of college only a few months.
I don’t want to have a job
that I think is merely all right.
But then I see street sweepers,
men polishing marble floors,
people selling magazines and nuts on the street,
and I think I am a spoiled brat.

I must have only been in remission
these last few months
because now the anxiety is back.
It made me stay home from work
and spend the day tiptoeing around myself—
not eating too much, or too little,
and drinking liquids, tons of liquids,
until I am hydrated, bloated.

Maybe this is happening
because I have grown tolerant
of my medication.
Maybe too many new things are happening.
Maybe this is just me,
and this is how my whole life will be.

I am scared
that I do not really want to get well,
and that I am the greatest obstacle to my recovery.
Why would I do this to myself?
Why would I inflict this much pain,
turn my life upside down,
twist my stomach in knots,
run from friends, family,
even from entire countries?

Shit, I feel sick.
All this makes me sick.
I am a good person.
I know I am beautiful
and that I love
and that I care.
It’s the world, right?
The world has the problem, not me.
From Spain to the world—
I will not take blame for any of this.

I am in a house with three other people
and none of them can see me—
see what I am going through.
It’s late and I am in bed.
I should be sleeping,
but it feels like my body is on fire.
The longer I stay by myself
the hotter I burn.
I go to my sister’s room,
but she’s not there.
I go past my parents’ room
and quietly down the stairs.
My sister is always up late watching TV.
I know if I tell her
it will make the burn less hot.

I stand there and just look at her.
The corners of my mouth turn down
and I am crying,
shaking my head,
telling her that I am freaking out,
that I can’t sleep.

She makes room for me on the couch.
Her arm is around me and she is touching my hair.
Telling her makes it better.
Knowing that I don’t have to go through it alone
makes it less painful.

We watch TV for a long time
and she scratches my head
and I cry until I am tired
and can go upstairs
to sleep.

Sometimes
when I am walking down the street
I feel like a giraffe,
with my knees pointed backwards.

As soon as the train doors close
I know this is a mistake.
My heart is racing.
I can’t breathe.
And this might be it.
This might be the time
that I cross the line
from outpatient to inpatient.
I can’t sit still.
I can’t be on this train.
I look out the window
and take long, slow breaths.
I wish I had water.
I wish I had something to read.
Long
slow
breaths.
I shouldn’t be on this train.
I should be at home.
I want to get off at the next stop
and have my sister come and get me.
No.
Deep breaths.
I promised Rebecca
I would go to a party with her.

No.
I can’t do this.
I can’t go to a party
and pretend to be normal.
I am bouncing my foot
up and down
because at least that is something.
We are almost to the city,
but it is taking too long.
I am going the wrong way.
I should be going home.
I call my sister,
tell her I am having a panic attack,
tell her I don’t know what to do.
She tells me to calm down.
She tells me she’ll come and get me from the city,
but I want there to be someone with me
here, now.
I don’t want to wait.
I can’t wait
for her in Penn Station,
with all those people going past me
on their way to parties, and plays, and bars.
And what if she drives so fast
that she gets into an accident?

No.
I’ll take the train back.
I call Rebecca,
tell her I’m sorry,
but I can’t do it—
I have to go home.

I don’t even need to change trains.
This train is going back where it came from.
But I have to wait—
wait for everyone to get off
and a new set of people to board,
wait for the conductor to announce the stops.
It is taking forever.
I am rocking back and forth a little
as if I were listening to music,
hoping that my movements
will propel this train into action.
Finally, the bell rings
and the doors shut.
For a second I feel trapped,
but I try to keep quiet inside
and remember this is what I want.

The ride back is better
than the ride there
because I know I am going home.
I know that my sister will be there,
that my parents will be there,
and that I will be safe,
but I am not there yet.
I have twenty-five minutes to go.
I want to get home as quickly as possible,
but the feeling of the speeding train is scary.
It feels like we are going too fast,
like the train is going to fall off the tracks,
land on its side, and crush us all
and these few people in the car with me
will be the last faces I ever see
and I wonder if we get into an accident
and if I am dying
if I will have enough strength left
to call my parents and sister on my cell phone
and tell them I love them.

I sit with my mother on the couch and cry.
She puts her cool hand on top of mine
and pats me lightly.

She looks back at me, sad.
It feels good that she knows,
that my father knows.
They want to know how they can help.
They ask me what I need
and they hug me longer
and it makes the pain less intense.
But it is still there,
relentless.

We sit in the living room
with the lights dim and we talk
about taking me to a hospital.
They want to know if I want to go.
They want to know if I want to stay.
They want to know if I want to eat,
but I have no wants.
I just lie toppled over on the couch
with my feet still on the floor
and my cheek pressed
against the sticky leather cushion.
I cry and wonder
how I’m going to fall asleep
because sleeping means waking
and going through all this again.