Part 8: to all the therapists I’ve (n)ever loved - segment one
mapping the hero's journey of mental illness
I’m still uncertain if twenty is too young or too old to have experienced your first panic attack; if there is a graciousness in the delay, or a cruelty in its presence at, what should be, the beginnings of free youth. While I’m inclined to settle that it is both and neither, each I could have endured if it was not for a simple fact, that the first panic attack was not the last.
The location of the first attack feels for some reason pertinent, if only for the requirement of its retelling with each new therapist. Because when they ask, when did this start, there’s a dark satisfaction in being able to pinpoint it, even in knowing this doesn’t bring it to an end. Here, I can say, a mind’s finger raised, here is the before, here is the after; let me go back to here.
And here is this: a closed exam room of hundreds of people, though to call it a ‘room’ is an understatement. It’s more a large lobby; the carpeted mezzanine level of a racecourse venue meant for housing betting attendees, hosting weddings, exhibitions, trade shows, though lined twice a year with single file seating to be filled by entire cohorts of university students. I don’t remember my seat number, but I remember there being so many people that my assigned seat and my boyfriend’s were as distant as to warrant us needing to enter from separate doors. I’m in the middle of the aisle, our backs to the racecourse, though on the level below they face it. I think, from memory, I smile to a person next to me. Maybe we even wish each other good luck. The doors click shut, the clocks start, and for some reason, I suddenly can’t breathe. I can regard it now with humour, the seriousness which I tell this story. Though in that moment, as my hands went numb, as my vision blurred, as my skin burned with a heat that had me pulling off layer after layer, I feel for the girl whose one thought I can still hear loudly, the panicked belief: I am going to die.
By luck, I didn’t. That’s what it felt like for a long time, and even now still. Luck, near misses, relief from certain demise by mere chance, a swift escape. With that first panic attack the seed of something sharp was planted in me, unknown. It sprouted again, and again. The next day, the next week, while driving, in sleep, at the dinner table, in the middle of a movie. A week of endless panic attacks, doubling over, hyperventilating, waiting to be sick, to pass out, to die. Over and over and over until I found myself breathless in the doctor’s office, a hand over my heart, spluttering through tears: there’s something wrong with me.
There were prescriptions, and therapy plans. A waitlist of four weeks for the latter, the former immediate. I started the meds right away, not asking how, or how else. I remember leaning against a wall after the consultation as I waited for the scripts, a friend texting me: are you sure about the meds? Be careful. Replying: I need the help.
When I start the medication it takes me elsewhere, leaves me feeling displaced in my own body. In attacks, I begin to feel as though I can’t recognise faces. I look down on myself with confusion, pinch my skin to come back. And yet, I cling to the promise of the grace period it takes for them to kick in, the image of before, back again. I don’t know it then, that this promise will fail to materialise even four years on.
The first therapist’s office my doctor referred me to was in an old Victorian building that I could tell used be someone’s home. The TV cabinet had been painted over and left open, magazines stacked inside, and the kitchen had been emptied out and painted the same shade of white to be used as the reception area. Though, there was no receptionist, just a landline phone propped on the bench with laminated instructions next to it. Fill in the form, press the star key, wait. The door for upstairs, to the left, was always electronically locked shut from the inside, and when your therapist came down to collect you, you’d see their distorted face through the blown glass window before hearing the buzz of the lock disengaging. Even in hindsight I can’t understand the need for this, given that no medication or money was kept on the property. Did the waitlist times have people intruding upstairs, frantic for psychiatric advice? Unprompted, unregistered. Did the mentally ill crawl off the street, into the building that had tried so hard to remain hidden with its shuttered front windows and tiny signage, for privacy or for shame, clambering upstairs, thin haired, weary handed, demanding worksheets and deep breathing techniques? There was nothing behind that door, I’d soon discover, that would warrant such desperation.
My therapist was a young Asian woman. I had picked her for those three defining reasons. She had short brown hair, and clear skin, and after three months she’d announce at the end of the session that she was moving to England. To this I wouldn’t know how to respond, and I’d end up saying something like, thank you for everything, which immediately felt cheesy and stupid. I hadn’t yet figured out that out of everyone, perhaps I didn’t need to make it my job to also have my therapist like me. Before she left, I considered sending her thank you flowers, but then I recalled how she’d looked after I’d thanked her; indifferent. And to think of this embarrasses me more than it hurts me. Because I should have instead been the one to claim indifference, finding nothing in that room, in that office. Eyes closed and counting senses to five, checking my heartbeat after doing star jumps and holding my breath. Of course she was not to blame, but whatever there was for me to discover in the presence of a knowledgeable, listening ear, remained unearthed with her. In the end, I gave her a positive rating on Google reviews. I think I said she was kind, and gentle, both true. And afterwards, I searched for a psychiatrist instead…
TO BE CONTINUED.