Lydia
Thanksgiving was good. I was almost surprised at how good it was.
Sarah overcooked the turkey and took way too many pictures of us all crowded on the couch.
Mark told the same embarrassing high school stories, and we all pretended we’d never heard them before.
Huxley fell asleep on my thigh halfway through a movie, and I carried him up to his room after it ended because I was too sucked into the award-worthy plot of Shrek, trying to taste a little bit of childhood I missed out on.
It all felt like breathing without bricks on my chest for once.
I kept waiting for the panic to come, but it didn’t.
It was still there, sure; grief doesn’t take off for holidays, but it mostly kept its distance, barely even being noticed.
Still, the minute the plane wheels hit Texas ground, and Simone turned to me, smiling, telling me we were home, my chest loosened even more.
I was ready to be back. I missed this place, missed Lani, I missed a very special, tall, handsome, kind boy who got back yesterday and was already sending me pictures of him sitting at our table in the library with two coffees—one he won’t drink but still got because he can’t go to the coffee shop on campus without ordering for me too now.
Just knowing he’s in the same zip code again makes falling back into the flow of college and boring classes easier in my head.
Today’s a busy day. The first week back after breaks is always rough. Going from being lazy, lying in bed all day, to having to be responsible with time again sucks. I have classes and then therapy and a small break before recovery group tonight. A lot, I know, but I think it’ll be alright.
* * *
“Let’s try something new,” Dr. Nora says as I settle into the huge chair in her office that is almost the size of my dorm room bed.
“Did you ever do bilateral with Dr. Raina?” she asks.
“Tapping?” I ask. “The light bar thing?”
“Mm-hm. Same idea,” she says. “We’ll go slow with it today. You get to be the driver.”
I roll my eyes because I’m me. “I hate being the driver.”
“That’s why we practice,” she says, smiling gently.
She shows me how she wants me to tap on my shoulders with my fingers, left-right-left-right.
“Choose a location you feel comfortable in. A sensory location. It doesn’t need to be drastic or over the top. Just something basic that will help you relax and easily come back to it.”
“The dorm showers,” I reply without having to think about it. “They’re tiny and loud. I like that you can’t hear anything else when you’re inside. And it always smells like citrus shampoo.”
“Good,” she says. “Let your nervous system believe you’re there. We’ll bounce back there when we need to. We’ll visit the hard thing, then come back to the shower. We’re just widening what your body can hold. You stop me at any second.”
“Okay,” I say, not really ready.
We do the hand taps. She has me focus on the chair beneath my thighs, the air surrounding me, and the distant sounds of a lawn mower outside her office. Then we begin moving into a memory—of before.
What comes first is the soft sound of the blinds hitting the window from the wind blowing up out of the window AC unit. Next is a smell—stale smoke and mildew. Then this overwhelming sense of fear, and also a metallic blood taste, like I had bitten down on my cheek.
“Say what you notice, like captions,” she says. “Just the small things.”
“Dining room,” I reply aloud. “The green tile that always looks dirty. Sunlight through the window. There’s loud voices in the room. Mom’s laughter, but not the happy kind—her angry, fed-up type. There’s clattering of dishes in the sink…”
“How does your body feel during this memory?”
“I don’t feel anything,” I say automatically.
“Try again,” she replies softly, just giving direction, not demanding. “First, where do you feel it in your body?”
“Chest,” I quickly reply. “My chest feels tight. My legs…they want to run away. I’m…I’m small. And I’m…on the floor.”
“Good,” she says. “Okay, now go back to the shower. Feel the hot water pouring down onto your shoulders. Smell the citrus. Take deep breaths of the steam. Feel your feet pressing against the tile. You’re back here.”
I tap back to myself, and everything returns.
“Okay,” she says. “Little steps. You’re doing great.”
“Don’t patronize me,” I mutter. My anger always likes to arrive right before my tears.
We go again. Left-right-left-right. The blinds ping again.
The air feels heavy. I see spilled cereal on the floor.
There’s a sound I hate—screaming. Then a crash.
My mother’s voice cuts through the room. My dad’s is lower, meaner. And then—
Camilla’s hand is on my shoulder, pushing me behind her legs.
She’s ten, maybe eleven. I’m little. I must be like five or so in this memory. She’s in front of me, protecting me.
“What happens next?” Dr. Nora asks.
“A plate breaks,” I say. “My dad yells, and my mom yells back, and it’s loud—” I swallow. “He throws a bottle, but it misses my mom. It explodes against the wall near me and Camilla. The smell is…horrible. My ears are ringing now.”
“Body?”
“Everything is loud and shaking,” I say.
“My heart is beating really fast. My hands want to cover my ears, but Camilla is holding them. She’s whispering ‘one, two, three’ in my ear like we’re jumping rope.
She’s shaking too, but still quiet. I can feel her legs trembling touching mine.
My dad grabs Camilla, ripping her away from me.
” I shake my head, not being able to look away from the memory of him putting his hand around her neck, from him yelling and cursing at her.
“He’s hurting Camilla…I feel…tears. I’m shaking…
I—” The sentence breaks. The room blurs, and I throw myself back into her office.
“I hate this. I hate it. Why do I need to bring up memories like that? How is that healing?”
She doesn’t push. She never pushes. We both just breathe and wait for my body to fully come back and my mind to calm a bit.
“I know it feels cruel,” she says softly.
“Picking at an open wound may seem painful. But what you’re doing is moving the memory from the emergency department to the filing cabinet, a safe place.
Right now, when those sensory memories get triggered, your body reacts as if it’s happening now.
Processing lets your brain re-file it as then, not now.
We do it in small steps, so your system learns it’s not dangerous anymore and won’t hurt you. ”
I dig my fingers into my thigh until I think I might break the skin. “It feels like drowning right now.”
“Because you weren’t allowed to feel it during that time,” she states. “You had to become numb just to survive. Your mind and body are trusting yourself with more now. This is a positive sign toward healing. It shows us we are headed in the right direction.”
I hate that she’s right. I hate that I want to cry, and also to run, and also to curl up under a blanket and disappear. She hands me a glass of water, and her kindness causes me to tear up.
“You did something brave.”
“I sat in a chair and basically had a panic attack,” I reply sarcastically.
“Bravery can look very boring,” she says back. “Do you want to pack this one away for today?” she asks. “We’ll revisit it next time, maybe.”
“Yes,” I say too fast. Then soften it, “Please.”
When I leave, I’m on sensory overload. My phone buzzes, and I see a text from Bash checking in, asking if I want to grab coffee.
I stare at it until the dots disappear. I don’t want to dump all this on him.
He’s not my therapist. He’s already done too much saving in my story.
I put the phone away and tell myself it’s a kindness to save him from my shitshow.
I don’t go back to the dorm. The idea of Simone’s eyes and Lani’s radar seeing right through me makes me want to peel my skin off. I text them a lie that’s half true instead.
PPP Group Chat:
Lydia: Stuck at the library catching up. Group tonight. Might crash early, so if you get back and I’m already asleep, don’t worry. I’m good. Love you
Hearts fly back, and I swallow down the guilt that comes up.
There’s a courtyard behind the humanities building, and I tuck myself under one of the big trees, wrapping my arms around my knees, and trying to breathe.
The panic arrives regardless. The static gets loud, the edges of the world go fuzzy, my hands tingle, and my chest forgets how to expand.
I stick my feet flat on the dirt, press my back into the trunk, count the veins in a leaf, but it doesn’t help.
I try to find five things I see, but everything is out of focus.
I give up on trying to distract myself from the panic, from the way my body is feeling like it’s being pulled away from me.
I take out the bottle of hydroxyzine and stare at the small, harmless-looking tablet like it’s supposed to make this all stop.
I hate how my brain whispers for something stronger.
I hate that my mouth waters for a quiet I know can kill me.
I stare at the bottle, wishing it were Oxy instead.
I don’t have anything stronger, thank goodness.
I put the pill on my tongue and let it swim down with a long swallow of water, then wait it out.
Panic doesn’t like to be looked at. It grows if you’re scared of it.
If I hold it and don’t add any fear, sometimes it passes like a storm that never quite comes ashore.
It does, eventually—leaves me wrung out and hollow, but still standing.
I pull out the paperback that stays in my bag for this exact purpose—worlds other than mine to climb into. I read the same paragraph three times before it sticks, before I finally get a full breath in.