Page 41 of Glass Half Full
It’s pathetic. I have so little control over myself that my own body can attack me. The emotions and situations other people take on as part of daily life leave me curled up in a ball on the floor, fighting losing battles with my own brain.
“I didn’t always have them,” I explain, staring at the tips of Dylan’s shoes again. “I didn’t have any of this. I...I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder back in April, right after I got back from England. It’s the reason I left England.”
I didn’t plan on saying so much, but it’s all so tangled up together, it’s hard to know where to start and stop.
“Sorry. You didn’t ask to hear all this. We should just go inside.”
“I asked to hear whatever you want to tell me,” Dylan reminds me, “and we can stay out here for as long as you like. DeeDee’s probably dancing on the bar by now, and if we go inside, I’m going to have to tell her to get down. I really don’t want to be seen trying and failing to get my employee off the bar in front of an entire room of people.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, I doubt anyone could make DeeDee do something she doesn’t actually want to do.”
“You can say that again.” We laugh together for a moment before he leads me back to the subject at hand. “So, you left England...”
“Yeah. It...I just...” I have to pause and swallow. This is still the hardest part of the story to tell: the admission that I failed, I gave up, I packed up and came home instead of fighting harder. “I think it all started right before I went to England, and it just got worse and worse while I was there. I’d find myself worrying about things I’d never worried about before, and I just couldn’t stop. I couldn’t get a grip on myself. I blamed it on the stress of university, on being in a new country, but there was this part of me that kept saying everything was wrong, that I’d made the wrong choice by even going there in the first place.”
I stop, letting the memory of that night just before I left for school hit me all over again. I can still feel his arms around me, still feel his breath on my skin as he comforted me and told me something about choices I never forgot.
Sometimes the only lens you get to see through is a rear-view mirror, and you can’t put the car in reverse.
When I look at my years at Brighton University through that mirror, all I see is a collision, a clusterfuck of twisted metal and acrid smoke.
“I don’t know if I even wanted to go to Brighton. It’s what everyone wanted for me, what I’d told them I wanted for so long. It was my dream, but then when I found out I had it, I...I started rethinking everything. By then it was too late to back out. I couldn’t quit. Everyone was so happy for me, so excited, and I...”
“And you weren’t,” Dylan finishes for me. “You weren’t happy and excited.”
I don’t know how much he remembers about that night, if the certainty in his voice comes from the memory of me sobbing in his arms, but I can’t think about that now. I can’t sit here questioning what the night meant to him, or I’ll never finish saying what I need to say.
“I was the farthest thing from happy and excited,” I agree, “and it only got worse. The anxiety attacks started sometime in my second year. I didn’t know what was happening to me. They’re...they’re more than stress. Sometimes there’s not even a reason or an explanation for them. Your brain just turns on you. When the first one hit, I was alone in my dorm, and I thought I was dying. I really did. I thought I was going to just die right there on the floor.”
“Renee...” His voice cracks as he says my name, and my own is going hoarse, threatening to break, but I have to push through. I have to get this out.
“By third year, I was skipping classes because of it. My grades were slipping. I broke up with this guy I was seeing because I just couldn’t handle emotions anymore. I barely had any friends. I couldn’t be around people because I would worry too much. I worried about everything, all the time. When I failed an assignment for the first time in my life, I decided that was it. Enough was enough. I had to get my shit together. I forced myself to go to this lecture I’d been skipping for weeks. It was in this big auditorium, and about ten minutes into the class, I just...I lost it. Right there in front of everyone. I don’t remember much of it, but I know I ended up on the floor. They called an ambulance. They evacuated the whole room. Everyone was just staring as they left. People were literally running away from me. The whole trip to the hospital is kind of hazy when I think about it now. The first thing I remember clearly after that is lying in my bed in my apartment with the lights off, shaking under the blankets and wondering if I’d ever be able to leave my room again.”
There it is: my darkest moment. The most painful memory I have. The absolute worst day of my life.
“I only had one year left, just one and I would have gotten my degree, but I couldn’t do it. My mom had to fly over and help me deal with moving back here. This summer was...hard. I just felt so weak, so sick of myself.”
“You are not weak.”
His tone is harsh enough to startle me. I look up to find him staring at me with a gaze so intense it’s almost cruel.
“You are not weak, Renee.”
A whole host of replies pop into my head:
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen me then.
You’re wrong.
I don’t say any of them. The answer I give him comes from somewhere deep inside me, from some hidden room I’m only just learning to unlock. Its door refuses to stay shut tonight.
“Thanks.” I don’t drop my eyes again. “I...I know.”
He blinks at me in surprise, like it’s the last thing both of us were expecting me to say.
“I’m not weak. I may have been too scared to make some hard choices, but these past few months—these past few weeks especially—I’ve been...changing. Growing. Getting stronger.” I let out a bitter laugh. “I know tonight probably isn’t the best example of that, but I’m here, right? I’m still standing...or sitting on a milk crate, I guess. I’m still going to show up for work tomorrow. I’m still going to go to my therapy appointments and take yoga classes and do whatever it takes to make me feel like myself again. This place...” I glance at the wall of the bar behind me before continuing. “This place has helped me feel more like myself. Something about this feels good. It feels right.”
