I am at my parents’ for a week
before I move to school.
It is strange to be back in the States
and to have everything change so quickly.
Life was so frenetic in Paris
and as soon as I walked in my parents’ door
everything came to a full stop.
Back in my own country,
with my own language,
I still feel alone,
like no one understands me.
I spent so much time in Paris
wishing I were home,
in a safe place,
but now that I am here,
it is as hard as being away.
I don’t know what to do with myself.
It is hard to sit down and do nothing.
I watch TV, do errands,
but this pace makes me feel
like my heart is going to stop.
I sit in my room
and reread my journals from high school
and cry because my biggest problem then was Jason.
How did I get so far from that
and so close to this feeling in my belly—
the feeling that this skin isn’t good enough,
that it doesn’t quite fit,
that anyplace is better than here?
My parents see how battered I am.
It is hard to miss.
I tell them that the change of pace is too hard on me.
That coming back was a shock to my system.
My mother takes me to a family doctor
to get a new prescription
and tries to convince me
not to move to school for the summer.
But I have to go.
I can’t stay here.
Klonopin 0.5 mg.
This orange bottle
and these yellow pills
are so familiar.
In return for the prescription
the doctor makes me promise
that I will see a therapist
at school.
Thinking about Provence scares me.
To me, walking up and down that path,
bending over, grasping my head, crying
because I couldn’t make it stop
is the face of insanity—
uncontrollable panic and fear,
the nonstop rush and no way out.
All I could think about
was how I didn’t deserve this,
and that I was a good person,
and how much it hurt.
I feel like a different person
compared to that girl.
I can barely recall the way it felt—
a blessing, I suppose.
Why would I want to remember it vividly?
I have only a general sense of the pain,
of not being able to control my body
and my thoughts.
All I ever wanted
was to have control—
to be in charge of myself
and the rest of the world.
When I look back at my pictures from Europe
will I forget how much everything hurt?
Will it all not seem so bad?
Will the attacks be shorter?
Will there be fewer?
Will I have them at all?
When I see a picture of me
standing in front of a canal in Venice
or waving at the camera in the markets of Florence
and my color is a little off
and I have only a half a smile
will I think it is because the lighting was bad
or the camera caught me
just before I could smile?
I have to be careful what I remember.
It wasn’t all good.
Things are already so different.
My memory cannot be trusted.
I want to be with Nate so badly.
I want to sit down with him
and have him put his arm around me
and tell me that he loves me,
even if he doesn’t.
But I can’t even get him
on the phone long enough
to tell him what’s happening to me
and how awful Paris was
and how awful it is to be home,
to be anywhere.
I sit in the TV room and stare at the phone,
wondering how long it will take
for him to call me back,
wondering how long
before I can call him again.
Like always I cave and call.
I tell him I need him.
I tell him I need him now.
He tells me that he is waiting
for one of his friends to come over—
one of his stupid wasted friends.
I need him.
Why is not disappointing his loser friend
more important than seeing me,
helping me?
He says, “Samantha,
I know you are very angry with me,
but I can’t do anything about it right now.”
There is something about how slowly
and calmly he says it,
how he enunciates every syllable,
that makes me slam the phone down
over and over again.
Now I’m back staring at the phone
thinking how I’ve never hung up on anyone
and how I never even got the chance
to tell him what was wrong.
My first apartment
has thick brown shag carpeting
that traps the heat and smells of cat.
Like other apartments,
we have pots and pans,
but these are my pots and pans.
That is my blender.
This is my room.
We have a balcony
facing the town’s main street.
Ann and I sit up there
and watch the sun set.
I blow bubbles
just to watch the people below
laugh and look around, confused.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about eating,
or how I’m not eating enough.
I don’t think I’m getting enough nutrition.
I bought some dietary supplement shakes,
not the kind to make you lose weight,
but the kind old people drink to stay healthy.
Things are calm.
I set my own pace here.
I swim at the lake with friends,
meet Ann and her boyfriend
for happy hour after work,
go to barbecues that last for hours.
This is my routine.
The only thing I don’t like
is my bike ride home from work.
It’s all downhill
and the speed scares me.
I have an appointment
with a therapist.
I spend the day before the appointment
thinking about the things I am afraid of:
That I will be alone.
That no one will love me.
But are these really the fears I worry about?
What about not succeeding?
Not pleasing my parents?
Being left alone, with no one to help me,
just in case something terrible happens?
The new fear
of not being able to get out
has affected me worse than all the others.
It is much more crippling.
I cannot shake Provence, no matter how hard I try.
But do I really try hard enough
to take down my walls?
I wonder if I am too close
to even see what is written on them.
This close, everything is just a blurry mess.
The session with the new therapist is exhausting.
We start from scratch.
I tell him about myself,
about my sister and my parents,
the names of all the drugs I’ve taken,
how my anxiety is worse at night,
and that Europe was a disaster.
We talk about how I fear
losing control,
how I fear embarrassment,
how I fear fear.
I try to be optimistic,
but I can’t believe that I am back here,
in this chair,
telling all my stories, hoping
that this time
will be the last time
I have to do this.
Rebecca, Ann, and Jennifer
and I are living in an off-campus apartment
that’s a converted bed-and-breakfast.
We each pay five hundred dollars a month
and have our own bedroom and bathroom.
I know this is not reality.
My parents pay my rent
and my credit card bills for food.
My only responsibilities are
to write poetry, take pictures,
write papers, and take my medication.
My life is so easy now
and I wonder what it will be like
in the spring when I graduate.
What kind of job do I want?
Where am I going to live?
My parents have spent
so much money on my education
and I don’t have any idea
what I am going to do when I leave here.
I have the dream again.
My sister and I are crossing the Pont Neuf,
a bridge in Paris,
when I realize my mouth is filled
with tiny black rocks.
I sit down and start spitting them out.
I tell my sister not to worry—
that this happens all the time.
My therapist and I work
on relaxation.
He tells me to close my eyes
and imagine I am in a comfortable, safe place.
He wants me to focus on my breathing,
but I can’t do it.
I’m not ready
to shut my eyes again.
We talk and I ask
if he knows any books that would help me.
I am eager to do something tangible
to help my anxiety.
He orders me an anxiety workbook.
It will be filled with exercises
and ways to take control of my anxiety.
When it comes I never use it.
The therapist sends me to a psychiatrist
to manage my meds.
This psychiatrist is not like the others.
He wears faded jeans and black
Converse sneakers
that he puts up on his desk.
He thinks Paxil will be
better than Klonopin
and I am in no position to disagree.
Paxil 10 mg
makes me want to vomit
every hour of every day.
When I brush my teeth,
it makes me gag.
When I put a pencil between my teeth,
it makes me gag.
The psychiatrist tells me to tough it out,
that the side effects will pass.
I give it two weeks.
Serzone 200 mg
is not bad.
The hardest part is remembering
to take it in the morning
since I’ve always taken my meds at night.
None of my friends can understand
how the last three years went so quickly.
It feels like the first day of freshman year
wasn’t that long ago—
like we just met and are still trying
to find our way around campus.
But now we are seniors.
We are at the top of the heap.
Everyone is looking up toward us,
but I am looking back.
I wonder how I could have done things differently—
how I could have done things better.
Did I take the right classes
and have the right major?
Did I choose English because it was easy for me
or could I have pushed myself more
and done something else?
I think about how I never went out enough
and how I should have been more social
and gone to more parties.
I think about girls who found love here,
if only for a little while,
and I feel like I missed out.
Ann and I are home,
alone in the apartment
after a Halloween party,
and I am high.
I haven’t smoked pot in months,
but I took a few cautious hits at the party
since my anxiety has been better.
Ann and I watch a DVD
and eat doughnuts until we are stuffed.
We say good night and go to our rooms
to get ready for bed.
In the shower the water sounds like an avalanche.
That’s when I realize I am too high
and that there is nothing
I can do about it but wait.
My mind is racing
and I can’t stop thinking
about how I am too high,
and that it’s going to make me crazy,
that it is going to make my heart stop,
and that the water is too hot,
and the sound of the water is deafening.
I try to wash my hair,
but I keep dropping everything.
First the shampoo,
then the conditioner,
then the bar of soap.
I can’t hold on to anything.
Ann’s shower is on the other side of the wall.
She bangs hard on the wall,
yells to see if I am okay.
I say yes,
but I’m not.
My therapist wants to know
how my panic attacks serve me.
I don’t understand.
He wants to know what I gain from them.
Gain?
He thinks they serve a purpose.
I still don’t understand.
Is he saying that I do this to myself
to avoid situations I don’t want to be in?
To myself?
I am crying as I talk
and there must be little threads of spit
connecting my upper and lower jaw.
To myself?
I have never heard anything so awful in my life.
Thanksgiving with my parents
is surprisingly easy.
My parents decided not to make a fuss this year
and take us to Montreal.
We are going to stay in a fancy hotel
and have dinner at a four-star restaurant.
We stay in adjoining rooms
and spend the day walking around the city,
going to galleries, and shopping.
Everyone is happy.
Thanksgiving dinner is sterile.
The atmosphere is nice,
the food is good,
but something is missing.
There shouldn’t only be four of us.
I would rather be at my parents’ house
listening to my father yelling at my mother
to sit down with her guests,
and my mother yelling at my father
to get out of the kitchen,
and my mother’s friend trying to make it seem
like her kids’ accomplishments
are better than mine and my sister’s.
I get back from the bars with my roommates
and get into bed.
I have the spins.
I only had two drinks—
it doesn’t make sense
that I feel like I am on a rocking boat.
I sit up and the spins go away,
but as soon as I lie down again
they come back.
This feeling, the fact that I cannot make it stop,
is making me crazy.
It feels like I am having a panic attack,
like I am not in control of my body.
I go into the bathroom
and sit down in front of the toilet.
I’ve never had to make myself do this.
I almost never let myself drink to this point.
But tonight doesn’t make sense.
I wasn’t even drunk.
Maybe something else is wrong with me?
Maybe I have food poisoning,
or a virus,
or something that doesn’t have a name.
I stare at the tiles.
I stare at the bowl.
I stare at the hair on the floor
that I should have cleaned up.
I stick my finger down my throat,
but it is not enough.
I only gag.
I try again,
stick my finger down farther,
be more brave.
This time everything comes up
and I can’t make it stop.
The spins may be gone,
but now I can’t control
the spasms in my stomach
that keep me retching.
When I am done,
I wash my face, brush my teeth,
and go into Rebecca’s room.
I am twenty years old,
I should be able to handle this on my own,
but I can’t.
I don’t want to.
For work-study
I’ve been helping out an English teacher
with copying and research.
Now he’s planning a presentation
for teachers from nearby towns
and needs me to act out a scene from a book
by crouching on a table like a monkey.
It’ll be in the largest lecture hall on campus—
one that I’ve had panic attacks in
because it was always crowded and quiet
and I was scared that people were looking at me,
knowing I was freaking out.
I can’t believe I agreed to do this
and put myself in a position
where people will definitely be staring at me
while I do something ridiculous.
I psych myself up for it all week.
I tell myself that it will be a good experience—
that it will help me get over some of my fears
and that maybe
it’s a step to reclaiming spaces
that were once scary to me.
When I am finally standing in the lecture hall
and we are about to start,
my hands are shaking.
I am going to look like such an ass.
But I tell myself, it’s okay.
I am supposed to look like an ass.
People are going to laugh because it’s funny.
No one is going to think that I am crazy,
but all these people’s eyes on me is uncomfortable.
I don’t like being the focus,
but I do it.
Both hands on the table, then a foot,
then the other foot,
and then I am crouching.
That’s it.
It lasts a few seconds
and is over.
It’s not a big deal.
People laugh because it’s funny,
not because something is wrong with me.
When it’s over,
I am energized.
I could do it again.
Fuck this room—it’s
just a bunch of seats
filled with people I don’t know,
people whose opinions of me don’t matter,
people I will never see again.
Winter break is death.
It’s all I can see.
A friend of the family has killed himself.
I am sitting next to my mother
when we get the call—
the kind of call you know isn’t going to be good
before you even pick it up.
I loved Howie.
When I talked about him
I called him my cousin,
but he was more like an uncle.
He’s known me since I was a kid
and has been there for everything—
my bat mitzvah, my high school graduation,
all the holidays, all the dinners.
The morning of the funeral
two of my parents’ friends are at our house.
We are all going to the funeral together.
Everyone has their idea
about why Howie jumped out of his office window.
My mother just read an article
about how antidepressants have been linked to suicide
and she thinks that must be what happened.
My mother’s friend, a lawyer, thinks that his death
must be related to Howie’s law practice—
that Howie got into some sort of trouble
that he couldn’t get out of.
When I try to tell him
that it is not for us to know,
that is not for us to try to understand
what Howie must have felt,
he brushes me off, tells me I am immature,
that people do things for a reason.
Upstairs, my sister comforts me.
She says she hopes that when Howie was falling
he felt like he could fly.
At the funeral
his wife of three months
makes noises that aren’t human.
At the graveside
his mother steps forward,
fills the shovel,
and slowly sifts the dirt over the casket
as his father watches.