Angst (39 page)

Oh God it’s so hot!
I’m alternately sweating and
shivering. I’m freaking dying here. I’ve got the doors locked too because my
overactive imagination is pumping out stories of how someone will show up and
try to hurt me or kidnap me since I’m all alone. It’s totally ridiculous. But I
feel like I must protect myself against every strange person that walks by. But
obviously I can’t really be
safe
.
I never am.

I wish I was swimming, I wish I wasn’t stuck here in my own
mind, stifling, sick, terrified of everything, unable to get up without
disrupting the delicate balance of my sick stomach.

My mid-section rumbles again and I lean over and feel as
though I might throw up too.
Please no. Not in the car.
I panic.
I
cannot be sick here. Please. Please.
I start to sob, hot air, in and out,
in and out of my lungs, I feel suffocated. I’ve been sitting here for what
feels like forever and time is creeping. I turn the key in the ignition to see
the exact time.
2:16 pm
. My parents won’t come in off the water for
another hour at least. I want to go home. I don’t want to be here.

This is my mental problem at its worst, trapped, frantic,
making me physically sick with dread, sick because I am trapped. I cannot
leave. I don’t have my driver’s license yet. I can’t go anywhere and even if I
could, even if I had my license, guess what? I have no idea how to get home and
we’re over 2 hours away. Never mind the fact that this is the one car we have
here. I’m not going anywhere.

Thinking about driving reminds me again of next week.
Oh
shit, I wish I could stop thinking about it
because next week has something
to do with why I’m freaking out so much today. I’m starting driver’s ed. I have
to drive in the car with the instructor for however many hours they require. I’m
not sure I can handle it. But I am desperate to get my license. The freedom
driving represents is like a high of epic proportions. So I can’t freak out. I
can’t get crazy or lose it in the car because then they might not give it to me
and also, they might think I’m totally nuts. I’m not sure which is worse. Plus
I think that other students in my class will be required to watch me drive from
the backseat.
I can’t. I can’t do it! I will freaking lose my mind!
But
I
must
. I have to gain this freedom for myself and this is the only way.
I need my license ASAP. I put my head in my hands, tears seeping between my fingers.

I glance up and see people approaching down the dirt road. Two
guys. Older than me by a few years and they look attractive.
Shit… Shit! I
look atrocious, like a fuckin goblin.
I pull down the visor and look at
myself in the mirror. Any make up I tried to apply this morning is completely
gone and my skin looks terrible. My nose is red and peeling, I have two huge
red zits and three smaller ones, and my eyes have large dark bags under them. It’s
official, I look like total hell on earth.
Don’t let them see me.

They are closer now, sauntering by with towels and board
shorts. I turn my head as they pass, hair covering my face, slumping in the
seat.
What a pathetic loser!
Wait…oh my God, they are between me and
the bathroom.
My stomach knots again, tighter than ever and I think I might
suffocate in here. I bend, pushing my crossed arms deeper into my gut.
Damn
it!!! Hurry up, hurry up, walk faster you assholes!
I need them out of
sight. I need to get up and go.

They’re taking their sweet ass time, walking slow like
they’ve got nowhere else to go. I feel like I’m going to die. I feel like
screaming at them,
move it you fucking jerks!
God this is
terrible…someone please shoot me now.
Finally they are past and my stomach
unclenches for a second. I feel woozy, like I’ve just experienced the high of
panic and am now in the lull. But it will come back again, I know it will.

I want to try lying down, but I know my head will start to
spin like it did every other time and I don’t want to add throwing up in the
car to my list of accomplishments today. I can’t seem to stop myself, I just
keep going through the motions. A few minutes sick as a dog, a few minutes of
relief. A few minutes of overactive imagination, a few minutes arguing with
myself, a few minutes of calm and then start all over again. I flick the key in
the ignition,
2:23 pm
.
It has been seven minutes.
Seven minutes
in my hell of stomach clenching, irrational thoughts, the rush of terrible fear
and then the momentary release. I can’t escape the cycle. For more than three
hours I have felt miserable. I have cried and dried my tears and then started
all over again.

I hate myself and my life.

I can’t escape. Not ever.
Because my worst fear is me.

It’s 9:00 am. The basement floor is cold. Cold radiating
through my body, searing into every part as I lay spread eagle, depression
seeping inside, too, creeping into my eyes causing tears. I am miserable,
unhappy, defeated, beat down, exhausted, stressed, fucked in the head, abnormal,
all wrong. Tears begin to slide, flow hot against my cold cheeks, sobs breaking
through, wracking my body, wrenching sobs, barely able to catch my breath. I
lay here and I let the cold move in. It makes itself a home in my body, in my
mind. I let it penetrate to my heart.

I wish it would kill me. So I don’t have to do it myself.

Strangle me, drown me, asphyxiation, cold fingers closing
around my heart, squeezing to death.
Despair. I can no longer live a normal
life
. I just lay here and think about everything bad, obsessing like I
always do. My usual MO is pathetically obnoxious, predictable and fucked, but I
can’t escape it. I cannot escape my own brain. I am stuck in here with myself. I
want to climb out of my body, I want out of my brain. I want peace, quiet,
death. Now I’m really cold. Shivering in my t-shirt and shorts, reveling in the
feeling, enjoying it like a punishment.
Fuck me,
I think.
Fuck
everything about me. Fuck my brain, fuck my body, fuck my emotions, fuck the
essence of me.

I look over at the wall again and the glinting object
nestled in my sweatshirt.
My father’s hand gun.
Ready and loaded with
killer accuracy at point blank range.
Obviously, dumb bitch.
I stare so
long that my eyes go blurry and tears gush over my eye lids again. My world has
completely contracted until all that is left is this grey place. Cold and
dusty. And even here I cannot feel safe, I cannot relax. It’s as if I’ve
contracted so far into myself that soon I will disappear. And I want it, badly.
I long for oblivion. I long to feel nothing, I long to be nothing.

I think about the shiny gun. One pull of the trigger and my
world would end. My suffering would be over. I reach over and finger the cold
metal and think about death. No more me. No more racing mind, just blackness, a
soft place, nothing. Silence, beautiful silence and peace. No body to get sick,
no mind to churn out crazy thoughts. No more trembling, no more throwing up, no
more thudding heart. Nothing.
I want it.
But I’m afraid to pull that
trigger. I pull the gun closer, sliding my sweatshirt across the cement toward
me, flinching at the idea of the gun blast. Just a tiny flick of my fingers and
my brains would blast out all over the basement. My parents would find me, my
friends would find out. It would be disgusting, but I’d have no idea. I’d be
gone
.

Is that what I really want? I do want the peace it would
bring, although no future sounds bleak. But a sick panic future is really no
future at all. What kind of life is that? What kind of existence is it when you
feel like you can’t share who you really are with people? When people will
laugh and mock you and call you crazy if you reveal how you really feel? I
reach for the gun again, resting my hand on the butt.

My phone rings in my short’s pocket, breaking the silence. Rude,
obnoxious, breaking my misery for a moment. I forgot it was there. It’s Jared. I
answer reluctantly not sure what to say. What can someone wishing for death,
just about to pull the trigger, say to her very alive, very normal boyfriend?

“Hi, Victoria,” he says, his voice soft, muted.

“Hi,” I reply, deadpan, unemotional as I can be with my nose
filled with the snot of my depression.

“How are you?” he follows up, kind, sweet, worried.

“I’m okay,” I say, holding back tears, my voice shuddering,
on the edge of letting go.

“What’s wrong? What’s been going on with you? Why haven’t I
seen you in so long?” he asks, hearing the tone in my voice, the distress.

“Oh God, I don’t know. Something is wrong inside my head,” I
say, trying not to talk much, shutting him out, clamming up, shutting down. Sarcastic,
self-depreciating me.

“Seriously, Victoria, don’t do this to me. I know something
is up. I know something serious is happening with you and your panic attacks
and you won’t talk to me about it,” he says, his muted voice showing just a
touch of anger, just a touch of impatience with my flippant tone. Now I’m
through with games, my cold depression and misery breaking through ready to spew
all over him. Every…last…terrible…thing.

“Fine, you want to know. You can hear it all. You can see
the real me,” I say, my voice hard, the words coming out fast and messy. “Listen,
Jared, I’m broken. I’m scared of being judged, of people not understanding me,
of being trapped and crazy, of living within my own mind. I literally want to
die because I can’t do anything anymore. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen
you, or any of my friends,” I rage, my voice low. Tears are creeping in again
and I can feel the emotion building. I know soon I’ll be unable to hold back
the crazy any longer, I’ll only be able to spray it over him like a fire hose.

“Why would you ever say that you want to die? Don’t say
that. Seriously, Victoria, don’t fuck around with that,” he says, his voice
angry and then suddenly soft, “I want to help you. I wish there was something I
could do, that I could relieve your pain, take away your worries.”

“There’s nothing anyone can do for me. It’s in my own head,
it’s me. It’s who I am and I am fucked. I’m obsessive, scared, controlling,
irrational. I hate my life. I hate my brain. I can’t control this anymore, I
can’t hide it. It’s coming out, it’s exposing itself so that the only thing
left for me to do is to hide physically, to avoid everything and everyone or to
drink myself either to death or to jail with a DUI. Do you know how miserable
that kind of existence is? It’s horrid because you can’t even really understand
me. No one can and what I’m saying right now, the shit that is coming out of my
mouth is jibberish, crazy talk, insane ravings. No one can understand unless it
happened to them,” I say, biting, hard edged, honest, just cold hard facts.

“I want to understand, Victoria, I really do. But you won’t
let me in. You won’t explain it to me.”

“Jared, what is there to explain?? None of it makes sense!
It’s
insane.
People start to look at me weird if I try to explain. People are
not kind. People are monsters. Terrible judging monsters who care only for
themselves and want to mock someone who’s different.”

“Don’t include me with those people. I’m not like that! I
care about you. I just want you to tell me what’s going on, so I can help you,
be there for you.”

“Do you know what happened yesterday? I heard two bitches
talking about someone else, they described how she was feeling and acting and
it sounded…like me and do you know what they did?
They laughed
. They
called her fucked in the head. Do you know how that feels to pretty much hear
someone call you fucked in the head? The best part is to hear it and know that
it’s 100 percent true.”

“Victoria, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry that people are
insensitive. Those people are stupid and you shouldn’t listen to them. They are
not compassionate and they don’t know the full story. Please don’t say that
about yourself...”

“Jared, the only thing I do anymore is go to work. Do you
know why? I go to work because if I don’t I will have to admit that I’ve lost
complete control of my life. Do you know what that feels like? Do you know what
it feels like to be scared every single second of every single day? To
constantly feel sick to my stomach, tense, on edge, worried, exhausted. It’s
miserable. And I’m weak because I can’t fight through it, so there’s another
reason to hate myself.”

“Why don’t you think about medication? It could really help
you, Vic. Seriously.”

“No, I don’t think so. I hate that option. Besides it would
require me to talk to someone about it. I’d have to admit to my doctor what’s
wrong with me. I would have to tell someone that this is real, that it is
beyond my control, that it has beaten me down so far that I can’t come back on
my own. I don’t like the idea of being on medication forever, of depending on
something like that for help and I can’t see how my irrational fears will just
go away if I take a pill. I mean Jared, I am totally crazy.”

“Babe, you are not crazy, there is a chemical reaction gone
wrong in your brain. It’s nothing to be ashamed of! Why do you beat yourself up
like this? Why do you assume you have no self-worth?”

“I’ve never had any…self-worth, I’ve never thought much of
myself. Honestly. I can’t really say why. I’ve always felt different. It’s
hard…to have self-worth when you know there is something wrong, when you know
other people will make fun of you for your irrational fears. It’s hard when you
feel ugly and crazy and just off in every way,” I say with a sob, my voice
catching. It’s coming out now, the tidal wave of shit.

“Why do you feel ugly! Victoria, honestly, how can you feel
that way? Why? I can’t understand it. You’re beautiful. You’re making me really
sad right now.”