Holding Still for as Long as Possible (16 page)

“Take some samples, Hilary.”

“No. I need some perspective is all.”

Then we started over again. I'm not entirely sure why I bothered.

“So, when you're having a panic attack, what are you afraid of?” Dr. Harris asked.

“It depends.”

“Describe the last one you had.”

“I was afraid the subway was going to stop underground.”

“What if it did?”

I tried to picture it. The scenario didn't seem as scary in my imagination as it had when I was standing inside the subway car, palming the smeared windows. “I'd freak out. I might faint. We might run out of air.”

“What do you think would happen if you fainted?”

I knew what she was doing. She was trying to trace the fear to its origin so I could understand what the real issue was. Always the real fear is death, lack of control. The usual cocktail.

“You would regain consciousness eventually,” Dr. Harris prompted. “Everyone does.”

“Okay, then, I'm afraid of dying. But isn't everyone?”

“Yes, you are afraid of dying.”

“Aren't you?”

“No. And we're here to discuss
your
feelings.”

“So how do I fix this?”

“You don't. You accept it.”

I knew this. It was obvious. It was like my brain was stuck and I couldn't move forward. Maybe I was emotionally retarded. Still, I thought, I might as well talk about it.

“How does anyone accept it?”

“Are you religious? Do you believe in anything?”

“Not really.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. I bit my nails. Dr. Harris scanned the clipboard in her lap. I thought about telling her that lately I'd become concerned whenever I saw elderly people or babies, people on crutches or very small dogs. I thought about what would happen if I suddenly snapped and stuck my foot out in front of them, caused their brittle bones to break. What if I poked a soft baby skull with my thumb, by accident? Even the thought of doing these things made me sick.

In this book I own,
Understanding Your Obsessive Thoughts
, it says these thoughts are signs of a type of obsessive compulsive disorder, only without the compulsions. According to the handy quiz section, I am a pure obsessive. People have upwards of four thousand thoughts a day, and a normal person can filter out the ones that seem absurd. Pure obsessives fixate, worried that having the thought in the first place proves they are bad people. The obsessive brain becomes preoccupied with these thoughts, like someone who is so afraid of being sacrilegious they pray ninety-five times a day.
That's me. This is me
, is what
I had said to myself when I was sitting on the floor of the self-help bookstore on Harbord Street, taking the quiz in the back of the book.

“What if I did suddenly lose my mind?” I asked Dr. Harris.

“Hilary, I really think you should consider medication. Think about the quality of your life.”

“No. Do you know how over-prescribed
SSRI
s are today? I just read an article about it.”

“I understand you're frustrated, Hilary. This time of year is hard on most people.”

Back at the apartment, Roxy was hanging up our stockings and making invitations to our annual Christmas Eve dinner party for friends who don't visit family for the holidays. She'd rented a deep fryer and
Guitar Hero
, and had a Charlie Brown tree in every room. The holiday season fuelled Roxy, filled her with kindness for all the local orphaned twenty-something misfits. I just wished the holiday was over.
In January, I can start over
, I thought,
along with everyone else
.

Dr. Harris took notes, filling in the silence. She wore a ridiculous Christmas sweater. I visualized stealing it and dipping it in the deep fryer. I felt annoyance that Dr. Harris had probably never been afraid of death, never been afraid of going outside; that she could be happy and healthy and just freakin' fine. I felt the kind of self-pity endemic to the depressed and anxious, where you're absolutely certain that the fear and sadness you're currently experiencing is the most that any one person has ever felt. I realized this was insane, but that's the way it felt.

“What do you want right now, Hilary?”

“If I could just pause for a few weeks. Be where no one expects anything from me, like rehab.”

“Do you have a problem with drinking right now?”

It was questions like these that made me suspect Dr. Harris wished my problems were easier to label, like alcoholism. During our first session she had asked me if I'd been abused, if my anxiety was post-traumatic, from childhood. My somewhat unusual but otherwise loving family seemed to confound her.

“No, I wish I did. I mean, I wish it were that simple.”

“You should know it's not simple. Your father is one such example.”

Aha; she remembered me. She probably had
DRUNK DAD, USED TO BE FAMOUS, TOTALLY NUTS
scrawled on her notepad to differentiate me from the other patients.

“If I had a drinking problem, the solution would be simple: Stop drinking.”

“Billy, I think you might depressed. It is common for people with anxiety disorder to also develop depressive symptoms.”

“No, I don't think so. I'm just tired of being anxious.”

“Billy. I think you should —”

“I don't believe in the goodness of the pharmaceutical industry. Besides, I tried it once and it didn't work.” Paxil had made me forget how to spell basic words. I left out consonants. I would put on my shoes, walk into another room and completely forget where I was going. I had dreamt every night that I was standing in line at the bank machine.

But it wasn't only that. I had pretty sane friends, on the whole. I was probably the most crazy of them, in the traditional sense. Yet almost everyone I knew had at some point been prescribed these drugs, whether it was to quit smoking or get over a job loss or a breakup. It was astounding, how commonplace it was. It reeked of conspiracy, according to Roxy. Perhaps I was starting to listen to Roxy's conspiracies too closely.

Dr. Harris looked at the clock, wished me a Merry Christmas, and told me to remember to breathe. She gave me a piece of paper for a new medication that I ripped into little sweaty pieces in the hallway, like I always did.

I took the elevator down nine floors and tried not to notice how many greasy fingerprints peppered the large metal doors, or think about how many of those fingers had touched the numbers outlined in orange glow on the keypad, or the horizontal metal banister that split the wall of the elevator in two.

There were four other people in the elevator, standing straight and looking forward. I was definitely looking like the healthiest, upright in a tidy black dress, red boots, and matching clutch purse, a leather coat across my right arm. When I caught my reflection, I realized I actually had a glow in my cheeks, a thin sheen of gloss on my lips. This was the look I had perfected. Fearless. But I felt grey. I pressed G with certainty.

The person beside me was a fat man in a polyester suit with a cast on his arm. He reminded me of Uncle Jonny and I felt comforted by his display of solid masculinity. A thin woman with a salt and pepper mullet and teeth that had lost a battle with coffee and nicotine stood beside him. A silver-haired nurse who appeared to be on the 24th hour of a shift and resented my perky demeanour was next. An elderly man in a wheelchair drooling rivers made me saddest of all.

I pressed G again, and continued to press it after the doors closed on every floor, just in case. I was trying to be prepared for anything. I had very little faith in technology and lots of experience with human error. The elevator emptied completely on six and then stopped between floors five and four. Paused. Black.

Good Will. Good Will!!!

I moved my hands around to where I remembered seeing the alarm button and the phone, but in the end I wasn't sure about any of the buttons except for the familiar G. I pressed it again. Nothing. No comforting orange light around the tiny circle. No sound.

I found the phone, picked it up, but couldn't hear a tone, connection or voice. I let it drop.

The darkness and silence illustrated my options. Even my cell couldn't get a signal. I was waiting for the magician to cut my legs off in this box. I couldn't do anything. I could only stand there and breathe.

Oddly, I started to feel calm. Acceptance. The tingling in my feet stopped. I took a deep breath and my throat opened.

The elevator jumped slightly, and the lights flickered back on.

“You okay in there?” said a voice.

“Yes!” I said, a little too loudly, almost chipper. The doors opened again on the ground floor. Walking home, I felt as if the panic was miraculously gone. At least for a while. It was freeing. Why bother focusing on the panic when I was finally calm? Calm moments shouldn't be wasted.

When I got home I found a note from Roxy on a ripped cigarette pack. “Your boss called. You missed work again. She said not to bother to come in tomorrow. Sorry, my lovely. You'll find something else soon.
XOX
ROX
.”

I couldn't believe I had mixed up my shift times again. They were written in red on the calendar on the fridge. I stared at the numbers: 4 p.m., which I had interpreted as 9 p.m., for no reason at all. The details always failed me. I fell into bed.

When I woke up three hours later, it was because Roxy burst through the house and pushed open my door, which I had shut earlier with a pile of discarded laundry long overdue for a wash.

“Billy. I'm making you get up.”

“Why?”

“Because you've been asleep forever, and Josh is here and we're going to play
RISK
. We found the whole game in the neighbour's garbage and it's time for world domination.”

“No.”

“C'mon! Don't you remember the Cold War?” When in pursuit of immediate fun and pleasure, Roxy stopped at nothing. She jumped on the bottom of my bed. There was plenty of room because I sleep like a snail.

“
BILLY! BILLY!
There's plenty of time to sleep when you're dead!” Roxy used this excuse for everything: plenty of time to be skinny, sober, well-behaved, when dead.

“Fuck off.”

Roxy jumped off the bed, pulled a sweater off my laptop and pressed play on my Gym mix. A '90s house song came on. Roxy clicked the volume up as high as it could go and began to sing along with words she made up. “Billy loves me, she loves me so much! I'm her best friend in the wooooorld. If we were at all attracted to each other, we'd make the best couple ever! Oh, Billy, Billy, Billy!”

I surrendered, sitting bolt upright. “You'd better have brought home beer.”

“Even better. Josh is in the kitchen making hot toddies. Fuck winter!” she yelled.

“Fuck winter!” Josh replied from down the hall.

A few minutes later, I sat at the kitchen table, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and staring at Josh, a blurry animal who smelled really good. Like cookies and man cologne. In the middle of the game, Roxy's phone sang the chorus to “The Humpty Dance.” It was a call from her fathers; she took it out on the balcony. Josh and I paused to refill the mugs of rum. Warmth filled my whole body.

“How was work today?” I asked.

“Some guy stabbed in the gut by his brother.”

I laughed. I couldn't help it. “Oh yeah, I heard about that on the news. I wonder what would make someone do something like that?” What if
I
could do something like that, I thought suddenly. I felt unable to swallow. I moved my glass up and down to taunt myself, testing to make sure I wouldn't hurl it across the room.
See? I'm okay. Change the subject.
“So, how's Amy?”

“We, uh, just broke up, actually. So I'm not sure how she is.” Josh looked down at the table.

“I'm sorry to hear that. How long were you guys together?”

“Almost five years.”

“Oh yeah. I just broke up with my girlfriend not too long ago. We were together seven years. I have to say, it's the hardest thing I've ever had to go through, really. Losing her.”

“Me too. I think I'm still in denial. I mean, we're still living together. Who did you break up with?”

“My high school sweetheart, Maria.” Quick
, say something that indicates you also date boys
. I decided on a look instead of words — an unavoidable flirty come-hither look I perfected long ago. It worked. Josh blushed.

“When I first met her,” I said, “I would've thrown myself in front of a bus if she'd said it was a good idea. Now we're working on being good friends.” When you said these kinds of things out loud, they sounded so much simpler than they felt. “So, what's it like to be single? What are you going to do for the holidays?”