Separation anxiety — Daniela pt. 4
I shoot up out of bed.
“Daniela.”
It’s the middle of the night, but Daniela sits up right away.
“Alan?”
Her voice is sharp with concern. She’s seen this before. She knows what’s coming. Every time before that I’ve turned too urgently in our bed, or sat up for any reason, I’ve felt her react like this. I’ve felt her sense of worry that this will be the reason why. Usually, it’s nothing and she can relax again, but a part of her knows, this — this thing will happen again.
“I’m gonna pass out,” I say.
I leap out of bed, knowing the clock is ticking. I grab a pillow and slump my nearly naked body onto the carpet below. Daniela follows me, her voice rising in dread.
“Alan, Alan, Alan, oh my god. What can I do?”
I can’t stop the thoughts. I’d been having some innocuous dream that suddenly turned dark. Something medical. Something physical. Something internal. I can’t even remember the details. At this moment, I somehow believe that a disease in my body, and I’m bleeding from it. Dying from it.
“Just stay with me,” I struggled to say. “Just stay with me. Fuckfuckfuck….”
I’m fighting an impossible battle. I try to think of something else, anything, but I can’t. I can’t. It’s just images of blood and disease and it’s in my body.
And I fail. I pass out. From dreaming to waking up for 30 seconds just to pass out and go back to dreamland. But this dream is always much more vivid. I’m transported to a completely different plane of existence.
15 seconds later, I come to. I’m staring at our bed frame, and I have no idea what is going on.
“Where am I?” I ask.
“You passed out,” Daniela says, her voice still tight with emotion.
I’m completely exhausted. My body has completely tensed up from the panic attack to make my blood pressure plummet and make me go unconscious.
“Wait…” I say.
I raise my arm, but it’s so weak I have to prop it up with my other arm. I reach my hand down my boxers, looking for blood. There’s none there. I can’t remember much about the dream, but I remember blood was there. So what happened?
I feel again. It’s wet. Oh god, did I piss myself?
Wrong again. I’m just absolutely drenched in sweat.
Daniela gets me a glass of water. I take a sip and put it down.
“Just hold my hand for a bit,” I say, as she grabs my hand and lies next to me, on our bedroom floor. My energy slowly comes back and my breathing returns to normal.
She thought this thing was over. This wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. She leads me back to bed as my whole body shakes like it’s -40 out, and I fall asleep again.
This wasn’t supposed to happen anymore.
It was our ninth year together and we looked like a happy couple. That owed mainly to the fact that we were a happy couple. One of Daniela’s Creative Communications classmates that she was close to left a comment on a picture of us on Facebook “ahhh, my favourite couple.” It made sense to me. During Daniela’s time in Creative Communications, a bunch of her classmates had events on the same day and she was worried about being able to make them, since they all went to hers. I said, let’s hit ’em all, and drove us around, ping-ponging throughout the city, making appearances for as long as we could until it was on to the next one. I looked like a supportive boyfriend and tossed out some nuggets of CreComm wisdom to whoever wanted them.
It wasn’t a facade of happiness. It was all so real. The cute and silly stuff continued too. Whether it was putting on new bedding together so I could make sure to fluff the blanket at her, making her hair blow in the breeze like she was a model on a photo shoot, or putting on an atrocious French accent as I gave her a massage for 30 minutes (and only receiving 10 flaccid wristed massage minutes back!), we just seemed like a unit.
I also felt we knew how to disagree well. One time we were out looking for a new toque for me, and we went to a small thrift shop she liked. As we walked up to the counter with the new toque, the cashier politely asked if I found what I needed.
“Yes, just the toque,” I said, laying it on thick and gesturing to Daniela, “she says my old one’s no good anymore, and what she says goes.”
When we got outside, Daniela wasn’t overly upset but she brought it up right away.
“Don’t do that. Don’t make us out to be some old tired couple where I’m forcing you to do something against your will.”
She said it made us seem like a cliché, like some boomer sitcom husband and wife, and we were better than that. I was better than that. And I agreed. I was glad she didn’t let it linger. She got to it right away, and I didn’t make any dumb ol’ ball and chain references after that.
But a new test had come on the horizon. I’d been laid off from my job and was trying to cope with the sudden shift. Being laid off is never fun. I was feeling shame and embarrassment. I loved being a provider for Daniela, and now that ability was severely compromised. I tried to be positive. Daniela suggested I go out for runs and try to keep myself active, whether through body or mind. She tried to be positive too. After all, we were partners. I’d just been by her side during her previous work problems and two of her most difficult years getting through the Creative Communications program. And now with her new job promoting women in tech, I was already assisting in whatever little ways I could. I’d been driving out with her and helping set up for different events, brainstorming icebreaker games with her (mined from my improv coaching background) for her group activities, or suggesting tweets for her Twitter account since I knew a bit about the tech world.
Now with me laid off, I could do a lot more for her. One day though, a few weeks into being unemployed, she walked in from her day of work to see me lying on the couch, playing a video game.
“Is this what you’ve been doing all day?” she asked.
I got flustered. There were only so many applications to be sent out, and staring at my inbox was not going to make any replies come faster. What was wrong with unwinding with a video game? But this wasn’t about logic. This was about appearances.
Later I was watching Chris Rock’s new comedy special that had just released, Tamborine. I was laughing along to most of it, as it was funny and very relationship-oriented. Then he got to a part about when a man gets laid off from his job.
“There’s a coldness that you have to accept when you’re a man. Only women, children and dogs are loved unconditionally. A man is only loved under the condition that he provides something. I’ve never heard a woman in my life say, ‘you know, after he got laid off, we got so much closer.’”
Ha, yeah… that wasn’t going to happen to me, I thought. I’d been there for her being laid off. I’d been there for her through all her ups and all her many downs. I was there, steadfast. Reliable. Easy to depend on.
A few weeks later the first domino fell.
We were talking one evening, lying on the bed. Everything was very casual. Daniela mentioned that she was feeling a little discomfort, wondering if she had a UTI, and then got up to go to the bathroom.
My mind locked in. It was so quick. I suddenly imagined this twisting, internal pain in my own body for my own UTI. I tried to shake the thoughts off, but I couldn’t. Now I had this phantom searing pain of a UTI that I couldn’t get rid of. In just a few seconds I called out, “Daniela… I’m passing out!” and I was down.
This type of thing had been going on for a while. I probably had a panic attack like this once every year or two, so it had happened a handful of times in our nine years together at that point. Stemming from getting vaccinated in the fourth grade and passing out there, I developed an anxiety disorder centered around needles. But it slowly meandered into different areas that were hard for me to predict. Someone could talk about some disease they had or an internal injury or detailed medical phenomena and I’d start to have a panic attack. Weirdly, I could watch a movie with a bloody, gory murder (or sometimes even a video with a real one) and be totally unaffected. Or I could watch an animated explainer video on YouTube about how AIDS works, and be paralyzed in fear, visualizing this disease running through my body as I tried to close the video before losing consciousness.
For most anxiety-based panic attacks, people don’t typically pass out. But for blood or needle-phobia-based panic attacks, they do. My mind would hear something medical, and just take over. I knew it wasn’t rational but I could barely control it. Sometimes I could redirect my thoughts, but other times I was powerless to get away from it.
Sometimes these attacks would come from a dream, which meant I would wake up in the middle of the night with a full-on panic attack. Daniela would have to see me go through this, then collapse with my lifeless eyes and slowly come back to normal. After seeing this happen a few times over the early years of our relationship, Daniela was not a fan of this. She wanted it cured.
So in those early years, I ended up going to a cognitive behavioural therapist for a few months as I learned some coping mechanisms and strategies for dealing with my anxiety. Eventually though, the therapy ended, and I was on my own again. “That’s it? It’s over with?” Daniela had asked. I tried to regurgitate the words my therapist had said, about how this was not something like a cold that could be treated so directly. It was who I was. I knew it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but she seemed to at least appreciate the effort I had put in to get better. And it had made a difference for a few years.
Now, passing out felt like a failure. So when I passed out that October night during our UTI talk, I was on edge. My mind had zero confidence in protecting myself from wandering worries. It was like the intrusive thoughts in my brain had sniffed me out, and knew I was an easy target. I could feel them peering around every corner, and I just needed to keep them at bay with positivity. It didn’t help that I was already feeling low from being laid off and trying to be the partner Daniela wanted me to be.
Five days later, it struck again. I was watching a hockey game, and a player who years ago had a traumatic injury where his femur snapped was playing, and the commentator mentioned him.
That was it.
No injury happened. The commentator didn’t even mention the old injury. I simply remembered that it happened. Suddenly, all I could imagine was my femur snapping in two. I could feel the pain of it. The distress. I tried to shake my thoughts away, but I couldn’t. I just pictured bone snapping. Hearing it. What that felt like. It ruining my life. Unable to walk again. What would happen to me?!
“Oh fuck. Daniela!!!” I called out.
But the panic ramped up so fast. And I was out again.
I woke up on the carpet of our apartment, looking up at Daniela, trying to figure out who she was. Where I was. What was going on. As the information slowly came back to me, it didn’t reassure me one bit. Rather, I was terrified now. I had never had two panic attacks so close together before. And if it could hit me twice like that, why couldn’t it hit me again?
For the next few days, I was walking on eggshells. I had no idea what might trigger my anxiety next, but it seemed like it could be anything around any corner. Daniela tried to keep me upbeat and took us to a spin class together. I was sitting in the car, outside the building, on the verge of tears, saying I don’t think I can do this. But I tried to breathe through it and stay calm. We went to the class, and it was awful. I was picturing every muscle and ligament tearing and ripping with every exercise move I made. And now my feet were strapped into a machine, the door was slammed shut, and a group of 30 strangers could very clearly see if I ran out of there in a panic. It was a bunch of factors thrown together to make the experience utter torture.
I barely made it through, but I wasn’t doing well. Nighttimes were particularly difficult because I was truly alone with my thoughts, unable to distract myself with conversation or TV or internet. I wasn’t making it easy on Daniela either. She was getting frustrated with not getting a good sleep and suggested I stay the night at my parents.
“Your mom likes taking care of you anyways,” she said.
I could see her point. This way I could stay up late watching something and try to tire myself out, so there wouldn’t be as much time to lie there awake with my thoughts. I’d just fade to sleep from exhaustion. Hopefully.
I went to my parents and woke up the next day and something was wrong.
My brain wasn’t working right. I was no longer scared of what anxious thoughts were around the corner. I was around the corner, and all the scary thoughts had surrounded me. I literally couldn’t think of a single thing other than anxiety triggers. My resting anxiety level was usually a two out of ten. For that last week, it never went below a five. Now, it was a constant nine.
Within an hour, I’d collapsed into the fetal position, unable to move my body. My mind was assaulted by different thoughts of body-based traumas. I was fighting back that nine rating of anxiety from turning into a ten which meant passing out. Because passing out was failure.
It was traumatic. It was exhausting. I told myself I just had to fight fight fight no matter what and then I’d be OK. But fighting back was taking as much energy as all the triggering thoughts were taking out of me. I was shaking and breathing rapidly. I could see what was happening was not normal. The tiny part of my brain that still held rational thoughts could see that the irrational side had taken over. It had won.
My mom called my doctor and set up an emergency appointment for that day. I tended to avoid doctors (obviously), but my usual tactic of running away from my problems was not going to work out. My dad tossed me in the car (since I was unable to hold myself up and walk) and drove me to the doctor.
Once I made it inside the doctor’s office, I tried to explain what was happening but morphed into a puddle on the floor almost instantly. My perpetual panic attack was getting worse and worse. And now I was in a medical facility. My nightmare. I tried to get out full sentences in between rapid, shallow breaths on the floor.
I asked if they could please just give me something to make this go away. My doctor said she could give me something to calm me down in the short term, but that I also needed to take something for the long term.
I started freaking out. You’re going to put me on Prozac? Won’t that turn me into a zombie? Won’t it sap all my creativity? I’ll be a completely different person! No, no, I can fight it off, just give me the short-term drug, that’s all I need.
The doctor explained to me how I needed to be on a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). Serotonin is a mood stabilizer, and this drug would increase the level of serotonin in my brain. She said how safe everything was, and how everything would be monitored and we could change things up if I felt any drug effects were changing who I was. But I needed to take these so my brain could get back to normal.
After 45 minutes of lying on the dirty disgusting floor trying to understand what was going on and what to do with myself, I was given a prescription with the drugs I needed to take. One short term. One long term.
Lorazepam 1 MG. Take 1 tablet once daily as needed.
Paroxetine HCL 20 MG. Take 1 tablet once daily.
I got back to my parents' place, exhausted, and crawled into bed. The lorazepam worked pretty fast. I relaxed a bit but was still on the lookout to not get my anxiety triggered. For the next few days, I laid in bed, watching only safe shows on Netflix that wouldn’t trigger me. Happy comfort shows. The Office was of course up first. That went well until one episode in season five, when Dwight suddenly showed up with a burst blood vessel in his eye. The moment I saw it I slammed my laptop shut and quickly tried to redirect my thoughts somewhere else. What the fuck happened to his eye? Could that happen to my eye? What makes that happen? What does that feel like? Oh god, I know what it feels like because it’s happening to my eye RIGHT NOW.
I calmed myself down and picked a new show. The New Girl got thrown on next, and later Star Trek: The Next Generation. I just wanted easy watching, and the moment something weird happened that could trigger me like Dwight’s eye did, I immediately moved to a new show.
Daniela visited me on the second day to see how I was doing. I was a pathetic lump of a man, but appreciated her stopping by. She didn’t stay long though. What could she have done? She’d just be watching mindless TV with me… which I would have loved. Oh well. I’d have to rely on solo binging to get me through this.
Sleeping was the worst. It was so hard to calm myself and get my heart rate down to a level where I could fall asleep, so I’d lie alone with my unpredictable thoughts and be paralyzed with fear. I’d re-open my laptop multiple times a night to watch something to get my mind off of whatever was frightening me at the moment. And I was so scared I’d pass out still, so I had to keep a closet light dimly on so I’d know where the ground was if I needed to get there safely.
It was harrowing. It was miserable. But I was trying to get through it. My doctor had said that the paroxetine might take a couple of weeks to fully get into my system. Every week I went back to the doctor for a follow-up. Early on, there were only small victories like “hey, you sat up in your chair for 10 minutes (before collapsing back onto the floor), great job!” But I’d take what I could get.
After a week of moderate improvement, I was ready to go back home with Daniela. She was incredibly cautious as she welcomed me back. I could feel the “kid gloves” she had on, as she checked in on me.
I started seeing a therapist every two weeks. He liked escape rooms and we’d talk about nerdy stuff for the first five minutes before getting into the heavy work, so it was the perfect vibe for me. He was so non-judgmental and rooting for my success. It gave me confidence that I could get better.
(Side note — all my doctor's visits and therapy were completely free. I believe the therapy was free because the therapist was a grad student, so I counted as part of his studies or something. I wasn’t completely sure. But I know I got insanely lucky with how the medical system here in Canada treated me.)
So I slowly improved over the next month. My weekly doctor’s visits began to involve me sitting in a chair the whole time instead of being on the floor. This was a teaching hospital, so I mainly spoke with a young doctor working their way up. We would talk about how often I was getting triggered by anxiety and how my body was reacting to it. She fully understood the need for comfort shows like The Office and made recommendations for other shows that might help, like The Good Place. I eventually had to talk frankly with her about the one side effect I was feeling. While my “bad thoughts” were being dulled by the paroxetine, it turned out some “good thoughts” were being dulled too. Not my libido… but the actual sensations were having trouble getting to my brain, so it made it very difficult to… finish. Honestly, not the worst thing!
But our open talks were such a relief. I could talk about all the drug-specific anxieties I had, but also the improvements I was seeing. I was so worried that the drugs would substantially change how my brain worked. I had thought it would prevent me from having triggering thoughts in the first place. Instead, I was thinking all the same things I would always think, just their scary effect was much less powerful and it wouldn’t linger. I’d think a triggering thought, but it would be akin to anyone thinking about a random wooden table or a new recipe for a second. Innocuous. My brain would be able to move on.
Therapy, on the other hand, involved delving into what triggered me, and then triggering the shit out of me. Total exposure to everything that made me squirm. For example, the hockey injury of a player’s femur snapping had set me off before. Now it had morphed into me being terrified that someone’s skate would cut my Achilles tendon. I’d become insanely paranoid that this would happen to me, in and out of hockey. I was only wearing certain types of shoes that wouldn’t brush against my tendon. I was unreasonably suspicious of people walking behind me. I was losing it. My therapist got me to talk about the implications of that. So what if my Achilles was cut… then what? Is that so bad? People had surgery to fix it all the time. Sure it might feel a bit different, but your life wasn’t over.
He zeroed in on this specific fear. He had a plan to slowly expose me to more and more harsh tendon-based activities. First he just gently smacked his Achilles with his clipboard. See? I’m fine, he’d say. He’d demonstrate how people might hurt their tendons, but they don’t just instantly snap like a tight rubber band. Next, that led to me hitting my own tendon. It seems so ridiculous to put it into words now, but it was sooo difficult then. I wasn’t a fully functioning human. My brain did not work properly.
We weren’t done yet though. Throughout the next few sessions, I’d watch an animated explainer video of an Achilles tendon surgery. A simple animation would explain the procedure, where the incisions were made, and how they’d apply the repaired tendon. I would watch these videos completely petrified. I could feel every little part of the surgery, each cut, the reconstruction, all of it. Then I’d watch it again. And again. Then I’d upgrade to having to watch real surgeries and real bloody photos of what the procedure was like.
This would be my homework for my recovery. I’d be sitting at home, now in the safe comfort of my bed, and I’d just watch this horrible stuff. But I knew it was the only way to get better. I’d watch these horrid fucking videos of surgeries and diseases. Awful stuff even if you don’t have an anxiety disorder around it. But I was committed to my improvement. I’d look at dozens of Achilles tendon pictures and videos over the weeks. It was gruesome work, but I knew that the more I saw this shit, the less and less it would start to affect me.
So I’d do it. I would get through it. I would make progress. My therapist and my doctor both praised me for how quickly I was improving. And that just motivated me even more. They could tell I wanted to get better. I imagined they’d seen a lot of people who just couldn’t do it. And it was no judgment on them. We all have different issues.
But I could see what I was losing right in front of me. I had to get better. I had to get better for Daniela.
As all of this was happening, I was still juggling my relationship with Daniela. My love of over nine years. The woman I did everything I could for. I’d tell her how beautiful she was every day, how special she was, and that she was my absolute favourite person in the world because she was exactly who she was — herself. I didn’t want her to change for me, whether it was her body, or her values or her identity. She was who she was, and that’s who I loved. It had been my mantra from year one.
An unhealthy divide had been growing for some while between us, however. A divide between how often we interacted with each other’s friends. I would tag along to hangouts or events that involved her friends very consistently. But she was a rare addition to any outing involving my friends. At one point, she finally showed up to a get-together at my friend's place, and his partner was so shocked to see Daniela that she remarked how she thought we’d broken up long ago since she hadn’t seen Daniela in five years.
Daniela’s friends, on the other hand, were a constant in my life. Daniela essentially had three groups of friends, with some crossover in each group.
She had her core group of oldest, closest friends from around high school, like Zane, the arrogant artist. These were all single friends. Daniela was the outlier. Because of me, she was in a healthy relationship, and none of them could relate to that.
Next, she had a group of women that came a little later in Daniela’s life, from when she was working after high school. These friends were generally in relationships. They were much less obsessed with what was cool and were more easygoing and fun-loving than the first group. They were more likely to live outside the city as well. One time around 10 of us rented a cabin together, and when Daniela and I went for a long walk, we came back and there was a highly dramatic card game of Crazy Eights that we always kicked ourselves for missing. Apparently, one of the boyfriends (who we all hated) couldn’t figure out the rules and threw an epic temper tantrum upon losing.
I really liked this group. We got along very well. I wasn’t remotely rural, and most of our interests didn’t line up, but there was a lack of judgment and they loved to laugh. It didn’t hurt that they thought I was hilarious, so I loved to joke around with them.
Finally, there was Daniela’s “Keg Girls — ” the group of women she met while working at The Keg, which later transitioned into a very sophisticated book club. This group of women was different. They were stylish, fashionable, and cultured. One of the women and her boyfriend were both Juno Award winners (and though infinitely more accomplished, were not even 1/10th as pretentious as Zane). Perhaps it was because they were servers at a “nice” restaurant, but they were also generally good-looking. Daniela went on a vacation to Panama with one of her close friends from this group, and she said men were constantly taking pictures of this friend. She was skinny, tattooed, and had long flowing hair dyed red. But Daniela let that roll off her back. So she didn’t have flocks of Panamanians photographing her. She had someone right here who was completely in love with her! And I took a million pictures of her anyway.
I liked this group a lot too. They took their book club very seriously, and I really respected their approach. The women who were closer to Daniela were all fantastic, and they seemed to like me a lot too.
It was clear I was a necessary part, though. There were a dozen or so of these women and when they had a party everyone brought their boyfriends. And the boyfriends were fairly good-looking too. But I realized what was going on. No Alan, no boyfriend. No boyfriend, no invite for Daniela. I played my role and was happy to do so.
The only group that I wasn’t overly keen on was the first group. And even then, I could have a fine time with most of them. But I put the work in to support these important relationships for Daniela. I was seeing them pretty much weekly anyway, so it wasn’t like I could avoid them.
My friends were much less likely to be seen by Daniela. I had two Dungeons and Dragons groups at the time. It was my favourite hobby, where I loved to connect with my friends, explore fantastic worlds, and be as creative as possible. I even had my own YouTube channel where I made D&D videos that collectively garnered hundreds of thousands of views.
This hobby didn’t mean I got much respect for my efforts though. Daniela would sometimes try to watch one of my three-minute YouTube videos for a bit, but it was just so nerdy and uncool, that she really couldn’t be bothered to give it much attention.
However, when I mentioned how my friend had wanted to start a new D&D group (except that she needed a few more people), Daniela said I should invite Zane, and Zane’s bestie (/Daniela’s close friend too).
I gritted my teeth. Zane. As part of my hobby. How fun.
But I knew it was important to Daniela. So I did it. I started a third D&D group and invited two of Daniela’s friends to it, Zane included, just so we could bond more and I could show Daniela that her friends were important to me. I was sure that would be a two-way street of respect right back with Zane, hey? No, of course not. Between weird rants about the Denver Airport being run by lizard people, or how Jordan Peterson actually had some good points, Zane was not eager to learn the rules of D&D. He’d complain about what was happening, entertain himself above others, or try to mess with the game and cause chaos. I’d drive Zane and his friend home (yes, I drove them back and forth too) and listen to them bitch about how lame the other players were. It was not a very fun group.
I was a couple of months into my recovery. The drugs had taken effect. I was going to a therapist. I was seeing my doctor consistently. And it seemed like every time I showed up, my doctor was pointing out another way I’d improved. At first, they were small, like when she noted that I had jeans on instead of ratty old sweatpants. But sometimes they were big. She’d say how while it was only the beginning of my recovery, I already seemed like a completely different person than when she first saw me, lying there on the floor. I was talking with more confidence and I was able to express my concerns. As the weeks went on, both my doctor and my therapist said how impressed they were by my progress. They could see that I was actively doing whatever I could to improve, instead of letting my anxiety take hold of me. Everyone was in my corner.
Everyone except Daniela.
Daniela didn’t like what was going on. She wasn’t outwardly mean or anything. But she was constantly questioning the methods of what I was doing. “How long are you going to be on drugs for?” “What other things have you looked into?” “So is this it?”
All of our cute playfulness ceased. Of our four million pet names for each other, suddenly none were being used. In better times, we’d had these sort of jokes that we’d replay over and over, because it was like a language of ours. There was one where if I commented on how soft her skin was, I’d incredulously ask “How many steps is your skincare routine?” and she’d sheepishly say, “Seven steps,” and I’d go “No way!” It was dumb, but it was like we were checking in with each other, going through this song and dance of familiar jokes.
Those completely went away. For the first time in nine years, all gone. Now, we’d just called each other “hey” if we wanted the other’s attention. Affection was out the window. She used to come to me and jokingly pant like a puppy until I gave her a back crack, or if we were watching something together, I could nuzzle into her and have her play with my hair. But we weren’t doing anything together. It was like she didn’t want to be anywhere near me. She was leaving the apartment more and more to see her friends (mainly group-one friends) while I stayed home alone, too ashamed to tell anyone what I was going through.
She mainly didn’t like that I was on drugs. She thought I was relying on the drugs to get better instead of actively trying to improve myself some other way. I’d be doing my “homework” of watching these traumatic videos, going through new breathing exercises, trying to put the pieces back together of my life, and she’d walk in from work and see me and to her, it was like I sat on my ass all day. She’d see me and all the joy she used to have for me just evaporated. I felt like a stranger around her. She no longer got excited by being near me. It was like we were back to the tension of when she was taking Creative Communications, but this time I had no communications expertise to dole out. I was no help to her. I was a burden.
Daniela and I had an agreement that she would see me play beer league hockey once a year. I just really enjoyed the idea of her seeing me playing well, so I’d usually wait a few weeks into the season to see who was the worst team (other than us) and then get her to come to a game against them so I could hopefully look good and score some goals.
Hockey was tough now though. Every game I went to I was sure something horrible was going to happen to me. Before the start of the game, I’d have visions of someone’s skate cutting my Achilles tendon, or crashing into the boards and snapping my ankle. I’d have to pop a lorazepam before leaving the apartment every game. But once I started playing, I was forced to focus on hockey, so there wasn’t as much of an opportunity for my mind to race and have intrusive thoughts. I had a few close calls where I felt faint, but I managed to shake them off.
My team was a bunch of older gentlemen, mainly in the medical profession, and they had a very non-competitive streak to them. They were there to have fun, and I appreciated that. I was the youngest on the team by a couple of decades (I was on the team because my dad knew these people and was on the team too). One day, we played a team called The Wolfpack. A quick look at the schedule said they’d been getting blown out by an average score of 17–0, and from seeing them in warmups it was clear why. Most of the team were just learning to skate or otherwise new to the game of hockey. Once the game started, it didn’t take long for us to score three goals, and our captain called a quick team huddle at the bench.
“No one else scores! We’ve been the worst team in the league a bunch before, and we know what that feels like. Let’s have some fun out there, but nobody shoots the puck anymore.”
We stopped scoring and instead tried to focus on passing it around to make beautiful plays… where we would “flub” the final shot. We might’ve scored once accidentally, but overall we gave them a chance to have the puck and get used to playing some hockey. It was great. They seemed to be having fun. If someone on their team got the puck, I’d skate hard at them to add some pressure, but wouldn’t actually try to take the puck off them. I ended up getting quite the workout in because I was skating all over the place trying to pressure every single puck carrier without ever getting the puck for myself.
By the end of the game, the other team thanked us for giving them their best experience yet. It turned out that the team was comprised of some Indigenous counselors trying to provide an opportunity to a bunch of the youth they counseled to try out the sport so they could all bond together.
In the dressing room, as we went over the game, one of the guys on our team stood up and said that he wanted to point me out specifically. He said I could’ve skated around everyone out there, but I put my ego aside and did what was right for the other team. “We should all be proud of Alan. It looks like our future is in good hands with him.”
It was super schmaltzy and I’m not remembering all of it right, but suffice it to say, I was kinda beaming after that. I drove home feeling very happy with myself. I came in through the door, put my equipment away, and went right to the bedroom where Daniela was watching something on her laptop.
I went right into the whole story. The circumstances, the other team, how we let up, and then finally the speech my teammate made in the dressing room.
“And he said he was so proud of me, and that our team’s future was in good hands with me,” I declared.
She looked at me.
“Oh my god, Alan, you are such a loser.”
…what?
OK, her tone. I’ll explain. It wasn’t like, “You’re a loser.” So stark like that. No, it was about how I loved being “the hero” in whatever situation I could. Like if I let someone in ahead of me while driving and they gave me a wave, I’d get this look on my face where I was all proud of myself and I’d cheekily smile at Daniela. Or one time when we were grocery shopping together, and an old lady asked me to reach something up high for her, which I did, and the moment she walked away I looked right at Daniela with a huge grin on my face like I was a saint. So I understood that she was trying to tease me about my hero complex. By saying you are such a loser.
So it was honestly more of a tease, rather than a full-on putdown. Still, it took all the wind out of my sails.
As the days went on, the energy in our apartment was deteriorating fast. I was still unemployed though, so I had to take care of that at the same time. I got an interview with a company, and no one thought I was ready for that. Parents, Daniela, doctors. Putting on a suit, being in public, trying to appear normal? No way. But I thought I was ready and wanted the challenge. I suited up, threw on a new tie, and showed up to the interview. I talked at length about communications like I wasn’t on the brink of a nervous breakdown. It ended up going well, but I didn’t get the job. But this was a clear sign of improvement to me.
Daniela wasn’t seeing improvement the same way I was though. Part of that was that she wasn’t seeing much of me anyway. She wasn’t driving me to my doctor’s appointments, my parents were still taking care of that. She’d say it was because she wasn’t good at that sort of stuff, but I wasn’t so sure. One time my mom asked if Daniela could take me since her schedule was a little tight, but Daniela had a hair appointment and didn’t want to cancel.
One day, Daniela saw me absent-mindedly twirling my hair and tucking them into knots and told me to stop right away. Her voice got so high and concerned like I was a freak or something. She was convinced my hair twirling was a side effect of the drugs, that I was becoming an obsessive-compulsive or something. I assured her it was fine, I just had long hair and wasn’t really thinking about it. But she gave me such a weird look.
I’d tell her about the different techniques my therapist was suggesting for me, but she’d wonder why the timeline seemed so long. And nothing seemed very “cure” focused. Why isn’t anyone trying to cure you? It seems like they’re just trying to “manage” your symptoms. And if they only “managed” my symptoms, that meant the responsibility would fall back on Daniela again. She’d have to be the one to wake up in the middle of the night with me screaming about a new nightmare in the future that was going to make me pass out in fifteen seconds. I empathized with her position. It wasn’t fun to have your partner wake you up in a panic, and then pass out. And seeing me so helpless like that. It wasn’t a lot of fun on her end.
She suggested a group therapy experience that Zane had told her about. She thought would be perfect for me. It worked so well for Zane, she just knew it would be exactly what I needed.
I gritted my teeth again. I had done group therapy already. She knew this. It was not helpful. My triggers were so acute, that one-on-one therapy was so much more effective. And this group met every few months. I was already getting free, individual therapy every two weeks specifically designed for my problems, and I was making great progress. This didn’t make any sense. Why was she recommending this?
Well, because Zane said so. If Zane said anything, we had to stop the presses and give our full undivided attention. I remembered how when we first met, we’d listen to alt-J together, spending the whole time in bed with the album serving as a soundtrack to our burgeoning love. But soon Zane didn’t think alt-J was very cool, so Daniela hated them. Now I’d recommend TV shows or movies to watch, and Daniela would shoot them down, only to watch them months later because Zane had now recommended them as well. It was like I was living in an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. Everyone was miserable.
Still, I wanted to respect Daniela’s concerns, so I brought up this group therapy thing to my doctor the next time I saw her. She sighed and could see on my face that something else was going on.
“Every week you bring up these concerns your girlfriend has. It doesn’t seem like she really understands what we’re doing here. How about you bring her in with you next time? Then we can lay out all of her concerns.”
I hadn’t realized that I’d brought up so many issues that centered around Daniela’s concerns. But my doctor saw right through what was happening. The next week, Daniela came in. My doctor was very kind and patient and tried to explain what was going on. Why Daniela thought a lack of progress was taking place, and how there were actually substantial improvements going on with me. But that this was a long-term issue. The anxiety attack that started this whole mess wasn’t something that popped up out of nowhere and could be cured. My anxiety had been hiding away in me all these years, and I was masking my symptoms and fighting as much as I could until I couldn’t take it anymore. And that this was going to be with me all of my life. We could work to make it manageable and liveable, but it was something I would have to bear. How we dealt with it and what that looked like was up to us.
We got home. I was hoping this might be a new push for us. Create a new understanding. We celebrated our half-iversary together (since our real anniversary was right by both our birthdays, we liked to celebrate our half-iversary too since it added a little spice to November) at a romantic restaurant. Nine and a half years together.
We’d moved on from marriage talk, but talk of kids was still something we were discussing over the years. We had a girl’s name picked out just in case, and I’d tell Daniela how I’d be an excellent overbearing hockey coach for her team as she grew up. But now, Daniela was becoming more skeptical. How would I handle Lamaze classes, or learning about anything around birth? How could she trust me to be in the hospital with her? And what if something during the pregnancy went wrong? How could she ever rely on me?
She said she wasn’t sure she wanted kids but was even less sure that she wanted kids with me. Could I even handle her being pregnant? Not in my current… condition. That, she was certain of, she told me.
I was feeling low. I was hardly seeing anyone outside of Daniela. And she didn’t seem like she wanted to be around me much. She looked at me like I was lazy and unwilling to change. I had no one to talk to about my issues, other than professionals (who were incredibly supportive). I had been so afraid that going on drugs would turn me into a zombie and sap me of my creativity, my sense of humour, my essence. That was happening, but it wasn’t the drugs doing it. It was living in an apartment where I was walking on eggshells, uncertain of why this person who I had supported throughout the years, throughout all her low points and doubts and different crises, couldn’t just look at me and say “I love you.” Or say, “you’re doing great.” Or say, “it will all be OK.” She couldn’t utter a single positive word in my direction, and I didn’t know why. She’d look at me, and see something in her way. An obstacle. It wasn’t that I had an affliction, to her, I was the affliction. And it was killing me.
Some of my old Creative Communications friends were having a birthday celebration. I thought it would be nice to get out of the apartment, and I hadn’t really socialized with anyone in a few months. It ended up just being four of us, but it was nice and pleasant. We talked about how things were going. How we were doing.
I hadn’t told any of my friends yet what I was going through. That I was on drugs or seeing a therapist or had been curled up in the fetal position because of a never-ending panic attack. But I felt strangely safe in this conversation and decided to try it out.
“So, I’m on anxiety meds now,” I told them.
One of the women, Rachel, perked right up.
“You are? Which one? I’m on Prozac,” she said with a smile.
I couldn’t believe it. We started talking about our different anxieties and the medications we needed. It was the judgment-free zone I had been looking for. I told them all what I’d been going through, and they listened to every word I said. I didn’t know how to take it. Rachel talked to me with so much empathy. And she never pitied me. She understood it was a struggle. I told them I felt so lost and unsure of what to do, but they were all supportive.
It felt like someone had heard me speak for the first time in months. At the end of the night when we were saying our goodbyes, we all gave each other hugs. I went to give Rachel a quick hug, but she held it for extra long and didn’t let me go.
“You’ll be OK,” she said.
How long I wanted someone to hug me and tell me it would be OK. I nearly began sobbing right there in front of everyone, but I’m actually incredibly stoic and masculine, so not a single tear trickled down my face toward my chiseled/trembling jawline.
I returned home to see Daniela. I looked at her differently. Now that I knew a person could react that way to hearing I was dealing with anxiety, it made me think, “Why hasn’t she?” All those mental health awareness posts on social media, and here was a mental health issue staring you in the face, begging for a little compassion. It made no difference.
December was moving full steam ahead. My friends had begun a tradition of holding a Christmas brunch together, and Daniela hadn’t been able to come to one yet. It was one of the few times I saw all my friends in one place, and I loved getting to show off Daniela and how adorable we were together.
I asked her to come again this year, and she said she would try. But the morning of the brunch as she was off doing some errands, our car had some trouble and she called me to say she wouldn’t be able to make it. I sat around with all my friends and their partners, alone again. I pretended everything was fine. With myself. With Daniela. I’d become great at pretending everything was perfectly fine.
I’d gotten all my Christmas presents for Daniela and was excited to give them. I loved giving gifts and showing her how much I cared with that perfect gift that spoke directly to her needs. As we started planning our holidays, Daniela mentioned that Zane was going to France for a film festival and Daniela would be going with him in a week or so. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, but she was very excited to get to be in France again.
It had been years since we had been on an overseas trip together. Daniela had managed to fit a few in with other people, and here we were again, able to fit in a December trip with someone other than me. What a fun treat that’ll be for her, I thought (no I didn’t). But she seemed unconcerned about getting as far away from me as possible.
We went to bed. For 99% of our relationship, we were very cuddly sleepers. We’d joke around about big spoons and little spoons, how she’d jab me with her chin when she wanted to tuck in close to me, or how she’d breathe her furnace breath right into my face. Sometimes we’d draw on each other's backs. Sometimes she’d playfully pout “You don’t even like me!” and I’d snuggle into her and say “Yes I do!” and kiss her all over. It was all fun and loving and it made bedtime together intimate on a whole different level.
But now we were spread apart, on opposite sides of the bed from each other. No touching. No intimacy. No love. I couldn’t handle it. Months of tension, of being looked at like I was an alien. It was too much to bear. I said what I’d been thinking for months now.
“Do you even like me anymore?” I asked.
She waited a second, then came her confident reply.
“No.”
A man is only loved under the condition that he provides something.
It had been three months. THREE! That’s it. Three months from devastating panic attacks to I don’t like you anymore. I had spent nine and a half years of devoting myself to loving her, to seeing her succeed and thrive, to sacrificing for her and putting her happiness first. And it took her three months to take all that love and cash out.
She was done. She’d seen enough. My usefulness had dried up, and it seemed Daniela made the calculation that I couldn’t provide anything for her anymore in my diminished state.
We left things somewhat ambiguous though, as she prepared to fly off to France. A nearly ten-year relationship takes more than one conversation to end. We weighed staying together for the holidays and then formalizing our end in the new year.
So as she left me for her trip, I stayed behind to wonder just what I had committed nine and a half years of my life to.
