the twelve step plan for life; part one
for the people to whom i owe my life
[tw: anxiety, suicide, self-harm, depression]
- There will be some days when you close your eyes while crossing the street, maybe because you want to see what fate has in store for you, or maybe because your depression is running rampant again and you don’t know how to calm her. It’s okay. I will still love you.
It’s March, my junior year of high school. I grab my keys and walk outside into the brisk, not-quite-Spring air of Atlanta. I grip my phone tightly and lean my forehead against the window. It’s happening again, the panic that makes me claustrophobic in my own skin, makes me need to tear everything apart and start anew. My thoughts are short, quick, done or over-long, stretching like I do every morning, languidly wandering to a point, always one or the other, never somewhere in the middle.
(I never did quite learn the concept of balance).
There is no stopping it, not anymore.
(There was never any stopping it).
My hands shake too hard to grab the wheel, to allow escape in this way. I could drive, if I really put my mind to it, really decided to let it take over. Could drive to the big hill, the one I will get stuck on in the snow next year, and pretend like I lost control.
Pretend like it was an accident.
I turn the car on. Try to call the person I know can stop this from happening.
No response.
(There hasn’t been a response in months).
(We will make up, in a year, on our last conference when we are stuck in a room full of chairs waiting on kids who don’t yet know the meaning of the word “end,” who don’t understand that life starts quickly and you’ve got to be on good terms with people before they leave you).
(I will never tell him this story).
The heat is on, blasting from this afternoon’s drive home, but I’m shaking no matter what.
(I wish I could convince myself that it was because of the cold).
I am supposed to drive someone in the morning.
My not-yet best friend, a senior in high school who will be gone in three months to higher education, needs to be in English class tomorrow. I think he has a test.
I can call him, can pretend like nothing is wrong. Can confirm that I’m picking him up, can hope that he catches the sadness in my voice, in my head.
If he doesn’t, then it’ll seem like even more of an accident. I’m planning ahead, planning for the supposed next ride in this car; that makes it an accident when they find it (me) broken (I am already broken, though, and what difference will this make?) at the bottom of the hill, right?
“Hey. I’m just checking, I’m picking you up tomorrow, right?” I modulate my voice properly, hiding everything I can think of. “What time should I come by your house?”
“Yep. Around 7:45,” He confirms, and I bite my upper lip. I don’t want to leave this, leave him, leave all of them —
“Okay. Yeah, um, that sounds good.” I know he catches on, can hear it in the way his breathing shifts, the way he says his next words.
“That’s not why you called.”
“No. Um, no it’s not.”
“What’s going on?”
And I break hard, head leaning against the steering wheel the way my hands should be, tell him everything. Tell him how I have panic attacks and how my hands are shaking as fast as my heart is racing and how I can’t think properly, how I want to drive my car away from everything and everyone I love, who has ever loved me, who doesn’t love me anymore. How I’m sitting in the car and how I just want to stop.
“I’m sorry.” I stop talking, my breath ragged and my voice hoarse and my hands, my heart, my mind worse and better all at the same time.
(I will learn, someday, that it is okay to call people when I am not okay, that it is okay to ask for help when I need it, that I don’t need to apologize for this. That I am not a burden to those I love).
(Today is not someday).
He doesn’t tell me to calm down in that condescending way that would make me do the opposite. Doesn’t remind me of all the people who would be upset, a fact I won’t listen to. He just talks, talks and talks and talks the way he never does (the way I always do, because I never learned the value of silence until I couldn’t find it in my head anymore), words flowing over me regardless of the fact that I’m not listening until my breathing makes sense again (until I can convince myself that I’m worth the air in my lungs, the blood in my veins, the love in my heart).
“I relapsed,” I tell him finally. The indentations on my arms haven’t been there in I-can’t-remember-how-long, in too-long, in I-messed-up. I don’t want to know how many months of recovery I just wasted. Don’t want to remember the amount of work I went through, the amount of butterflies and paper chains and bracelets I have trashed. “I relapsed and I feel sick and I don’t want to do this anymore.”
I can’t tell you what he said. I blocked a lot of that night from my memory. Here’s what I know:
I get out of the car.
We stay on the phone for hours.
I tell him that I love him.
He tells me that he loves me.
I go inside, go to my room, fall asleep.
I pick him up in the morning, drive him to school, drive him home.
He graduates. Goes off to college and leaves me for my senior year without his hugs or Latin notes.
Keeps answering the phone when I call.
I bring him to our engineering banquet, a little over a year later, let him come back for a few hours to see the people whose lives he shaped, mine included. Give a speech about my four years, about how much the people in the room have done for me, tease him about robotics.
(As I watch the last of my engineering family leave, I remember what I am worth to these people I love and who love me back).
(It is someday).
He makes me watch Wall-E over the summer before I leave for Duke, my head pillowed in his lap as he plays with my hair. Reminds me that I’ll be fine at college, that there’s no way I won’t be adored, that he will be there when it’s done.
(He’s always there when it’s done, always a year ahead of me to remind me that I will survive).
We go to Italian restaurants where three-quarters of his meal is made up of breadsticks and fight over who pays the bill. He answers when I need him.
This is how I learn to live.
