20
I lay in bed, waiting to hear voices. My psychiatrist has asked me if I have heard voices, and told me if I do I’m to ignore them, so hearing voices must be a possibility. I’m nineteen, and new to anxiety, panic attacks, and everything implicit. I don’t know what I’m facing. I don’t know what might come. I don’t know anything, so a mental health professional is logically my guide. I’ve never been so conscious of my thoughts. Like everybody, I think about what I might have to do, but only inasmuch as how it connects to do what I need to do in the world around me –…
The Big Goodbye
It wasn’t long after I finished my typewritten novel that I started experiencing panic attacks. The first one woke me in the middle of the night, terrifying me, and leaving me seething with anxiety. I was sure something had broken inside my head. I thought the anxiety would run it’s course, the way a cold would, but it remained omnipresent. The nights became a horror; I dreaded the quiet, where the anxiety could just spill out into the emptiness. But, conversely, sleep brought the only refuge. Finally, I decided I needed to see a GP – just not my GP, who knew my parents well. I didn’t want to risk…