Tag Archives: Nervous Breakdowns

Depression And The Path Not Taken

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I nearly had a massive panic attack upon viewing Ava DuVernay’s Selma last week, but it’s not for reasons you might think. It wasn’t DuVernay’s masterful direction especially during the “Bloody Sunday” sequence or David Oyelowo’s gripping portrayal of Martin Luther King, Jr. or the film’s heady and timely content. It was a name that scrolled by during the credits, a simple name that squeezed out my breath sending me stumbling out of the darkened theater and into 1995, the year of my biggest regret.

The name, let’s call her “Joan Morrison,” appeared next to the title “Unit Publicist.” Back in 1995 Joan was a secretary at a publicity firm at which I interned leading to the ONLY positive work experience in my life. Unlike other companies, this particular firm rewarded its interns for their hard work with knowledge and professional benefits. I’d sit for days happily stuffing envelopes until my hands blackened with ink because I knew that around the corner something special would happen – working a press junket for a film and learning exactly how they worked; getting to sit next to Steve Buscemi at lunch and talking to him about his then upcoming directorial debut; working the red carpet for a film’s premiere; sitting in the VIP section with Catherine Keener as the bass pumped and colored lights swirled at the party following a movie screening. The rewards didn’t even have to be that amazing. They could be nuggets into the business’ inner workings, advice on how to succeed in the industry. I treasured every prize I earned and worked harder than I ever did in my life. I loved everyone with whom I worked. There was no tension, no drama, no games. And because of my hard work I received a job offer at the end of my internship, the chance to be a personal secretary for one of the firm’s higher-ups. I held in my hands a golden ticket, an opportunity to work for a company I knew loved to promote from within, one that nurtured and respected me as an intern. And I turned it down. I turned it down because I was 21 and still had a year of college left. I turned it down because I intensely feared my parents’ disapproval. I let them, without them knowing, choose my life’s path. A few years after I turned the job offer down, Joan was promoted to Vice President of Publicity for the entire east coast. Meanwhile, during an awful senior year within which I struggled to concentrate and suddenly found myself lost and near-paralyzed while writing class papers, I suffered my first panic attack.

In a moment of irony, the film’s inspirational theme song “Glory” by Common and John Legend eased from the emptying theater’s speakers as I wobbled towards a wall and slid down until I sat on ugly red carpeting amongst spilled popcorn next to a huge cardboard cutout advertising The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Heart pounding, my forehead beading sweat, I took out my phone and frantically Googled information on Joan Morrison’s rise as a Peter Jackson-esque battle raged through my head.

That could have been me! That SHOULD have been me!

You never would have met Elaine. You never would have had Sienna. You have the loves of your life.

I could have been famous! I could have been the golden child of the family instead of the black sheep!

You’re NOT the black sheep! This is just where you go!

I am! I failed at work! I’m a failure! 

YOU HAVE A BRILLIANT AND BEAUTIFUL AND HEALTHY DAUGHTER AND AN INCREDIBLE WIFE! SHUT THE HELL UP!

My life could have been so different! I could have been a success! I could have had money! I could have been someone!

My shaky fingers scrolled through article after article: a picture of Joan wearing sunglasses on the steps of the Alabama capital building head turned slightly away from the lens preventing me from making a positive ID; Joan and another important woman mentioned in Variety; Joan’s official job title – Vice President of Publicity for Paramount Pictures.

Put away your phone and get up! GET UP!

I turned off my phone and clung to the banister weaving slightly down the stairs. A blast of sharp wind smacked my face as I opened the outside door. A car honked at me in the parking lot because I failed to look both ways. I found my car, got in and sat breathing shallowly with my arms and head on the steering wheel.

I could have been Joan. I could have been Joan. I could have been Joan.

Every so often I regret turning down the job and wonder, but here I was feeling the full weight of my life’s biggest crossroads almost 20 years later just because I saw a name scroll by amongst hundreds of others. Miraculously I made it home without causing a 12 car pileup.

Work remains my biggest trigger, the biggest force behind my depression and anxiety. Growing up work was a touchy subject in my family; to me it hovered over everything like a pesticide. I associated my father not with love and family, but with work, with suits and ties (he is no longer like this). I associated my grandfather handshakes, short conversations and work. As each grandchild graduated it seemed to me we were measured by our jobs and salaries. Before my 2nd nervous breakdown in 2010, my core belief was that work equaled identity and that I’d failed in the eyes of my family, especially my father and grandmother. I’d been a lowly secretary for nearly ten years with no hope for upward mobility. Each day I’d scroll through employment ads but my chest would fill to bursting and I’d have to turn to something else. I was that anxious. That scared. That depressed. I despised myself and fell deeper into the abyss with each passing day. Nothing else mattered or if it did (such as marrying the love of my life) despair quickly gobbled it up.

When I got home I immediately grabbed the computer and continued searching for Joan. I found an old Twitter address and sent her a message, but Elaine forced my laptop shut when I told her what I was doing and why.

“It might have been a different Joan,” she said logically. “There are probably tons of Joan Morrisons.”

“The odds of that are near impossible,” I stubbornly countered.

“Even if you had taken that path you don’t know if you would have made it. You can’t predict that your issues wouldn’t have gotten in the way. And you wouldn’t have me or Sienna.”

That much is true, but I couldn’t help to not just imagine, but glorify the path not taken. Of course I would have made it because history proved that that internship was the only enlightening, humanizing work environment I ever experienced – I kept in touch with my former employers through college and when I told them that I’d be traveling through Europe upon graduation, for instance, they hooked me up with a short job at the Cannes Film Festival and gave me tickets to MTV’s enormous gala (for those wondering, the firm did not have any openings when I graduated and the ensuing internships I took were horrible, soul-sucking experiences). Clearly I would have thrived at work meaning no work trigger, no depression, no anxiety. In my head which always extracts the negative from any situation, I convinced myself that none of the issues I experienced during childhood nor my predisposition to depression or the whacked out brain chemical imbalance I have would have reared their ugly heads in my perfect life. Rather, I would have followed what was then a passion and what now alludes me creativity- and work-wise; the passions that are Elaine and Sienna stood right in front of me as I tore myself apart imagining what surely would have been my sublimely accomplished and lucrative life, but I couldn’t see them.

Most depression sufferers do this. When languishing through an episode we can’t see anything but our own twisted minds. We aggrandize the what ifs, the things we don’t have, the choices not made, the paths not taken, at the expense of the positive people, events and choices in our lives. We also refuse to deal with reality or grow because we’re afraid of getting the tiniest bit more hurt than we already are.

Facts:

  • I am alive
  • I’m married to a wonderful, intelligent, funny, gorgeous woman who loves me because I’m me; next year is our 10th anniversary
  • I have a beautiful near 3-year-old daughter who loves life. learning and spouting out 80s catchphrases
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My beautiful Sienna

  • I’ve never had a better relationship with my family including pre-1995; my parents often tell me how proud they are; my sister and I went from no relationship to a great one
  • I’ve held true to my beliefs in being loyal, kind and considerate and have the same best friends now at near 41 that I did in elementary school
  • I hold a master’s in media ecology from NYU and bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan
  • I am a proud stay-at-home dad
  • I’ve delivered a speech about depression and fatherhood in front of hundreds of people, I’m published in a critically acclaimed book, appeared on numerous podcasts and I’ve found my place in a community of dads and writers I value beyond words
  • I may not be growing by the leaps and bounds my mind demands, but I am growing each and every day

Reliving “The Decision” (sorry LeBron James…my decision came long before yours) wreaked havoc on my weekend leaving me splayed on the couch like soft boiled cabbage, eyelids fluttering to stay open, my concerned daughter asking me if I’m “awake” (meaning “okay”). One name appearing on screen during Selma‘s credit roll took me back to the crossroads of 1995 as quickly as Marty McFly’s DeLoreon causing a near panic attack and another bout with depression, but the truth is it was just another trigger. I’ll never know what would have happened if I’d taken that job, but I can’t change the past. All I can do is try not to be so negative about it and instead concentrate on what my life is now – the passions that are my wife and daughter; growing my blog and improving my writing; learning how not to be so afraid. Who knows what’s around the corner?

What are your biggest regrets and how do you prevent them from overwhelming you?

My Safe Place

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The theater’s always dark. Sometimes it’s empty. Sometimes it’s packed. Sometimes you’ll see dribs and drabs of people scattered throughout. Sometimes they talk or look at their phones which irritates and forces me to shush them. Often I’m alone, but sometimes not. My Sno-Caps are usually gone by the end of the trailers. My small Diet Coke makes it about halfway through the film. The movies is not a means of escape. My mind remains present. Always critical. Always analytical. I don’t get swept up in movies. I’m too busy appreciating or disliking editing, cinematography, score, acting, directing, etc., but this doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy what I watch. It doesn’t mean I can’t get blown away by something truly amazing up there on the screen. I also worry too much about what others think of the film and my opinion of it. Too often my opinion gets lost in this obsession to be right. Regardless, what’s most important is that when I’m in a movie theater my anxiety level decreases to the point where I can breathe.  The movie theater is my safe place. Just being there releases the choke hold anxiety has on me. Even if it’s just for a little while.

Not too long ago my wife and I met with our financial advisor because we’re having money issues. He chastised me for going to the movies. “You know you can just wait for it to hit cable or Netflix or on-demand? That’s what I do.” His words slapped me and in that moment I hated him.

“You don’t get it!” I wanted to yell. “I don’t get that same sense of relief, of freedom. “I’m a stay-at-home dad with depression and anxiety issues. Sitting those 2+ hours in a darkened theater helps my chest loosen. I don’t have many hobbies. I don’t spend money on clothes or collections. I’m with my daughter every single day. Isolated. Alone. Doing my best to mask my depression and anxiety. I love her so much, but sometimes I need out. I need a dark room with a large flickering screen. The more anxious I get (and I’ve been highly depressed and anxious the past 6 weeks) the more I want that darkened theater. The more I want to see Wild, Whiplash, Birdman. The more I want my Sno-Caps and small Diet Coke. Seats that aren’t always comfortable. I DON’T CARE!! DON’T TAKE AWAY MY SAFE PLACE!!”

I hadn’t realized the movies is my sanctuary until we met with our financial advisor. Not until I felt it yanked away. I feel safe with my wife, but sometimes I can’t see her eyes or feel her hugs past the chest constriction. That’s when I need to get out. To get in the car, drive to one of my regular theaters and let my mind follow Eddie Redmayne’s Oscar-caliber performance in The Theory of Everything or the positively mind-blowing editing work in Birdman as my chest slowly decompresses. That’s when I need my safe place.

Elaine, my wife, told me that when I had my last nervous breakdown I was too afraid to go back to the movies. I don’t remember this at all. She thinks it’s because I was too afraid to let myself enjoy any aspect of my life. Instead I lay in bed shaking and crying and stuttering until one day I moved to couch and planted myself in front of the television. I don’t know when I returned to the cinema. Maybe I finally heard the calling of the gorgeous Landmark Loew’s 1930s movie palace just blocks away from us in Jersey City, NJ, a place that feels frozen in time. Red velvet walls. Golden staircases. A giant screen on which you can watch anything from silent features (complete with an organ accompaniment) to 80s classics like The Goonies. At some point I went back. At some point the movies became my safe place.

Now in Queens, NY, as I continue to slog through my depression and anxiety, as I raise Sienna to best of my abilities, the cinema remains my Fortress of Solitude even if I happen to be with someone or the theater is packed to the gills. I crave those evening when Elaine comes home at 6 and I can catch a 7:30 show. The darkness, the trailers, the Sno-Caps, the small Diet Coke, the film, the seats, the screen. They all combine to alleviate my anxiety for a few hours until those credits roll.

I can’t give it up. We’ll have to budget accordingly, but I can’t give up the movies. It’s too important to my mental health. I’m thankful Elaine supports me on this and in fact is the one who pointed it out. I’m lucky to have such an understanding wife who knew immediately that the financial advisor hit a nerve that sent my mind to the edge of an abyss – no more movies…EVER. She is the one who called the theater my safe place. And so it is.

What’s your safe place?

Returning To the Scene of One of the Worst Moments of My Life (Sort of)

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“Come to my apartment. It’s getting harder to meet in the city and you obviously hate phoners.”

But I hated the idea of going to her apartment more. Fear. Crushing anxiety. I’d feel them each time my therapist suggested we meet at her apartment. Why? It’s just an apartment, right? Not really. To me it’s a symbol. It’s a symbol of one of the worst moments of my life. My second nervous breakdown and my therapist’s home intricately link in my brain to form a site of horror and embarrassment, of uncontrollable stuttering, gasping for breath, sweating, shaking, and tears. So many tears.

And the craziest thing is that my therapist moved a few years after my breakdown, but it doesn’t matter. It’s still HER apartment. It’s still the idea of where I was at my weakest. It’s still a frozen, miserable moment.

But last week I did it. I went back. And it was scary. It was so damn scary.

As I sat in traffic my skin prickled from the memories of sitting in the car with my mom. 35 years old. Slumped and crying. The outside darkness matching my inner gloom. We were early. We waited. I don’t remember if my mom said anything. It doesn’t matter. This is one of the few times when I can recall the feeling of utter loneliness, helplessness, shame. 35 years old and I’m sitting there parked at the curb, my mom in the driver’s seat, a desperate last-minute meeting with my therapist looming. They would determine if I needed hospitalization. I knew I was bawling, but couldn’t understand why. All I comprehended was the oppressive humiliation.

The clocked hummed along and soon it was time. I stumbled to my therapist’s apartment building. Once inside I broke down. Wailing. Hyperventilating. Arms locked around my torso as if already in a strait jacket. How long did I wait in the lobby? How many people passed by trying not to stare? How did I get from the lobby to my therapist’s apartment? I have no idea.

I don’t remember much from the emergency session. I was far away, buried deep inside this shivering body. There was a consultation with my psychiatrist, I think. Discussions about hospitalization. Me screaming against such a thing. Someone calling my father. My abashment at my dad learning about my state, but an underlying anger at him as well, anger at everyone. I can’t remember exact words, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t know what to say. I’m pretty sure he said everything wrong that night. My therapist coaching him on how to talk to me, explaining things, I think.

I’M 35 YEARS OLD!!! I’M A FAILURE!!! MY TIME’S UP!!!

What did her apartment look like? Where did I sit? Where are the details???

Gone. All that’s left are tendrils of guilt and self-disgust and the apartment as the embodiment of it all. And that’s why I wouldn’t go back for a long time even though she’d moved. That’s why I wouldn’t go back until last week.

But I did. I finally did even though all of those awful memories returned. I sat there clutching a pillow to my chest, my legs wrapped around each other. Twisted. Tight. Anxious. My therapist has a small dog and I watched (him? her?) gnaw on a bone thinking it’s so easy for dogs. It’s so easy.  My therapist showed me pictures from her life trying to break me out of my head, trying to show me she was a person, trying to kill the connection between her apartment and my breakdown.

We spoke a little. Not much. I mostly stared at the dog. She knew my fears of coming to her home. She worked with them. She worked around them. I did my best which wasn’t good enough. Or was it? Was just going there enough? Slicing through the thick web of panic and symbolization? I have to try to think it was for how else will I grow?

And so I’ll go back. I’ll conquer this fear. And one day maybe my skin won’t prickle; my chest won’t tighten; my breath won’t catch.

Maybe one day it’ll just be an apartment again.

Depression is Not a Joke: Thoughts on Robin Williams’ Suicide From A Fellow Depressive

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I lay in bed, phone in hand, reading about Robin Williams’ severe depression, how the disease beat him down to the point where he found suicide the only option. It didn’t surprise me. I’d known Williams’ suffered from the same condition I’ve battled for 3 decades. He’d been in and out of rehab for drugs and alcohol. He’d spoken previously about the darkness that swarmed his brain just as his breakneck wit overwhelmed the world with laughter, though he never revealed its true depth.

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The great Robin Williams lost his battle with depression on August 11, 2014.

I’ve been there, though not as close…not nearly as close. I’ve imagined the bottle of pills in my hand. I’ve pictured the heft of the gun, the barrel cold against my temple. I’ve felt the fictional sweet kiss of the razor slicing my wrists. But I’ve never done anything about it. Even at my most fatalistic, pre-Elaine, pre-Sienna, I couldn’t put thoughts to action. Too frightened. Too scared of judgment. Post wife and daughter, the thoughts still appear randomly like fleeting wisps in the night. They’ve been there this past week and a half as I’ve suffered through a deep depressive episode triggered by something I’ve yet to figure out. My therapist and I are working on it, trying to pull me out of this feeling that I’m in the blackest ocean abyss, chains constricting my legs like an anaconda, arms flailing upwards against the crushing weight of the sea and the heaviness in my legs. I’ve had days this past week+ when I didn’t want to get out of bed despite my 2-year-old daughter needing her daddy. Sometimes my mom would come and take Sienna for a few hours so I could sleep (my usual means of recovery). Elaine took care of Sienna one evening last week so I could go see Boyhood, a movie filmed over 12 years about a boy and his family as they grow. The movie just exacerbated my mood as I felt time slip away. Just as the finale of Six Feet Under destroyed me with a montage of each character’s lives and deaths go by quicker and quicker making me lose my tentative grasp on time and causing a tearful breakdown in the car in my wife’s presence, so too did Boyhood, though this time from a parent’s perspective. As I watched Mason (Ellar Coltrane) literally age from 6 to 18 in the span of 2 hours and 40 minutes, I again lost that elusive and impossible grip on time, feeling Sienna grow faster and faster and faster. She’s still not yet 2 and a half, but I saw her graduate high school and I heard Mason’s mom’s (Patricia Arquette’s) heartsick words echoing through my head: “I got my degree. I got a good job.I put you through college. What’s next? My funeral?” (paraphrased). I’m almost never affected by film or television or literature, but I was by Boyhood. Knowing the state I was in, I should have gone to see Guardians of the Galaxy. I’ve had panic attacks this past week+ because I haven’t blogged in so long and I’m afraid readers and fellow dad bloggers will abandon me. For some reason I’ve been unable to even scroll through Facebook as if touching the keys would burn my fingertips and seeing the happiness of others will blind me. I’m terrified that if I don’t share other people’s blogs, if I don’t comment, if don’t hit the “like” button, they’ll all leave me. So I’ve shared some things without reading them. I’ve hit “like” a few times. I’ve made a comment or two. I’ve even posted about this, my most recent fight with this damn disease, and caring people have responded, some have send PMs, but I’ve been unable to read them. I post and run. Post and run. I can’t scroll long. It hurts too much. And I don’t know why.

This isn’t my first battle as I’ve said. I was unofficially diagnosed at age 9, 31 years ago. I kept everything inside until 1996 when I had my first nervous breakdown and then went back to bottling it up until my second nervous breakdown in 2010. I’ve been on so many different medications I’ve lost count. I’ve seen 4 different therapists and 4 different psychiatrists with my most recent ones being the best. I can be fine for months and then something can trigger an episode, something seemingly innocuous that leads to irrational thought after irrational thought until my brain might as well be a Sharknado, turning and twisting and biting. Each waking second I feel like I’m up against a Mt. Everest of negativity, 31 years of incongruous thought processes and feelings – wrong thoughts and feelings as my therapist will be quick to point out.

Depression is a fiercely selfish disease. When you’re deep inside its clutches, you can’t see how you’re affecting others. My sister taught me that years ago when she lectured how the world walks on eggshells around me, how no one knows what will set me off. I keep that in mind as best as I can but I still succumb at times. I’m better than I was 18 years ago, 10 years ago, 4 years ago. My episodes don’t last as long. Suicidal ideation is rare and cursory. But the triggers, those bastards, still exist and often I don’t see them coming and need time to work through them. And that’s what I do. I work. Hard. Each and every day. And I’ll never commit suicide. I have a responsibility to those I love. I can’t ever hurt Elaine and Sienna like that.

Robin Williams’ decision to end his life wasn’t fair to his wife or his children, family, friends. But was it wrong? I can’t say that it was. He was tortured. Another tortured genius like Hemingway and Woolf who could no longer battle his demons. Depression, like most mental illnesses is a cancer of the mind. If the pain gets too intense, who am I or who is anyone to tell a person to keep going if there’s no fight left, if each breath, each second is a waking nightmare. If someone has cancer, is in unending pain, sees no light at the tunnel and wants to end it, isn’t it just as selfish of us to ask him/her to keep living and fighting because we want them in OUR lives? I wouldn’t kill myself, but I can’t say Robin Williams is wrong for taking that road. Who knows how deep his depression went? Who knows what he thought in his last moments? This is a man who covered his sickness as best as he could, who made millions laugh as his own brain probably screamed he was a failure. We were robbed of so many more laughs created by Robin Williams, but not by Robin Williams himself. We were robbed by Depression.

I couldn’t sleep last night after reading about Robin Williams. I kept envisioning his last agonized moments. And then I’d wonder if his death would push me over the unable-to-blog hump and I’d chastise myself for it. Then I started thinking about all of the bloggers that would beat me to the punch and/or write with a more poetic touch. And I felt so egotistical. So disgusted with myself. At 3-something in the morning I posted on Facebook about my insomnia, Robin Williams, and my warped warped thoughts and fears. I’ve yet to read any responses, though my mother said I received a ton of support. If I can I write this then I can read those responses. I’m proud of myself for writing. I think. I hope.

If there’s any positive in this tragic loss it’s that Robin Williams was such a high profile figure, such a supposedly kind and humble man in person, such a dynamo on film and stage, that maybe the light will finally shine on mental illness. Maybe more information about mental illness will be available to the masses. Maybe the government and insurance companies will do more for those of us who suffer either aloud or in silence. Maybe they’ll do more to create affordable therapies and medication. Most importantly, maybe we’ll all talk about it more. People will look to Robin Williams and no longer be afraid to speak up. I’ve found that talking about my disease with fellow sufferers has been a huge form of therapy. They get me. And there are millions of us.

It’s time to stop being afraid if you suffer from depression or any mental illness for that matter. It’s time to stop fearing judgment. Step into the light and talk about it. If you’re feeling suicidal, call someone. Call a hotline. Seek help. Because we’re in this together. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

As proven by the unfortunate loss of Robin Williams.

Dealing With Rejection And What Ifs

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I hadn’t seen her in years, this girl, now woman, I’d crushed on from my tweens all through the end of high school. We’re both happily married. We both have beautiful kids. But when I saw her wondrous smile I time-warped back to the 80s, back to when I was 13, back to the roller skating rink with its flashing colored lights and squeaky floor. Duran Duran on the speakers. Back to the day when I asked her out and she said no, a day of such demoralizing rejection that it marked the last time I asked a girl out until my mid-20s, though the development of my gynecomastia played an enormous role as well.

She pointed to my blue t-shirt, the one that boasts the National At-Home Dad Network‘s logo, and congratulated me on my blog, my reading at Dad 2.0, my family, as her children taught Sienna how to color on an IPad. I offered up my usual sheepish thanks. She told me how much she wanted to meet Elaine and called Sienna adorable. And then she put a hand on each side of my face causing the anxiety pains in my chest to surge.

“You look so sad. Don’t look so sad.”

“It’s my perennial look,” I semi-joked.

I’d started halfway between the room and the roller rink, simultaneously Sienna and her kids’ laughter and the bleeps and bloops of ancient arcade games, but now that sting of rejection threatened to suffocate me as my brain screamed WHY NOW?? WHY COULDN’T YOU HAVE SAID YES AND CARESSED MY FACE BACK THEN??? and I silently yelled back to JUST SHUT UP FOR ONCE!!

Because I no longer wanted her in any way other than as a friend. I love my wife and my daughter more than anything in this world. But still that haunting pain of repudiation and its buddy, fear. Still the what if scenarios.

What if she’d said yes? Even if we’d only gone on one date, most likely a chaperoned stint to the movies, would my fear of rejection regarding not just females, but of life, have developed into these massive walls that still rebut all compliments and acceptance, but remain tender enough to let the smallest slight or possible abandonment drown me in a monsoon of depression and fear?

I don’t know. I’ll never know. Does it matter?

At 13 I already felt rejected by my father because he favored my sister (as always, I must state that my dad is a totally different person now). I already felt like a failure in school particularly because my 3rd grade teacher called me that to my face. Gynecomastia already held my self-esteem in its powerful grip. Bullies already sensed my fragility. I’d yet to hear from one of my so-called friends that this girl thought everyone in our class was cool except me. My friends had yet to turn against me, but they would in time…twice. I’d yet to be continuously ignored and dismissed by my University of Michigan college housemates because they’d rather binge drink than spend even one night at the movies with me. The letter from the UMich creative writing program thanking, but not thanking me had yet to be opened causing me to act the maudlin cliché, locking myself in my room for hours with Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over” on repeat.

So much more rejection to come. So many more un-acted-upon crushes left in my mind’s darkness. So many stories and essays left unsent. So much more outright- and self-torment. My first panic attack awaited me 19 years down the road. My first nervous breakdown a mere months later.

What if?

What if seeing her elicited only pure joy at reuniting with an old friend instead of bringing back decades old sadness leading to a body brimming with anxiety? What if my ears picked up just her sunny voice and our children’s glittering laughter instead of also hearing the echoing squeals of roller skates? What if my 40-year-old self saw just a married woman with two wonderful kids so happy for and proud of me instead of a 12-year-old girl shaking her head?

What if I can rip off these tough scales of negativity, of pessimism, of fear and accept praise. What if I could feel deserving? What would that be like?

Because I really want to know.

And it’s time I do.