How can this be my life, how can I be pathetically weak, so utterly despicable? This situation is damn normal! And yet I cannot handle it! I’m terrified, knowing that very soon I have to head back out to the car when all I want to do is sag sobbing to the floor and cry myself to death. I’m fucking irrational! I’m scared of my own body and I don’t know how to control the sickness! And I cause the sickness with my own mind. I know that as soon as I get back into the car I will immediately feel panic stab me all over again. Nothing will get better.
After washing my hands, I grab some toilet paper and blow my nose, barely able to stop the tears from coursing down my face. I feel awful. I’m afraid of embarrassing myself in front of these girls. Hannah is the only one who might not judge me. Stacia is a bitch who hates me and will surely enjoy singling me out for torture and she’ll probably want to tell her “friend” Jared about what a crazy weird disgusting bitch I am. I take a few deep breathes and try to pull myself together and finally make my way back out to the waiting car. The girls seem puzzled, but no one says anything as I climb back inside.
“Feeling okay?” asks Stacia, a mocking look in her eyes as I settle into the backseat, my face white as death in the rear view mirror.
“I’m feeling a little sick,” I say again, gazing into Stacia’s cold blue eyes.
We pull out of the parking lot and I try desperately to ignore the way I’m feeling. It’s like the ride to the shuttle lift off all over again. The situation I always try to avoid. I stare out the window, noting that we’re about 10 minutes from the mall. Every minute feels excruciating as my stomach muscles contract and I try to force myself to relax. But I can’t. I can only focus on how I feel, on terrified thoughts of what could happen if I were sick now. I’m keep replaying every comment each girl would make about me later, Stacia using my weird gross sickness against me in her quest for Jared. I grip my folded arms around my middle and try to focus on Hannah. I can’t breathe.
“Are you going to buy anything at the mall today?” I ask, practically gasping, knowing it’s a lame question, but trying desperately to start a conversation that might take my mind off how I’m feeling.
“I don’t know,” Hannah replies, looking over at me for a moment, her face full of sympathy for how I’m supposedly feeling, “I really need some new jeans, so hopefully I can find something. I’m always looking for a good pair because so few of them actually fit me right.”
I nod, trying to concentrate on our conversation, trying to fight the magnetic urge to focus on my own thoughts. It’s impossible. I can’t turn off the thoughts. I’ve trained myself so well, that I cannot escape my darkest fears. They are always there in every situation. I’ve analyzed every potential embarrassment before, every angle, every nuance, I know this path by heart.
Finally we arrive at the mall and I feel a bit better once we’re inside. It’s only a momentary feeling, because I know I’m trapped here, too, no ride home and I know I have to get back in the car with Stacia. I have no way to escape. No way to excuse myself. No way to get home without these girls.
We walk from store to store in the mall but I’m distracted, unable to pay attention to anything that anyone says, my stomach still sucked in like a black hole, eating myself from the inside out. I finally find a reasonable time to slip away, telling the girls I’ll meet them at the food court in 10 minutes for the ride home.
I rush to the bathroom, knowing that I still won’t be alone. Mall bathrooms are usually pretty crowded and I can remember a time a few years before when I had gone into the bathroom and heard and smelled that someone was sick in the next stall. It was gross. Honestly. I don’t want to be “that person.” It doesn’t matter to me that everyone experiences these things now and then, I can’t get away from the fact that it embarrasses me and therefore I hate dealing with it. I’m sweating buckets now, thinking about the ride home. I will do almost anything to avoid that car ride, anything except admit the real reason why I don’t want to.
When I finally meet up with the girls, I’m knocked sideways again to hear that Stacia wants to go to a few other stores at an outlet mall about 15 minutes away. My stomach clenches even harder and searing heat races up my body. The “real world” pulls away again, falling behind as the panic takes control of my brain. I can’t take anymore. I’m dying for a quick trip to my car and then finally, blessedly, a relief from these feelings. Suddenly my stomach heaves and I grab at my middle. I feel like I’m going to be sick right here. I turn to the Hannah,
“Would you guys mind bringing me back to my car,” I ask, my legs quivering. Stacia glares at me with annoyance and then sighs.
“Can’t you just wait a little longer, Victoria? It can’t be that bad and we’ll only be there for a few minutes.” Then she continues under her breath, something only I could hear, “Selfish bitch.”
Hannah looks at me compassionately, shrugging her shoulders. Now I really start shaking after hearing this. I can’t get back in a car with Stacia. There is no way. No way in hell. What am I going to do? What can I do that won’t seem strange?? I rack my brain. Who can I call to come pick me up? Who can help me now? But my heaving, rolling stomach will not stop and I clutch at it, unable to stand the sensations any longer.
“I’ve got to go to the bathroom again,” I say, turning away from them, just hearing Stacia say that she thinks my sickness is gross. Damn her.
In the bathroom, I pick an empty stall and just stand there with the door closed and locked. I’m not sure what is going to happen. I might puke. Something else might happen. I have no idea. I feel the gorge rising in my throat at the thought of getting in that car again and I lean over the toilet bowl, disgusted with myself that this is happening now. I purge everything, racking my stomach, dry heaving again and again. Someone walks into the bathroom.
“Victoria?”
It’s fucking Stacia. What the fuck is she doing in here? Give me some Goddamned privacy bitch!!!
“Victoria, do you have an eating disorder?” I hear her say sweetly and I can tell she’s at the sink as the water turns on. I heave again but thank God nothing happens. I can’t believe this bitch.
“You know, I think you were freaking out earlier. I’m not sure what your problem is, but I do know this, you are fucking weird,” she hisses and then I hear her heels clicking their way out of the bathroom again. I just stand there over the bowl. Amazed. Who treats someone else like that? Only a bitch who sees me as competition for the guy she wants. Or is jealous in some other way. I hate her!
Finally I think I am done being sick and make my way out of the stall. This cannot be happening to me. Stacia will tell everyone I have an eating disorder or am crazy or weird or fucked up. I walk back down the hall from the bathroom to the main concourse of the mall. Just as I’m about to turn the corner, I can hear Stacia’s voice.
“Victoria is fucking weird, I think she might be fucked in the head or something. I mean seriously, who is perfectly well and then suddenly throwing up. Maybe she has an eating disorder or something.”
This is all I can stand to hear. I turn and walk very quietly a few feet down the hall. I don’t want them to hear me. But once I’m far enough away, I run down the cement block hallway until I reach a door with a red exit sign above. I have to escape. I need to get away from her. I push open the door and walk out in the glaring sunshine. Black pavement and a dumpster are now my companions. I lean against the wall on the other side of the dumpster from the door, cradling my mid-section. I feel ravaged. I cannot go back in there. I cannot get in the car with them again.
I get out my cell phone with shaking hands, almost dropping it into a puddle in the process. Who can pick me up? Who can save me from myself right now? I can’t go with them. The idea of actually making my body get into the car is incomprehensible. I can’t do it. My body won’t cooperate.
I scroll through the listing of names in my phone and every single one is person who doesn’t really understand me. No one knows about my problem. I am
terribly alone in the world. I will never be normal. I scroll the list again. Isn’t there anyone other than my parents who I can call? The highlight clicks over each name and with each one a judgment booms through my head. You are fucked up. These normal people will hate you. They will destroy you. You are destroying yourself and you cannot stop. Loser!
Finally I come across one that feels like a savior. Henry. My little brother who just got his driver’s license and wants any excuse to drive. Maybe he would come get me? Instantly I tell my phone to dial his cell phone number. Henry answers after the first ring.
“Hallo,” he says lazily and I picture him sprawled out in front of the TV, video game controller in hand.
“Henry, it’s Victoria,” I say. “Do you think you can come pick up your ole sis’r at the mall? I’m not feeling well and the other girls I’m with don’t want to bring me back to my car on campus. Can you do it?”
I hold my breath. My brother and I have a love hate relationship. Sometimes we get along really well, other times not so much. I love the kid, but he also drives me crazy. I hear him sigh as if it’s such a chore and then he says,
“Yup, I’ll get you, but I gotta ask mom and dad if I can use the car.”
I hear him throw the phone down and then yell for my parents. Typical Henry. Finally he gets back on the line.
“I’ll be there in 30 minutes. Where will you wait for me?”
“I’ll be waiting outside the food court. Thanks broski, I owe you one,” I say with a smile, the mental relief of being able to leave without calling my parents or getting in the car again with Stacia is instantaneous. My brother will save me. Thank God.
But now what to do about the girls? Just leaving them seems weird and suspect, however I cannot face them. I never want to see Stacia’s bitch face again. I jab at the text button on my phone. I’ll just send Hannah a quick text so she doesn’t have to worry and that will be the end to it. Still weird, but the best I can do right now and better than disappearing without a trace. I compose a nice lie in text format, saying I am really ill, my brother is coming to get me and I’m going home and hit the send key.
Now I have to wait. I’m still on edge, I realize, because now I’m stuck at the mall with no way of immediate escape. Thirty minutes to wait without anyone to talk to, without anything to do. For now I just lean against the freezing wall and try not to think about how trapped I still am. My phone trills. A text. I open the message and it’s from Hannah.
Hope you feel better. Sorry. Stacia sucks. We’re leaving now.
At least Hannah still loves me. After a reasonable amount of time for Stacia and everyone to leave, I finally walk to the door. I’ve decided I’ll go into a few stores and then back to the food court just before my brother is due to arrive. I can’t sit here contemplating my fucked up brain any longer. I need to do something, move around. My stomach is still telling me that it needs only the smallest provocation to start clenching up again. My respite from pain and anguish was temporary. The deadly poison has been released into my body and there is no calling it back. I’m going to be quivery for days now. Fuck.
Finally I’m outside the food court and when Henry arrives and I jump into the car with him. I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy in my life to see my little 16 year old brother. I almost want to kiss him, however I know that at his age he’s likely to make me get back out of the car again if I try anything like that, so I restrain myself.
“Are you really sick?” he asks after a while, not looking at me, his focus on driving. But Henry knows me. He knows what goes on with me, even if it’s mostly unspoken. When I don’t reply right away, not sure if I feel like explaining the entire thing to him, he speaks again.
“You know, sometimes it happens to me,” he says, looking over for a second before looking back at the road, his face genuine, caring, my darling little brother. “I just never say anything about it. I don’t want mom to know,” he says. “I don’t know if you remember but when we were in Florida and I was just a little kid, I remember what happened. I saw mom cry like I have never seen her cry since and I don’t want to see that happen again.” He pauses. It‘s funny for me to see this side of him. It’s introspective, caring, thoughtful, not at all like a teenage boy is supposed to act. But now and then, there it is, reminding me what a good guy he really is.
“Yeah I did kinda know that, she told me a few years ago,” I say, thinking about my mom sobbing because of what happened to me, sobbing because her child was going to experience her pain and fear.
“Yeah she couldn’t stop crying. I got up out of bed after you were asleep and I saw mom in the bathroom crying her eyes out. I didn’t know exactly why at the time, but I knew she was hurting. I’ve put two and two together since then.” I reach over and squeeze his arm.
“Thank you for picking me up,” I say, barely able to hold back tears. I’m glad that at least a few people in the world know about my problem and support me. I lean back in the seat and sigh.
February 25, 2005
Was it all a dream, a hallucination?
Why can’t someone love me? I know what love is and no one has this for me. No one just plain cares about me. There are always lies and games, so much deceit. I would be truthful to you if you were mine, I’d never cheat. I’d be all yours day and night. If you were mine…
Do you think of me? In your spare time do you think “I miss her”? Well I do. I think of you sometimes and miss what you’re about. Not individual things, but your essence. What makes you, you. Unique. I could care so much, but I won’t. I can’t. You don’t give a shit. Why can’t I be good enough? I am so very depressed.
I am freezing. Colder and more alone than anyone should ever have to be. Shaded, sheltered from everything and everyone, but not because I choose to be. I don’t want to be alone or cold. I want so much it hurts and it’s not going to happen. I’ll stay alone and wishing I wasn’t. I want very much to sleep. I don’t want to be who I am, I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t ask to be stepped on. Life is happening to me and it sucks.
Amanda called. She wanted to know if I wanted to go to a party just off campus at one of her co-worker’s parents’ house. The guy goes to my college and his parents live nearby in a rich neighborhood. It was actually a relief to have something else to do, somewhere else to go rather than the frat. I asked her if I could invite Hannah and she said yes. Now, finally I’m dressed, slutted up and ready to hit the town. I really feel like partying. Not thinking about all my problems. About how I can’t understand Jared, about how he rejected me, about how I can’t stop the panic. I just want an alcohol induced coma to come over me, freeing me, and then the sleep of the dead. Sleep is the only peaceful place I can be. I’m like a drunk useless bitch. I hate my life sometimes. I’m tired of heartache. I’m tired of mind-games. I just want to drown my sorrows. I mean honestly, what do I have to look forward to? Disappointment, panic, anxiety, rejection, mind games, no love. The only way to go on, is to have something to look forward to, something to get excited about.
#######################
I’m sitting in my car in A lot, quivering because I know I have to walk to Hannah’s in just a few moments. I’m sober and terrified. Heat flushes over me and my stomach scrunches down to half its normal size. I can’t ride to the party with Amanda and Hannah in Amanda’s car. I know we agreed on it, I know I’m supposed to, but I can’t get out of the car and walk up to Hannah’s dorm to get her and wait for Amanda. The best part is that I’ve arrived early enough to have time to sit and contemplate the monsters in my brain. The Fear. God, I don’t want to do it, but I have to. I have come to this.
I pull the water bottle from my backpack on the passenger’s side and open the cap. It smells like floor cleaner, but what’s inside is the only way I know how to stop me from being me. I take a swill and the cheap vodka burns all the way down, sending another rush of heat over me as it settles in my tiny scrunched tummy. I still feel horrible and my stomach jumps up and then down
again, getting smaller this time and pushing toward my back. I can’t handle it. I take another swig and another, grimacing. I’ve got to hide behind the alcohol so the monsters can’t find me. I deactivate them with booze and narcotics and then I’m finally able to be the girl I should have been if my brain wasn’t fucked up.
Finally things begin to blur and I know the alcohol is starting to work and the new exciting, sexy, normal Victoria is almost here. I take a few more swills just to be sure and, checking the time on my dashboard, realize I have to get out and walk to Hannah’s front door. It is time and I am finally prepared. In fact, I feel rather excited about the fact that I’m going out. I’m going to slut my brains out tonight. I don’t give a shit about Jared.
After introductions are over, Hannah and Amanda seem to hit it off right away, falling into conversation in the car as easily as old friends, mostly discussing me as I sit in the backseat, turning every now and then to grin at me over the seat as one or the other brings up an embarrassing or funny story. But I’m lost in my own thoughts for the moment, trying to tamp down the tiny panic tremors that are racing through my body. I keep repeating my damn mantra in a sing song voice. And this is happening even with the vodka swills. Dammit!
“…remember when we were in Florida and my brother gave us some alcohol and we got drunk and stumbled around the beach. That was fucking awesome,” says Amanda with a smile over her shoulder reaching over to flick the station to something more bumpin.
I force a laugh and nod with a tense smile and she doesn’t seem to notice, just goes back to talking with Hannah. I’m finding it hard to pay attention with the fear clouding me, so I’m not really listening to anything either of them has to say. Ever since the trip to the mall I’ve been extremely on edge. Every day has been a struggle to do normal activities, including going to class, work, even a trip to the eye doctor is something to panic over. I’m loath to admit, seriously, who thinks that, damn you English major, that my problem is escalating. It’s amazing I’m here with Amanda and Hannah at all.
Angst Page 22
