The Other Me
‘Shut In’ i. The only safe place was home. Home, I could control everything. There were no dangers. Nor pressures. There was always the worry when I went out that there’d be an issue, and I’d have to rush home. It was a tremendous burden to carry, and the weight of it filled me with expectation that something would happen, which it then did. At least at home if anything happened, I was already where I needed to be. At first, I had trouble going anywhere – even the mailbox. I’d feel flighty, and would want to rush back inside. Eventually, I got comfortable with that distance. Later, my cousins…
The Other Me
‘Hello, Panic, My Old Friend’ iv. Dr Warren had an analogy that the anxiety was like a snowball. Unhindered, it would gather momentum and grow bigger and bigger, but put a big enough block in front of it, it would hit that block and splatter. That sounded good to me, but right about now, anything would sound good to me. With that in mind, Dr Warren prescribed me a sedative: .5mg of Xanax three times a day. Unfortunately, Xanax wasn’t a medicine you could get with a prescription over the counter. You needed government authorisation. Dr Warren said he’d file the request and the authorised prescription would come to me…