Slight Shift of Perception

Well, this is certainly a new feeling of anxiety that I've yet to experience. My ability to "suck it up" and to believe in myself forever lacking, intertwined with all the rest of the life stuff, not to mention my overall fragile emotional disposition in general, is why I'm here. It isn't the; I'm actually dying right now in this very moment panic attack type of anxiety. Certainly don't feel any tinge of excitement mixed with mostly fear kind of anxiety either. I wasn't sure how to categorize this new one. For the best I guessed, since I was about to enter this dirty yellowish, brick building which once was enough, but now was used specifically for poor people seeking mental health services. The sliding scale sad folks. Technically considered a school still sort of...I didn't know exactly. I just knew that I killed time by passing up the correct entrance to it, having to go way down the road to turn around. Deliberately. Now I knew that it is a very real possibility I'll miss my appointment all together. They want us to be punctual, of course.

What about when I will undoubtedly get lost or turned around or walk into the wrong waiting room all together? Ill just be sat there, waiting. Removing my coat and scarf feeling something resembling calm?

I think to myself, I'm actually getting double the therapy. The person I'll be talking to is still in training. She's not yet certified or degreed or pronouned Dr. yet. Our sessions will be filmed and viewed later by the older and wiser, elbow patched tweed suit jacket wearing and very experienced Dr. Psychiatrist. Where they will discuss together all the nuances of my potential disorders and what the appropriate next steps might be. I could imagine them nodding as they watched... then my mind wandered. What is the dynamic of their professor/student relationship? Is it scary for her to be judged or critiqued, watching herself? Is it awkward and nerve wracking? Maybe I'm her very first client? Or patient? How arrogant of me to think they'd be anything but enthralled with me! Would that be considered a defense mechanism on my part? Codependent rationalization? Who knows? Well, they would. Hopefully. Realizing this insightful perspective would probably not provide me with much confidence, I settled on perhaps some solidarity between us.

Oh no, what if it's already five minutes past my appointment time and I am in the wrong waiting room after all? I'll have to first find my way out hopefully the same door I came in, retreat back to the safety and security of my car and my pack of cigs and the familiarity of fucking up. (Weird how that's a comfort and a disappointment.) Sadly, no life tools gained. No possibility of better living through chemicals. Ruined by me, as usual. Back to the smaller potholed, dirty parking lot next to the gated, freshly paved and evenly spaced one, next to the crumbly, drab, outdated building beside the bigger, sleeker, surely less sliding scaled looking one. North of the disgusting highway that separates the city. That once was the highway that took me to my parents house, in a tiny town I grew up. The same house. Ohio is a dismal place if its gets to you. The sadness of it all. The place you dread coming back to...where you suffered through the worst depression of your life and the desperation and the brutal winters. The heartbreak seems trivial. Only its probably the biggest reason. The irony is not lost on me, sometimes you have to cognitively make the decision to either laugh or cry.

We lived just 5 blocks from here. Where my car got stolen. The homeless man, who sometimes stayed and/or defecated under our stairs, jumped in it and took off! Because I insisted that he go start the car to warm it up a little first? Because he was just a freezing opportunist. I was convinced that our cat escaped and was inconsolable. Why not avoid the big stuff, if you can. Even if there is nothing smaller. The worst of all the winters we always swore would be our last in Dayton, Ohio. It almost was.

We no longer had a car, no longer had fun plans for the evening. Barely just grasping on to what we had in each other. Just tears and alcohol and feelings of inadequacy and always fucking up. When you're poor, these things are the, can I give up now? moments. I think I mostly did for 5 years. We can't just go get another car...can't just replace it, what's been taken. Like the rug being pulled out one too many times. Only what do you do when you notice you're the one doing the yanking.

So I'm in the correct waiting room. Even though there's no way of actually telling. The magazine selection runs the gamet of Newsweek's so old I wanted to feel insulted. Plus some tattered highlights, those puzzle books for kids. I realized that i had no clue if I was supposed to go to the window and announce myself or...? Familiar panic. Why is it so difficult, just walk over there. Because everything leading to this appointment was so difficult. Now I'm scared to face myself. To be better. To be healthy,. Productive. Who would that be?

If I have to speak now I'm sure it will be stifled sobs only. Because it's been welling up there already all this time. It's been exhausting keeping it at bay to keep up some sliver of an appearance to the outside world. Im not in touch with that! I'm about to be though. This person who I've yet to meet is going to talk to me about all of it. And be on my side, and have my back. And I'm counting on it.

Such small things become such monumental endeavors when anxiety is at the helm. Don't they know that I'm never doing this again? If this falls through in any way.

Then my name is called. I stand up. Relieved and terrified, mostly terrified. But I stand up anyway. I immediately decide that she's going to be a terrific psychiatrist when this over, the best.

Gigantic tears just flow down my cheeks, one big droplet after another. Seems fake somehow, ironically. Its weird. I don't try to blink them back or pretend to hide them. Or seem to let it faze me. I realize that it's the first I'm not acting or pretending.

When asked why I'm there, I tell her with sincerity and despair. ..I just don't think I was cut out for this world. How is it that not every person is sad too? Every. single. thing. makes. me. sad. And we go from there...