The Arsenal

Two days before my wedding, I grip the third-floor railing of the mall atrium, barely resisting the urge to climb over, trying to silence the voice of my mother berating me.

What? Are you suicidal now too? She says, her tone dripping with judgement.

No, just taking a moment. I just need a moment. I reply with just the tiniest hint of teenage whine that should be long gone from my 32-year-old voice.

My knuckles whiten and my hands begin to cramp on the chest-height ornamental wooden handrail overtopping the clear glass siding with views all the way down to the mall atrium, making me feel like an air-shipwreck survivor clinging to the last log in space. The terrifying images that run through my brain when I stand here are not about killing myself, at least not on purpose. When I play these images all the way through, I improbably survive in some way – bouncing off an invisible floaty castle that just happened to be there or landing superhero-style in a front facing lunge with one hand bracing lightly on the ground. The shaky rollercoaster drop of sensation that I get around heights is less fear of falling and more a fear of jumping, expecting to survive. Like somehow if I wasn’t keeping strict control over myself, I would climb over by accident.

Well, if you aren’t going to jump, can we keep moving? We have too much to do to just stand here, my mom’s voice broke through my obsessing.

A new panicky feeling washed over me as the visual of my ever-lengthening list of tasks that have to be done today collides into the rail-climbing montage. The gif now plays out as the physical list floating out over the edge with me climbing over to get it. As one does.

I continue to stand transfixed by the images in my head, every muscle ready to spring. Usually under times of high stress, I avoid areas like this, where the designers intended airy, open mall vistas with narrow walkways crossing stylistically on each floor, feels like my own personal Ninja Warrior course, requiring me to traverse an unfathomable fluorescent chasm balancing on a narrow slippery plank of linoleum.

You had to go to the fancy children’s boutique for your flower girl dresses, even though you knew she would never wear those dresses with the lace and the tuille.

That’s true, I admit. I regret the impulse to splurge at the high end section of the mall that now requires me to reach into my anxiety-fighting arsenal in order to return the dresses that my 4-year-old niece adamantly refused to wear. Time to pull one of those suckers out. Let’s try grounding – a solid tool for this point in the battle, a proportional response. I need to convince myself that my feet are on the floor and they will stay on the floor. I imagine that my feet are magnets attached to the linoleum and I can move along like a skater, without risking any possible separate from the floor that would give them the opportunity to fly over the railing. With this image, I remove my hands one by one from the railing and slide my feet along the floor, positioning myself like a speed skater at the starting line. I glide my way toward the exact middle of the walkway, keeping as much space as I can from the railing on each side, with my right arm behind my back and my left arm, and the bag of dresses, swinging like a pendulum with each stride.

You look ridiculous, everyone is staring, I hear my mother saying, but I don’t look around to check. Just keep skating.

At the entrance to the boutique, I take a second to collect myself, checking to make sure I have the receipt in my wallet and looking over the dresses one more time. I’ll admit the frillier, and therefore itchier one according to my niece, looks a little worse for wear due to the tantrum that resulted in her making a snow angel in the plush grey carpet.

My mother picks up the familiar rant that she has be repeating since that episode saying, That boutique isn’t going to accept that dress as a return. It’s ruined. They are going to think that you used it for the wedding and returning it worn. They are going to think that you are running some kind of scam and probably call the police or flag you as a customer. You will never be able to return anything again without getting arrested.

That’s utterly ridiculous, I reply while shaking my head and walk into the store as if I shopped here daily.

You better at least buy something to make it look like you are a loyal customer.

I stop just inside the doors to respond, I’m not a child anymore, I’m a grown adult now. You don’t have any control over me anymore. Thanks to therapy and medication you can't scare me into doing anything I don't want to do anymore. I hear her cackling in a way that my mother never has, the disorder taking even the most precious memories. I pause and take deep breaths, hoping that the store attendants aren't paying attention to me. But as my stomach clenches and my heart races, I give in and pick up some girl’s socks, frillier than anything any child I know would ever wear. I walk over to the register and tell the attendant my fabricated saga, holding up the one size bigger socks for purchase to prove that there indeed is a little girl who had outgrown the dresses. The attendant barely looks at the dresses while processing the return, though I think I catch a sneer at the frilly socks, and I escape with a clean record.

I continue to knock off the tasks on my list. I pick up the beautiful monogrammed bridesmaids gifts with my mother saying, Those gifts are tacky, no one gets monograms anymore and you probably got one of them wrong; the gift bags for out-of-town travelers where the critique is you should have bought these ages ago, think about all the work that we still have to do; and finally my medication where the comment is how crazy are you? You better hide those labels before anyone sees what you take. Finally I walk back to my car in the garage with my mother complaining about the slow pace and how much more had to get done before much of the extended family arrive tonight. As I step into the car, the topic is that they don’t even like me, they are just coming to the wedding a favor to her.

As I reach down to put the car in gear, my heart begins to pound. Images begin to race in my vision – hitting a car as I’m backing out, taking too long at the ticket counter and the bar coming down as I exit, sliding backward down the ramp, hitting a pedestrian as I leave the garage entrance. Every bad thing that could happen as I drive to the café for lunch enters my mind in quick succession. I hear my mom’s voice saying, are you so crazy that you can’t even drive anymore?

I yell into the car a Shushhh as loud as I can. Time to whip about another weapon. This time I use the 5 senses. I touch the steering wheel that is slicked with sweat, I see the people walking by outside the windshield looking at me with concern after my yelling, I smell the lavender scented satchel on my rearview mirror, I hear the classical music on the radio, and I taste the blood in my mouth from biting the inside of my lip. And five deep breaths.

I manage to make it out of the garage and within blocks of the café in calm silence before I hear, You’ll never get a parking space at this time of day. You’ll be driving around and stressing out again and then you will be late for lunch. You’ll only try and fit yourself into a tiny space and not be able to get back out again and be stuck.

Fine, I give in, I respond and pull into the first parking spot that I see, even though I am several blocks away. The walk will do me good.

Half a block later along the walk and I’m listening to the ongoing torture, You could get hit by a car and miss your wedding, or twist your ankle and not be able to walk down the aisle. Your feet will be hurting for days with all this walking and you won’t be able to walk in your fancy heels.

Fed up, I stop in the middle of the sidewalk, close my eyes and breathe deeply. I open my eyes and head over to a little grassy area with a bench along a median. I sit down on the bench, pull my legs up into a lotus position and begin to meditate. My mother’s voice rages about how inappropriate and how people are staring. Finally her voice fades as she says that she’ll be back with me at the café. After some time meditating, I start walking to the café in wonderful silence, finally able to appreciate the beauty around me and the excitement for my upcoming nuptials.

When I finally arrive and the maître d walks me over to an empty table, she’s back, going on about how there must have been an accident or a gas leak or you got the time wrong and missed the lunch.

Finally I relax as I see my mom weaving her way through the tables and I get up to hug her, the physical voice of my actual mother, drowning out the anxiety voice in my head.

“Hi darling, how has your morning been so far? Says Mom.

“Really rough. I’ve got the full works today – the voice, the panic attacks, and the intrusive thoughts.” I reply.

“I’m so sorry. I guess we have to expect that with so much going on. Let’s order and we can talk through what we can do about it.” She says, flagging a waiter down.

After we order, Mom gets a phone call. While she is talking, the voice in my head chimes in to taunt me about the call – there’s something terrible that’s happened, someone missed their flight, a plane went down with all the relatives on it, or someone died and they all have to go to a funeral instead, etc. When it appears to be just a social call, the voice abruptly changes to focus on a frequent fear – you have to tell her that the voice sounds like her, you might let it slip in the wrong moment and she will be upset and abandon you at the wedding. You have to tell her now. And on it goes. I start to shake as I try to tamp it down. I feel like my full arsenal of weapons are all out of power at this point. Mom notices my distress and ends the call. She grabs my hand and says, “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“You know the voice in my head, the anxiety voice. It’s your voice. It sounds like you.” I say in a rush.

I feel the hot tears sliding down my face as I watch her reaction. She moves from concerned to confused and I wait to see the anger or hurt, but it never comes. Instead she smiles and says, “But honey, that’s wonderful. That’s your mind’s way of giving you a fighting chance. It’s a kindness you are giving yourself and we can use it.”

She gets up and walks over to my side, lightly bumping into several neighboring tables in the tiny cafe, pulls me up out of the chair and into a hug. She says into my ear, “Whenever you hear the voice, just grab onto this memory of my voice saying I love you, I’m proud of you and I’m here to help you.”

Fully crying now, I hug my mom back tight and commit the words to memory, repeating them over and over like a mantra. I know it won’t last forever, but it’s a battle ax to add to the arsenal. We get back into our seats, ignoring the concerned looks from people all around us, and start making our battle plans for the next couple days to ensure that my anxiety occupies no space in my wedding experience.