Complication: Anxiety controls Matt
Development:
- Matt stresses maniacally
- Grandpa stresses maniacally
- Matt experiences attack
Resolution: Matt accepts anxiety
It is hard to
describe an anxiety attack to someone who has never had one before,
but I know when I pulled out of the driveway that morning I never saw
it coming. It is difficult to put into words the feeling of utter
hopelessness that comes over you or the physical torment that the
mind is able to produce and which I myself have yet to comprehend
completely.
I guess I remember
putting the keys into the ignition and backing out of the driveway on
that summer morning, but it was in the gas station parking lot on the
corner of Grand and Schaffer that I regained consciousness. I was
shaking and sobbing hysterically on the curb next to my car and the
hum of my still-running engine made me dizzy. The word “Dad”
illuminated the screen of my phone which I was holding in my right
hand and his voice called out to me from the speaker. I struggled to
regain my breath and managed to spatter out a weak: “I’m okay.”
There's a certain
irony in diagnosing yourself a hypochondriac, which is just one of
the decisions I made the night before as I shook in terror over two
swollen lymph nodes in my groin. I was having pain urinating and had
scheduled a doctor's appointment for the next morning to do some
tests. Ever since the moment I came out to my parents two years ago,
I have harbored anxiety that being gay has predestined me for
something awful. Against all the reason in the world, I nearly cried
three months earlier as the nurse pricked my finger to draw blood for
an HIV test at a routine physical. I had now convinced myself that
the test was a false negative and tomorrow I was going to the
doctor's to receive my true fate. I pulled the blankets over my face
to keep everything out and I examined the crisscross pattern until I
dizzied myself to sleep.
Doctors offices
have always made me nauseous and I remember cringing as a child as I
accompanied my grandfather to my great-aunt Caro's numerous
appointments. He would sit and sweat and shift his eyes upwards,
examining the sterile lights nervously, as my aunt verbally abused
the office staff.
“Can you believe
she said ‘fuck you’ to the nurse?” he exclaimed one evening to
my grandmother who cooked and rolled her eyes, almost laughing from
his exasperation.
“That doctor is a
cabrón!
And a racist! They treat me bad there because I’m a
Mexican,” said my fair-skinned and light-eyed aunt who lifted her
hands to further her point.
I picture my
grandfather in his seat at the corner of the sturdy, wooden table in
my grandparents’ kitchen piling salsa picante onto whatever
he was eating and worrying about the past, the present, and the
unforeseeable. If you couldn’t tell he was a ball of nerves from
the way he would rub his eyebrows, he would be happy to let you know
what was ailing him today, whether it be the Dodgers or the weather
or the remote possibility of something going terribly wrong.
My grandmother
always told me that my grandfather’s life changed the day that I
was born and that she fell in love with him again after almost 35
years of marriage. It is true that his grandchildren were the apples
of his eye and he would show his love for us by worrying about us
incessantly at every moment of every day.
Whether it was big
dogs, the beach, playground equipment, or sub-70 degree temperatures,
everything was out to get us.
“Here comes old
‘No-jacket Matthew’ they call him” he would always say
as I would enter their house regardless of the month. Unless it was
the dead of summer, I was always exposing myself to the perils of the
arctic Southern California climate.
“Mijo, if
you love me, just put on a jacket before you walk in our house,” my
grandmother would tell me. “I don’t care if you weren’t wearing
it all day, just put it on or I will hear about it all week,” and
we would chuckle as she did impressions of him in Spanglish.
I remember when my
grandpa got sick and I would go over during the summer to help take
care of him and my grandma would look at me over the breakfast table
with tired eyes and say: “You are going to look just like your
grandfather one day, baby.”
Sometimes, in the
middle of the night, I find myself pacing around my house checking
locks on windows and doors and unplugging lamps so the house doesn't
burn down while I sleep. I think of my grandpa as I climb the creaky
stairs to my room and images flash through my mind of his shadowy
figure moving down my grandparents' hall with a flashlight at 3 a.m.
The night before my
appointment, I retraced the usual night-time path through my house
and my heart pounded deep in my chest, waiting for something to
happen. I am always waiting for the worst to happen and that night I
almost wished someone would have broken in to my house and given me a
reason to obsess over something other than my swollen nodes.
Anxiety doesn't sound like a legitimate illness and certainly not something that can be inherited. Yet the next morning as I sulked out the door for the appointment, I glanced back and watched as my mom popped a Zoloft into her mouth and washed it down with freshly-brewed coffee. I took a step and closed the door slowly, pausing and staring at my car.
Anxiety doesn't sound like a legitimate illness and certainly not something that can be inherited. Yet the next morning as I sulked out the door for the appointment, I glanced back and watched as my mom popped a Zoloft into her mouth and washed it down with freshly-brewed coffee. I took a step and closed the door slowly, pausing and staring at my car.
Caught inside my
own head as I drove towards the appointment, I remember beginning to
shake violently until I gasped for air and my foot rattled on the
brakes. I can hear the honking of car horns behind me as I tell
myself to accelerate but my foot stays still. By the time I turned
into the parking lot, I had stopped controlling my own body and I had
let my fears take the wheel. Apparently, fear is not a good driver
because, after gaining control of my breath, I was spilled out on the
sidewalk and my car was parked across three parking spaces at the
back of the station mini-mart.
“Hon?! Are you
there, hon?!” said my dad at the other end of the phone. I stood
up, trembling, and got back into the car, still sobbing. Slowly, I
switched the car into drive, turned the air conditioner on high, and
made a right onto the busy street.
My life-threatening
illness turned out to be a common urinary tract infection, but it
occurred to me that I had something much more serious wrong with me.
My mind. I left the office with a prescription for a three-day course
of antibiotics and a referral for anxiety counseling.
I used to blame my
fears on things that happened to me in the past—my parents' long
and bitter divorce or maybe that time I got chased by that man with a
gun in that movie theater. Maybe none of that is out of the realm of
possibility. But when I look in the mirror, I am beginning to see
more of my grandfather in me every day—in the ways that I worry
about the past that I cannot change and the future that has not yet
happened. I am coming to the realization that this maniac worrying
may be due less to the things that have happened to me and more to
who I am deep down at the core. It has become apparent that I have
inherited more than his olive skin and his lazy eyes.
Word Count: 1,330
Intended Publication: "Lives" section of the New York Times Magazine
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