Over the summer, I saw no one.
There was nothing to stop me from leaving the house only to work or to take
walks alone. Nothing to stop me from retreating from my family—a thing I wasn’t
even aware of doing until a friend who lives miles away and saw my summer only
through my writing pointed it out. There were a few exceptions. Meetings,
interactions I consented to out of guilt or obligation. Both, really. The
extreme, irrational reluctance with which I faced those should have told me. It
didn’t.
I don’t know why this has happened.
What I know is that I barely made it through the first day of classes
yesterday. That acting normal in the face of an overwhelming urge to bolt from
a room that contains more than one or two people is a supreme act of will.
Speaking above half-volume is not to be mentioned. Speaking at all is not to be
mentioned. The cafeteria is torture. I left a meeting room full of interesting,
lively, creative people last night, went back to my dorm, and dropped the class
because an hour of fighting back tears was enough to let me know working on the
lit magazine staff is no longer something I can do. What I know is that just
writing down the facts like this has me on the verge of a fucking panic attack.
And that I will have to do it again tomorrow. All of it.
I don’t know how.
I cannot understand, cannot come to
terms with the fact that going to class is
apparently too much for me, that I fear people but I cannot be left alone. I
have always lived with fear like this, but I haven’t been so helpless in the
face of it for years.
I have to do it again tomorrow. I
have to do my fucking homework. I can’t speak, I can’t answer emails, I can’t I
can’t I can’t.
What I will do, I don’t know, but
this can’t continue. I cannot afford for it to continue. Explaining it like
this is a victory, I guess, but it doesn’t feel like one and I don’t know how I
can even say I want to speak when everything I have is conspiring to keep me
silent.
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