Anxiety has a way of changing people. I had watched it change my late aunt Jasmine and watched it change my ex Trevlan. That's how I knew that it was changing me. Before the transformation, I was six feet tall. My lips were thick and my nose, just as thick, sat right above it on my tiny face. The size difference between large lips, big nose, and small face were only exaggerated by my enormous hair, and though one would think that these contrasts would make me ugly, there seemed to be a generous consensus that I was beautiful.
Being beautiful did not stop Anxiety from changing me.
In fact, I’m certain it may have accelerated the transmogrification. It may have happened the day Trevlan left me to “take care of himself”. It most likely happened the day I realized I was failing Microeconomics. I was hyperventilating, it had dawned on me that I was 10 weeks into a 15-week semester, and had failed every major exam thus far. I was lucky I was in the bathroom stall and not in the classroom when the hyperventilation started. It froze me in place as if there were tiny manacles attached to each molecule of matter in my meat sack tying me down in space and time. I was stuck, looking at myself, unable to do anything but heave to the rhythm of Anxiety’s drum.
It was there, staring at myself that I noticed the bags under my eyes, and while I always had trouble sleeping these were not sleep-deprived eye bags. They were swelling grotesquely, the kind of swelling that would jiggle slowly if poked. I had a hunch that if poked they would ooze clear stinking liquid and fill up again in minutes. I tried to move my hand to test my theory, but I couldn’t, which brought on a new wave of hyperventilating. That’s when my lips began to shrivel, receding from my gums. It was like watching one of those time-lapse videos, only of myself.
It was ugly.
Anxiety was ugly.
I was ugly now, this realization brought on a cackle, the kind you have instead of crying. It was loud now because there were no lips to trap it with and my teeth were starting to spread apart so the ugly cackle slipped right through. The only benefit was that I had stopped hyperventilating. This crazy cackle had broken the spell.
I had never been particularly fond of fall but I was glad now to have a hoodie on as I pulled it over my ugly face and bolted to my car. I tried remembering what my aunt had said about slowing down the process, but I couldn't remember her words. I had never listened to hear, at least not to her. It was hard to listen when her voice sounded as repulsive as she looked. In fact, when her tongue started shriveling up she was incoherent anyway and by that point her mind was starting to go too. I felt my heart rate start to rise at the thought of her, of how we burned her right after we injected her body with the Cocktail. We knew she was calm now, but keeping her alive would only delay her transformation. So we killed her. Now, Anxiety is killing me.
I think about Trevlan now. I wonder if he is dead too. I wonder if I caught the bug from him or if it is genetic. Scholars have been testing and testing, but it’s hard when your subjects topple over in a matter of hours or days and their families are too scared to know if their fate will be the same. I whisper to myself.
“Stay calm.”
It is a mantra. The words string together and sound like a whistle through my spread teeth. I repeat the mantra to keep my heart rate normal and prevent spikes in my levels of Anxiety. Cars are designed to prevent those who have these from driving. I avoid looking at the mirrors in my car too. I don’t want to hyperventilate, see my ugly face, or bring on a new set of heart palpitations and sweat that reeks. I need to get where I’m going. I need to get there fast. I want to be home, alone, and safe. I know it will help me forget about the Cocktail or the fact that I will be burning soon too.
I wrote this in 2017. It is a little more on the nose than anything I’d write today but I can appreciate a heavy hand every now and then. If you’ve ever had anxiety you know how debilitating it can be. Sometimes it can make you feel like you’re not in control or that someone else is in the driver’s seat. Writing this story helped me navigate some of those feelings back then. It was cathartic. Are there things I’d change? I’d probably make it slightly longer, explore more of the family history or dynamics, and perhaps flush out some of her relationship with Trevlan. I decided not to change it too much besides a few word replacements and phrase tweaks. It’s such a wonderful snapshot of a moment in time.
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This was so great, I didn’t think it’s heavy-handed at all. I loved the first sentence. I was in it immediately.
Thank you for this powerful and lucid short story; I think that you’ve written one of the most accurate depictions of anxiety that I’ve read. Putting the intangible into words is a challenge, and you’ve accomplished this beautifully. The lines: “tying me down in space and time. I was stuck, looking at myself, unable to do anything but heave to the rhythm of Anxiety’s drum” made my skin crawl in their clarity and accuracy. Your phrasing sums up precisely how a dissociative panic attack feels in the moment. Creating a person to represent nature of Anxiety is a genius choice; I didn’t interpret the story as heavy handed. Instead, your style allowed me to imagine and feel for the interior anxiousness of the narrator. Thank you for sharing this excellent piece from 2017.