Chapter Five
There is a new doctor standing in my doorway, his eyes sharp as scalpels on my face. Another shrink. He’s the third one who’s come by in five days. Each with their clipboards, making notes. “You’ve had a tough week,” this one says.
Contest for most idiotic statement by a therapist, we’ve got a winner in room 203.
I stare at the wall. “Yep.”
“How’s your mood?” he asks.
“It’s fine,” I say automatically.
“Fine, huh? No anxiety symptoms?” He is calling my bluff.
“Nope.”
“And the aphantasia? Any progress there?”
“Not really.” not at all
“Can you look at me, Jessa?”
I glance at him now, and immediately wish I hadn’t. His forehead is dry and leathery, almost grey. A horrific, disfiguring burn. My mouth goes salty, the feeling you get right before you throw up.
it’s not real
It’s a daily refrain now, it’s not real, i’m imagining it, i’m making it up. The janitor with the black eye, the nurse with the scabs, the plastic surgeon with scars like my dad’s. All around me, broken faces. Wounds that make my eyes sting they’re so gruesome. Wounds that disappear as soon as I look away. Out of my sightline, ghosts in my head.
“Eye contact is difficult for you,” I hear him say. I’m staring at the wall behind him now, where it’s safe.
I nod. Except it’s not his eyes I’m avoiding right now but the burn I hallucinated on his face. This truth I can’t talk about, not unless I want to keep talking about it, week after week after week, in some claustrophobic office with a fake plant and a black leather couch. thanks no thanks
“Do you use other avoidance techniques?” he’s asking now. “Avoidance techniques are coping strategies that—”
I cut him off. “I know what they are.”
i use them all
“You’ve been in therapy before.”
“Yep.”
“You’re not a fan.”
“I just don’t see the point,” I say neutrally. “Talking about it doesn’t help.” if i’m talking about it, i can’t pretend it doesn’t exist
“How do you know?” he asks.
“Because things got better after the therapy stopped.”
“Meaning you had fewer panic attacks?”
meaning i don’t want to be having this conversation or any conversation with you
But not answering is not an option. Not answering will only prolong this.
“Right,” I say.
“Is it possible that you’ve gotten so good at avoidance that it may seem like your anxiety is better since the therapy stopped, when really you’re just doing a better job of suppressing your symptoms?”
I shrug. Game face.
“Here’s my concern, Jessa,” he says. “People who suffer from mood disorders — that’s what generalized anxiety is, a mood disorder — are at a greater risk of developing other psychiatric illnesses following a traumatic brain injury. New onset depression, for example, is very common.”
what about hallucinating seared flesh?
“In order to treat these conditions,” he goes on, “we have to first be able to diagnose them. But if you’re not talking about what you’re feeling, we can’t do that. So if there’s something—”
“I’m hallucinating,” I blurt out.
He blinks but doesn’t react. His game face.
“Okay. Hallucinating what?”
“Scars. Bruises. Scrapes. Burns.”
“On yourself.”
I shake my head. “Other people. I noticed it for the first time when my dad got here. He had these really awful scars on his cheeks I knew weren’t there.”
“Do you see them on everyone?”
“No. Just some people.”
“What about on me?”
“There’s a bad burn on your forehead,” I say without looking up. “And a scar on your chin.” In my peripheral vision I see him reach for my file.
“The scar’s real,” he says. “I fell off my bike when I was eight.” He flips through my file. “Are they always on the face?”
I hesitate. Without mental images, it’s hard to be sure. “I think so, yeah.”
“What about your own face?”
“What about it?”
He shrugs. “How does it look?”
I don’t answer him. He knows I haven’t seen it. That little tidbit is most definitely in my file.
He tries again. “Does the thought of seeing your face make you feel anxious?”
“No,” I say, just to be contrary. We both know it does.
“How’s your mood?”
“You already asked me that.”
“Right. And you didn’t tell me the truth. Because if you’re hallucinating, Jessa, and you’re aware of it, then your mood is not ‘fine.’” He sets my file down. “If we’re going to solve this, you’re going to have to be honest about what you’re feeling.”
“Fine,” I say tightly. “I’m freaked out, okay?”
“About what?”
“Um. The fact that I’m hallucinating maybe?” All of a sudden I hate this man, I hate this hospital, I hate all shrinks. The incessant questions and prodding and practiced concern.
“What about your own facial injuries? How do you feel about those?”
“Fantastic,” I say sarcastically. “I’m totally psyched.”
“So you’re angry,” he says.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I snap. “I just want to know how to make the hallucinations stop.”
“Therapy,” he says bluntly. “You have to work through what happened to you, Jessa. Avoidance isn’t an option anymore. Not if you want the hallucinations to stop.”
“Isn’t there some drug you can give me?”
“Anti-psychotic medication might help in the short term, but there is no quick fix. Particularly if what you’re experiencing is an extreme form of dissociation, which is what I suspect. A way for you to separate yourself from your injuries, to keep them literally at arm’s length. But, that’s a very cursory analysis based on your history and the little you’ve said. If you want to get better, you have to get down in the dirt. Dealing with psychiatric illness takes work.”
psychiatric illness. Pins and needles erupt in my feet.
“It’s just— a lot,” I say quietly. “All at once.”
“I know it is. But it’s also an opportunity. To accept that your old ways of doing things aren’t working and to try something new. It’s not uncommon for people who suffer trauma to experience what we call ‘post-traumatic growth.’ A radical, positive change in the wake of adversity. A paradigm shift. Instead of setting them back, the trauma becomes a catalyst for growth.”
He smiles a little, obviously waiting for me to say something, sounds great doc I’m in!
“Let’s start here,” he says finally, when it’s clear that I’m not going to respond. “I’ll refer you to a great therapist here in the Valley who specializes in—”
I cut him off. “I can’t. I’m moving to Colorado to live with my dad. Next week.”
He gives me an encouraging smile. “They have some great therapists in Colorado. I’ll talk to your dad about—”
he won’t want you. if he knows about the hallucinations, he’ll change his mind
“No,” I say abruptly. “I don’t want my parents to know about the hallucinations. And you can’t tell them.”
I have no idea if this is true, but I am desperate.
“You’re right,” he says, and I think thank god. “You’re seventeen, so by law, I can’t disclose your medical information without your consent, unless I think your life is in danger, or you’re a risk to yourself.”
you’re too late, I want to shout. A risk to myself, that was twelve days ago, when I couldn’t see what I should’ve seen, the truth that was so obvious to everyone else. wren doesn’t want her, why would he, she’s damaged goods. That elbow jab on the sofa, look at jessa, how pathetic, she has no idea. But of course that’s not what he means, he means a physical risk, and I’m not that, have never been that.
“I’m not,” I say, but can tell from his face that he knows this already and that I’ve won.
He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. They look tired all of a sudden. He has a wedding ring on and I wonder if he has kids and whether it’s made them more or less crazy, having a shrink for a dad.
“What about the medication you mentioned?” I ask.
He sighs. “I can prescribe Quetiapine, but it won’t resolve your symptoms on its own. You need—”
“Therapy. Yeah, got it.” It sounds brattier than I mean it to. I immediately feel bad.
He doesn’t look annoyed or pissed off. Just disappointed. For half a second I think I might explain it to him, why I can’t stay in L.A., why I can’t risk my dad changing his mind about me living with him, why I’m afraid that if he finds out just how damaged these goods are, he might. But I don’t, won’t, because explaining it to this doctor, to any doctor, would require talking about it, out loud, with actual words.
“I’ll try,” I say when he hands me the prescription. As enthusiastically as I possibly can. “To think of this as an opportunity. Radical positive change. Everything you said.”
“I hope so,” he says wearily. “You owe yourself that.” Then his phone buzzes and I know that we are done.
When he’s gone I slide the prescription under my pillow and climb out of bed. I’ve graduated from the gauze into a circus freak appropriate “compression garment” made out of stretchy pink fabric and Velcro in the back. Basically a sports bra for my face. Dr. Voss fitted me for it this morning, suggested that maybe I’d want to look in the mirror before she put it on.
I told her no, my voice about twelve times louder than it needed to be and an octave too high. No one spoke after that. Ten minutes later, in walked shrink #3. Now his words are rattling in my head.
if you want to get better, you have to get down in the dirt
The towel is gone from the bathroom mirror now, so I see my reflection as soon as I swing open the door. The pink fabric hides everything but the eyes and nose, my eyes, blue and watery and dilated. Eyelashes so pale they disappear. The left side of my nose is tinged with purple, a creeping bruise. I grip the inside of the door frame, lightheaded with fear.
please god don’t let it be as bad as i think
This thought, it sparks a memory, or the edges of one. Kneeling in my bedroom in our new house the summer after eighth grade, begging God to fix me, to take the panic away. I did it for weeks, the entire summer almost, until my mom got creeped out by it and called a new shrink. After one appointment I was done. With therapy, with God, with believing in a fix. I took a shower the next morning, blow-dried my hair, and told my mom I didn’t want to talk about my panic anymore. She took me to Barney’s and bought me a new dress. My Bible went in the box for Goodwill.
I’d never thought much about my looks before that shopping trip. But standing in that dressing room in a pretty dress and makeup from the counter downstairs, just a little honey it’ll perk you up, staring at a girl in a mirror who didn’t look panicky or anxious or the tiniest bit afraid, I felt this weird surge of power. no one can see it, I remember thinking. no one has to know.
I wore that dress three weeks later on my first date with Wren.
I’ve been hiding ever since.
This is the darkest dirt. Not how repulsive I am now but how repulsive I’ve always been. The only difference is that it used to be hidden, tucked inside a pretty girl-shaped case. Now that case is cracked, literally broken in pieces, and, yeah, the doctors set the bones but the scars scream the truth.
I have no idea how bad they are. How many I have. Haven’t seen them in the mirror, can’t picture them in my head. The wounds on the inside, the invisible ones, those are familiar terrain. The rips and tears that mostly closed up over time. Dad leaving, my friends bailing, Mom getting a new family, God completely checking out. If He was ever there to begin with, which I sort of doubt. Over and over again, the same message, you are not enough. You hear it enough times and it weaves itself into you, and it’s not an idea any more it’s who you are, not enough.
But then a boy comes along and changes the message. you are enough, he says, enough for me. And because he is all you have, being enough for him is enough for you, too, even though you know deep down that good enough really just means pretty enough, and if he really knew you, all of you, he’d bail, too. Because of him, it stops mattering so much that there are gaping holes inside of you because you fill them with panic, hiding both the panic and the truth of you.
At least, you think you’re hiding it.
barbie’s unstable
Except I’m not Barbie anymore, not unless they make an Accident Victim Barbie, Brain Injury Barbie, ew mommy that one is scary-looking, take her away Barbie. As if Barbie can be anything but flawless, anything other than hollow and plastic and perfect. When she stops being that, she stops being Barbie. She’s just a broken ugly doll that nobody wants.
The dirt is everywhere, I am sinking in it, i can’t breathe. Like sewer water bubbling up through a crack in the pavement, the truth of how messed up I am is on the surface now, will always be on the surface now. It’s all anyone will see.
I tug at the Velcro, claustrophobic suddenly, get this thing off. The tension releases, the mask falls into my hands, and I see myself in the mirror. Tangled blond hair, splotchy bruises, shiny pink lines in oily skin. Instinctively, I start to count them, my scars.
one
two
three
four
Panic explodes in my chest. there are so many left
I stumble backward and slam the door shut. Out of sight, out of mind. Literally.
The whirl inside me goes sour. I gag, stomach heaving, but nothing comes out. My body holds onto puke the way it holds on to panic, tight fist, don’t let it breathe.
“Honey?” Mom. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”
“I’m fine,” I say weakly. so not fine. I fumble for the pink fabric, pressing it against my face, but can’t get the Velcro to stick. scars there were so many scars . Tears come so fast I can’t blink them back. I swallow a sob.
“Honey,” Mom says gently. “Dr. Voss said you only need to wear that thing at night. She said it’s a good idea to let your skin breathe during the day, remember?” She comes towards me, brushes my hair off my forehead. “Plus I want to see your pretty face.”
I wrench away from her. “Where’s Dad?”
“Right here,” Dad calls from the hall, then enters the room, an annoying grin on his face. “Sorry, Bear. I was on the phone with your—,” his smile fades. He looks from me to Mom. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” I say tightly, before Mom can answer. “Who were you on the phone with?”
“Your new principal,” Dad says. “You’re all set to start a week from Monday.” The grin returns. “Crossroads sounds so cool. I wish I could go.”
Crossroads, the amazing, incredible, we’re so lucky they’ll take you, art school in Denver that Dad keeps talking about. The first time he mentioned it I didn’t say anything because, well, I assumed he was just having a dad delusion, since I have no artistic talent whatsoever. I pointed this out to Dad the second time he brought it up, and he waved me away, don’t be silly, Bear, your mom’s an artist, I’m an artist, you’ve always had an eye. Yeah, as if putting your name on overpriced handbags counts as being an “artist,” as though landscape design qualifies as “art,” as though “having an eye” is a talent, whatever the hell having an eye even means.
“Isn’t there a regular school I could go to?” I ask, easing myself back into bed.
“Crossroads will be great for you,” Dad says. “You’ll see.”
“Dad, I’m not an artist. I don’t even understand how I got in.”
“The principal knows your background,” Dad says lightly, and, click, I understand. My background, code for my situation, code for that poor girl with a head injury and a broken face.
Inexplicably, I laugh. My dad sort of smiles. My mom nearly drops her phone.
i am losing it. i am losing my mind
And then I think: i wish.
Crazy can’t hurt this bad. Crazy can’t be this much work.
A phone buzzes inside my mom’s purse. She’s carrying the black leather tote now, last winter’s collection, the bag she brings to funerals. She’s been pouting ever since I told her I wanted to live with Dad, really laying it on thick, as if she’s devastated that I’m leaving. She gave herself away when she offered to pack up my stuff.
“Honey, Wren is calling again,” she says. “Again.” My face didn’t survive the accident but somehow my phone did, not even a scratch. I told my mom to get rid of it last week, but of course she hasn’t, she’s playing secretary, answering his calls as though my life is just on hold right now, Jessa can’t come to the phone right now, can she call you back?
The anger rushes back now, whoosh, filling me up.
radical, positive change
“Can I have my phone?”
My mom hands it to me. I palm it, then hurl it at the wall. It clangs against the metal cabinet and falls into the sink.
“Jessa!” my mom shrieks. “What is wrong with you?!”
I look at her. “Really, Mom?”
My dad steps between us. “Bear. Your mom is doing the best she can.” nice try, dad. No way he actually believes this.
“I asked her to get rid of my phone.”
“Your friends are worried about you,” Mom says from behind him, and I almost laugh. My friends ditched me in seventh grade when the panic attacks started. A year later, Mom married Carl and we moved to the Valley to live with him and I met Wren and the fact that I didn’t have any friends didn’t matter so much because I had him. He wasn’t weirded out by my anxiety. He never even mentioned it. I loved him for that, for not making me talk about it, ever. For letting me be who we both wanted me to be, a girl without issues, a girl who was good enough for him.
My anger wavers a little, tangos with sadness before I sweep them both away.