Madi’s Reviews > I Don't Want To Be Crazy > Status Update

I am in a house.
I am in one room
and my anxiety is in another.
It’s close.
I can feel it.
I can go to it.
But I won’t.

But shouldn’t a limitless possibility of bad
open the spectrum
for a limitless possibility of good?

It’s hard to tell what would have been—
what I would have been,
if I never had anxiety disorder.

I must remember
all bad nights come to an end.
The pain eventually goes away.

When I bend down to look at his books,
he says Henry Miller is his favorite.
I smile and tell him mine is Anaïs Nin.
Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin were lovers.

My mother must think I’m blaming them,
but that’s not what I tried to say.
I wanted them to understand
that their words have weight—
that the things they do and say
contribute to my anxiety.

The next time I see Jean she explains
that panic attacks
are part of “fight or flight,
”the body’s natural reaction to danger,
only I get confused.
I think there’s danger when there isn’t.

I have resigned myself to the fact that I have gone insane. I am too tired to keep fighting the empty feeling in my stomach and the buzzing in my head.

Maybe I’m getting sick or maybe I’m finally addicted to cigarettes.
This feeling, the sweating, the shaking—it must be a nicotine fit.
I go outside with the other smokers, suck down a few cigarettes before class, hoping it will make me feel better, hoping it will calm my nerves.