On "Surviving"

With nine minutes left in the session, I finally say it. It's safe now that I can't be trapped in it for too long. It comes out in one long breath:

"The nightmares are terrible. And the sleep paralysis. I’m awake but my brain doesn't tell me that I am. And I'm panicking and screaming but no sound is coming out because I can't make my body work. Then by the time I wake up for real, I really am screaming."

He nods. Addresses my sleep paralysis first.

"You know it's the autonomic nervous system. It's slow to wake up sometimes, even though your brain is leaving REM sleep. It takes too long to catch up. It makes you feel paralyzed. It's easier if you can remember that it's just a malfunction our bodies have sometimes. It's just the autonomic nervous system."

I know this. We've talked about it many times before. I've read about it, too. Some people see demons sitting on their chests when it happens to them: all glowing red eyes and wet snouts and terrible grunting, pressing the air from their bodies with unimaginable force.

My demons are less prescriptive, I guess.

When there are only three minutes left, I say what I have been on the edge of saying for the last 57.

"The other night, I had one. A nightmare. With the sleep paralysis. Only someone was choking me. Someone...he was. He was there, choking me. I couldn't wake up."

He nods again. His voice is gentle.

"You know what that one is referencing. The choking. You know what it's about."

"Yes," I say, and I start to rise. To leave. "And now I have to go. Time is up and you have another cl..." but he is already talking again:

"But you survived that. You survived, probably because of the decisions you made to keep yourself alive. Remember that. You ought to be congratulated for that. To congratulate yourself for that."

My eyes meet his for only a fraction of a second. I can't bear the kindness looking back at me.

"Of course. Yes. Have a good week."

"You too," he says, but his voice is floating on the air between us, because I’m already out the door. I've already reached the stairs. I'm already gone.

—------—

I saw him once. Years after it happened; more than a decade. He was walking into the mall, toward the pet store, a small, clear plastic tank dangling from his right hand. I wondered stupidly if it contained a hermit crab that had died and needed to be exchanged. Is that something that happens? Or maybe he had just come prepared to purchase...what? Some tiny animal? It occurred to me that he might have children, now. Maybe the pet was for them. I couldn't make myself look away from the tank's bright-green handle, intertwined with his thick fingers. It shocked me that he could carry something so small and delicate, that the plastic did not crack and crumble at his touch. The way I did, or had wanted to. Hadn't those fingers squeezed the life from my body? Well. Almost.

But here he was. A pet-store dad. Maybe.

—------—

The word doesn’t bother me much, when I hear it. Not now. I decided long ago to wear it like armor instead. When it springs from the lips of those who debate its legal implications on the news, it only stings a little - I am stronger than it. I know its power and I have beaten it. I’m an advocate, an ally, a survivor. I can even keep my eyes on the TV, mostly.

When teenagers make a joke of it, I’m stern. I speak candidly about the lack of humor in “real things that happen to real people”. They listen. I don’t. I say the words without letting them in. I speak from a position of detached understanding. I’m eloquent. They’re moved. We move. Forward.

When young people come to me to say they’ve joined the worst, most secret club on earth, I’m understanding. I’m official. I’m a mandated reporter. I’m a hand to hold and ears to hear and eyes to rest softly on their tear-stained faces so they know I’m not embarrassed, that I won’t ask them to carry shame for what’s been done to them. I advocate for their safety. I remind them that every feeling is okay; that everything they’re experiencing is normal in the least normal situation imaginable. I tell them they are safe, now. I hope and pray that someday, they will feel that this is true.

I no longer sink to the floor and suck in air that feels like poison, desperate for reprieve, dizzy and cold. I no longer feel as if I’m under a spotlight when people mention the subject - flaming cheeks and eyes glued to the floor, hoping that the moment will pass quickly, certain that I will vomit if it doesn’t.

I can even say it out loud, sometimes.

But sometimes, for a second, it’s not hypothetical. There is no distance between me and it. It claws at me and I beat it back, down down down down. Back to where it came from. Back to the past.

And in those moments, it is always reluctant to go.

—------—