The Home I Know: Anxiety
Chapter 6
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PART II: HURT
“There is really nothing more to say—except why.
But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.”
~ Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
Chapter 6: Anxiety
I could feel his arms around me, the pressure of his body pushing against my body. He, tall and broad and strong, and me, small and narrow and weak. Voiceless, I had no power. It was as if even my fists, fighting for space from him, just a bit of distance, melted when they met his skin. I wanted it to end, but I couldn’t stop it. And he wouldn’t stop.
Then I woke up.
~ ~ ~
Life at LMU began swimmingly, literally. On the outside anyway. Most mornings, I arose with the sun then gobbled down microwavable oatmeal to ingest just enough carbohydrates to get my body through practice without throwing up. I walked to the pool, jumped in and swam, passed balls and scrimmaged. As I grew weary of this work, I recalled my commitment to my father six months or so before by my bedside. He had pulled up a chair near those four darkly stained wooden posts and the floral comforter in my childhood bedroom and leaned in to listen.
“I would like college to be a fresh start,” I expressed. “To get to know the activities that the university offers instead of committing so much time and energy to water polo. So, I’d like to quit,” I finished.
“What will I do if I don’t have your games to go to?” He replied immediately. “If I don’t get to meet the other parents, how will I make friends? Besides, you owe the coach one year after he invited you to play on the team.” He concluded, “This isn’t just about you, Annie.”
So I just kept going: waking up, eating oatmeal, dragging myself across campus, diving into swim, attending classes, returning to the gym to lift, then finally heading back to bed to rest. The perks and privileges of being a student athlete benefited me, as the administrators invited us to choose our classes before others to ensure our schedules remained free around practice and game times. I could cut class if necessary to travel with my team to compete far away, or be released early to play against an opposing school in our campus pool.
But more importantly than both of these things, I was cool. Popular. My peers recognized me as a unique beauty with strong shoulders, sun kissed cheeks, and auburn hair that wisped into bangs at my brow and waved gently by my breasts. Every Sunday, I attended mass at the Sacred Heart Chapel and bonded with other Catholics on campus. My teachers, too, celebrated me in the classroom. My eagerness to earn good grades and my curiosity to learn inspired them to call on me with questions. Suddenly, I felt smart effortlessly.
Surprisingly, this new-found popularity brought a level of attention my direction that I wasn’t quite accustomed to. Guys eyed me on the street, others asked me out in class or cornered me at social events. College parties filled me with stress in a way that I could not express nor tolerate: the smell of beer on breath, smoke filling the air, sexuality seeping through the room like heat. While everyone else seemed to be having fun flirting and drinking and being free, I felt an outside-of-my-body sensation. As if I needed to be alert, needed to hover over my own head, so I could observe absolutely everything.
My deepening depression and anxiety manifested in near constant picking and scratching at my skin. My body started lightly shaking from the inside out during the day, while my dreams filled with violent scenes when I slept at night. Terrors haunted me repeatedly of a man trying to rape me. I attempted to push him away, but never had the power to do so. Nearly every morning, I woke up debilitated. As if my brain were ready to arise, but my body stayed stuck and still from the memory of the night. When my mind finally became aware I was awake, I shook my body in place until it joined me in its arisen state.
I would rather be murdered than raped. I thought.
More and more, the symptoms that I could mostly keep a secret began to sweep into my public life. This sense that something was taking over my body terrified me. Tears poured down my cheeks in the middle of class. I locked myself in closets or behind bathroom doors to hide my spontaneous meltdowns. As soon as the sunset, I ran across campus in fear I might be snatched and raped. Practice and classes, meals and masses kept me distracted, but these conditions that I had less and less control over felt overwhelming.
What is wrong with me?
My father’s cousin worked at a medical center nearby. So I went to him to discuss the sudden severity of my mental decline. He sat across from me and shared more hidden histories of the health of our family.
“You know, Annie,” he began mournfully. “Many of my uncles died from substance use issues, and one by suicide. Most of our family members use psychiatric medications to manage symptoms like anxiety, depression, and paranoia. You may consider asking the family about it.”
I absorbed this information with a heavy curiosity. My father had mentioned the deaths of his uncles when I was younger, so I had stayed away from alcohol and drugs, but also had never been encouraged to seek therapy or consider medication. But now that I was in college and miles away from home, these issues became unmanageable and hindered my success as a student, my social life, and my self-perception.
“Why don’t you consider counseling and medication to treat your symptoms?” The doctor asked.
“No, of course not!” I replied defensively.
Therapy is for crazy people, and I am NOT crazy. I thought. Medication is for sick people, and I am NOT sick. What would my neighbors think of me back in Newport Beach where I was expected to present so perfectly? How would I tell them that while my college years thus far had been such a success in some ways, in others I felt as if I were losing myself, my mind, my body?
The only thing that seemed to settle my anxiety was returning to the Sacred Heart Chapel. The student mass held late Sunday evenings reminded me most of home. While my living situation, teachers, and campus slowly became more and more familiar, the smells of incense inside the church, the rows of oiled wooden pews, and the Christ hanging from the cross above the altar soothed me with their consistency. I recognized the ritual and the melodies to the music. I knew when to stand up, to sit down, to kneel. I said just what I needed to say when I needed to say it.
A priest on campus gave me a key to the various chapels, so that I could pray during all hours of the day. Regardless which church I chose, I found myself alone late into the evening entering those big wooden doors, blessing my body with water, then laying on the floor near the altar so I could stare directly at the man hanging from the cross.
“What is wrong with me?” I asked him desperately.
With my health becoming more debilitating, my childhood craving for salvation returned urgently. I needed to learn more about this Christ who could save me, so I committed to pursuing a degree in Theology, “The study of God.” My life felt so much bigger than me, and I needed to know exactly what God the Father wanted for me. Surely, God didn’t save me from seizures all those years ago, so I could become so sick again at the nascency of my adult life.
~ ~ ~
The end of my freshman year came near, and I received an invitation to play water polo at NCAA championships at the University of Michigan. I called my parents to share the good news: I was only one of a few other freshmen who would travel with the team. My father answered.
“You never call. You never write. After all I’ve done for you! I’ve kept a roof over your head and food on your table. You don’t have to work through college because of the trust fund I gave you.”
I froze, as I wondered why he met me with this instant critique. I was everything he expected me to be: an A student, a Division I collegiate athlete, a natural beauty, a devoted Catholic. Quickly, I reminded him that relationships are two-sided. He never called, he never wrote to me either. I tried to communicate with him how disconnected I had always felt from him.
“Well, you know,” he defended. “You don’t make millions by getting to know your children.”
I changed the subject, “So I was invited to travel with the team for NCAA championships.”
“Oh,” his tone changed to excitement, “Should we fly out, Annie?” I was surprised he gave me a choice.
“No, I probably won’t play and there’s always next year.”
Without my parents and with my team, I flew to Michigan. Before the game began, the referees lined up my teammates in order of number, then introduced us. Pride filled me when I heard my name, “Anne Marie,” sound like a refrain against the indoor pool walls and rafters, as I represented a university I came to know as home. I did, indeed, sit the bench most games of the tournament. Until the very last game, when my coach called me:
“Annie, get in!”
Surprised to be granted this opportunity as a Freshman, I dove into the pool, felt the water drench my skin, and lined up in the middle with my teammates. The referee blew the whistle, and we swam. Starting on offense, we shaped ourselves into two lines of three close to the cage. Someone threw the ball to me, and I quickly shot it right past the goalie and into the net. The crowd went wild in celebration. I knew in this instant that I was ready to end my water polo career.
When I returned to the bluff by the sea at Loyola Marymount University, I headed into my coach’s office to tell him I would be on deck for the very last time. He tried to convince me to stay, promising me significantly more game time in the upcoming season. But I was ready to choose a future beyond the dreams of my father. So I walked away from my daily visits to the pool deck, the microwaved morning oatmeal, the weight lifting, and the home and away games. For the first time, I was free to pursue my own destiny. Free to sever the obligations of the endless striving just to keep my head above water.
