“Now breathe deeply and feel your muscles relax. Feel each part of your body melt. Stay conscious of your breathing…”
Just the thought of breathing manually and melting and “fully relaxing” makes me want to smack my head multiple times over just to…I don’t know, shake those thoughts out of my brain, I guess. I want to start scratching at my face, and all of the sudden the air I’m thinking about and forcing myself to breathe isn’t filling my lungs enough, and I thought I relaxed my muscles, but apparently I didn’t and now I’m trying to relax them more, and it hurts [Why does it hurt?], and I don’t want to melt, and why isn’t it working, and isn’t this supposed to be helping and-
And I can’t just take a deep breath and calm down.
My therapist tells me that I should do this for anxiety regulation. For the anxiety I do not yet have at the time. For the anxiety caused by this stupid exercise. I can hear her, but chances are, I won’t remember a word she’s said by the time I get picked up by my mom. My brain takes a lovely little stroll out of my head and my lazy eye becomes apparent as I stare at the tissue box- No. Staring past it. Past the table, past the floor, past the underworld itself, past anything tangible. I guess it’s normal for a 12-year-old with ADHD. Zoning out and stuff.
I get into my mom’s white car and contemplate the most important decision in my little life; asking if I can drop my therapist. When she asks me why incredulously, I look at the dirty carpeted floor and mumble my “I dunno I just don’t click with her or somethin’.” I zone out as she paces around the room, talking in between sighs about costs, “are you sure?”, and something about “what if you still need it?”. She gives me a reluctant yes, but I can’t seem to celebrate something that clearly made her life harder.
By the time I’m a 13-year-old with ADHD, my mother is convinced there’s something wrong with me. More wrong with me. I mean, she’s not wrong, but she’s concerned about all the wrong things. She’s concerned about my ability to make friends that are like me. Trans. She’s concerned I’m too angry. Maybe I am. She’s concerned that me staying inside is going to kill me somehow. Like I’m a finicky plant that thrives on sunshine and social interaction. Missed that bulls-eye by a mile. But it seems nice, anyway. Friends that, while still online, are more tangible than my faceless mutual with a bright neon rainbow Ibuki profile picture.
“Now breathe deeply and feel your muscles relax. Feel each part of your body melt. Stay conscious of your breathing…”
This time, I’m less panicky, but God, am I mad. Why is this required for a therapy group? I am told to keep my camera on, to have no distractions including drawings, phones, iPads, or even fidget toys, and I am told I have to participate.
I feel so bored and yet so overwhelmed and I want to bite something and throw my phone across the room, so I do. I throw it, screen already cracked, into my metal closet door, and sit in the corner, ears plugged and teeth sunk into my knee. After my eyes have had enough of being squeezed shut, I look past everything again. I zone out.
