Don't be Scared. It's just me.
There is nothing quite asinsidious, as malevolently evil, as a mind that attacks a body. A mind thatbecomes the Monster and you, Dr. Frankenstein. You can’t pinpoint it —the veryfaint, quick sizzling sound that electrical wires make when they short-circuit.You can’t even hear it, but you can absolutely experience the results.
That’sthe way it was for Rob.
Nowarning.
Hewas swimming laps one day, when suddenly there was a searing pain down hissternum. Panic flooded over him, and he thought, at the age of 27, he washaving a heart attack in the pool of the YMCA. At the local ER, he was lookedat like the fool he felt himself to be: “Nothing wrong with your heart.”
In that instant was the sizzle; themind found a weakness to exploit, and for the next decade, it did nothing but twistand torture Rob.
Hemarried and, over time, had three children. They had moved at least five timesdue to his work, and while the noise of life would sometimes drown out theVoice in his head, eventually, it triumphed. A sort of mental Pac-Man that endlesslygobbled up his sanity daily, leaving a trail of anxiety, fear, and extremelydark thoughts.
Hewould touch his breastbone all the time.
Wouldtoday be the day? Today would be the day.
Hewould put on a phony smile and walk his kids to school, then come home and lieon the couch, paralyzed by what the day might bring—or rather, by what theVoice told him it would bring. When the pain was the worst, he would say“Fuck it,” and take his dog out for a run, and not around the block, but formiles and miles, just to see if he would die.
A sort of DIY stress-test.
Whenhe came home, full of sweat and the anxiety just incrementally better, theVoice would come back with a vengeance, an avenging angel, and shriek insidehis head. His remedy was to take the door to the basement and bang his headagainst it, trying to kill the Voice or drift into unconsciousness.
Robdiscovered that what he had was costochondritis, an inflammation at the pointwhere the rib joins to the sternum, which is definitely not fatal. But bythis time, despite telling himself this over and over again, the Voice justkept whispering, “Oh no it’s not, oh no it’s not.” The constant dialoguewithin himself very nearly drove him to suicide.
Itwas an internal tug of war, but the Voice was stronger.
Hetried no end of anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs, and medicine for bi-polardisease.
Hemade an appointment to see his priest one wintry afternoon. He and his sonwalked to the priest’s office, where the priest listened to Rob-for ten minutesbefore dozing off. The priest must have started to choke on his own saliva, wokeup, fumbled a bit, and muttered something about praying the Psalms.
Thanks…Father.
Heread Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, the Psalms, and an endless supply of self-helpbooks from Amazon; all of this only seemed to enrage the Voice more. It wantedtotal domination, everything, the totality of his being.
Prayerwas a joke.
Heworked part-time in a small family-owned pharmacy as a technician, and he oftenhelped himself to a benzodiazepine. The problem with any drug-based scheme isthat it can dull the Voice, but it can’t kill it. You can hold a whip and chairin front of a lion, but the minute your guard is down, well.
Rob’slife became a roller-coaster of fear; there were peaks and valleys, but theVoice was a continual presence.. He did his best to keep the fear that wasconsuming him alive hidden from his family, especially his kids, but it wasbecoming debilitating. It was as if there was always a serial killer lurking inthe recesses of his mind, waiting to jump out and attack him relentlessly, andhe was defenseless.
Theproblem with the Voice was its irrationality.
Agun in your face, that’s rational.
Theft-that’s rational.
Alife-threatening injury, that too is rational.
Butthe fear of what appeared to be nothing. High levels of anxiety over what?Banging your head into a basement door over what-exactly? Then, try to describewhat you are going through to someone- anyone.
Irrational.
Andyet your irrationality.
Hecouldn’t “see” it; he couldn’t show it to someone; he couldn’t touch it, andyet it lurked in every inch of his body.
Thenhe made a decision: he would go to the seminary and become an Anglican priest.If he did something for God, surely God would do something for him.
TheVoice only chuckled silently.
Hisfamily supported the decision—at least to his face.
Forfour years, the Voice was subdued. He was consumed with work; being a soldierof the cross was hard work. No ask too great for Jesus.
Onward…Christiansoldier.
Robcould count the number of times on one hand that he touched his sternum. Maybethere was a God.
Thenight came, he found out where he was being sent, and he was elated.
Thenhe arrived and began a very slow, very deliberate, excruciating descent into depressionas the Voice returned.
Missme?
BecauseI missed you.
ButRob had a new advocate, one that didn’t require a prescription, a judge todeclare him sane, or more time spent in an institution.
Hebegan an affair with alcohol, and as luck would have it, six blocks down thealley from the rectory was the village tavern.
Itwas a sign from God.
Asfate would have it, he was a good priest. The same Voice that tormented him,caused him those sleepless nights, made regular deposits of anxiety, flewaround his head like a swarm of angry bees, gifted him with panic attacks sosevere he had to pull his car off the road, also made him exceedingly human, itmade him understand the struggles that people go through, it made himvulnerable.
While weakened, he hadn’t beendestroyed.
Notall fear involves something tangible, something that can be seen, or somethingthat is rational. Sometimes, fear lurks around in places that aren’t seen, notthe first place we might suspect.
Toothers, what Rob fears appears to be “irrational”—you know, “Suck it upbuttercup.” And yet, for him, it was soul-crushing.
Robdecided that if he couldn’t silence the Voice, he would learn to coexist withit.
Hesurvived.
He’ssober, or at least reasonably so.
Heno longer takes medications, save for Stoli’s.
Hisfamily doesn’t hate him, at least not much.
Heleft the priesthood.
Hestills goes down to that same tavern and listens to people; they still talk tohim.
Hehelps who he can.
Buthe understands, and the Voice knows it.
He’sno longer the pushover he once was.
He’sno psychologist, but he understands now that the irrational is just astangible, just as deadly, and just as destructive as the rational.
Andsometimes, the ones who survive it are the ones who know how to listen.
Andsometimes, the ones who survive it are the ones who can see the irrationality.