Numb

Getting home later that morning, I peeled my flats off in the doorway. They were uncomfortably awkward in form now. The padded, faux leathery soles were still dampened through. Quietly squishing under every step I took. But the black canvas fabric wrapped around my feet was crunchy. Hardened, and starch-like having spent the night drying beneath a radiator. The mixture of ice and street salt from walking in the snow had dyed them like an abstract painting; white splotches stained them all over. I felt suddenly nauseous at the sight of them. At the shape and appearance of each splattered mark.

Marching over, I picked them up by heels to dispose of them. Swallowing the feeling of bile rising around the lump in my throat, I barreled down the stairs. Hearing them thud into the bottom of my metal trash can, I felt no relief. My mind was storming. My chest felt like it shrunk in size, too small for my lungs which couldn’t fully expand within. My clothes, suddenly constrictive, made me unbearably hot. Skin crawling, itching for air beneath them. I felt my breaths had become shortened, and heavy when I started stripping down right there in the garage.

My speed was not lending any aid or reassurance as my hands trembled on each zipper, button and clasp. Sweat began to glisten across every pore when I’d felt I was slowly sinking into quicksand I couldn’t escape. Savagely, I started ripping and clawing at cloth and threads. Shedding layer after layer. Hearing the ping of the button flying off my skinny Levi’s and hitting the concrete, I wrestled the denim down my thighs. Stamping my bare feet and kicking my legs free from their compressed binding. Desperate to get them off me. Finally, I tore at the back of my bra with violent force until the hooks mangled in shape and posture. The back bands springing outwards in recoil, as if they were bungee cords. Free from fiber restraints, I folded forward like a lawn chair. Dry heaving with my knees to my chest, and hand over my breasts to keep my now floating bra in place.

After some time passed and my breaths slowly became softer and easier, I gently lowered my knees to the dusty garage floor. And with one arm, I began pulling the discarded and tattered clothing remains towards me. Crawling to reach the pieces of garments just out of reach. Tightly balling them up to place in the trash atop my shoes, and quietly dropping the metal lid back on the barrel when I was done.

Later, I woke to find the sun had long since fallen after I’d slept the entire day away. In between my sporadic melt downs, with a million musings per minute, there was shattering silence. I felt unbearably numb. How can someone have so many thoughts, and at the same time, none at all? I couldn’t comprehend what happened to cause this, or what I was becoming.

Years later, as I sat across from my therapist, I admitted I didn’t know why I was there. Or what therapy was even for. She referred to our sessions as peeling a stubborn onion. Gently folding back layer by layer to get to the heart of the problems.

“Problems? Plural?!” I said with a soft laugh.

“Mm. I don’t believe anxiety is a singular surface problem for you. I think you may have underlying difficulties." She sat in a regal pose, heels delicately crossed over one another. Cradling her chin between her thumb and her index finger.

“Well, jeez. If it's as many as you’re alluding to, do you think we can speed things along and peel three or four layers in an hour's time here, or what?” Her lips pulled back in the corners without her smile reaching her eyes. I squeezed the red stress ball in my fist, feeling it morph in the spaces between my fingers before I unfurled. Placing it back on her desk, besides Newton's Cradle.

“I’d like to try. That depends entirely on you.” She rubbed her thumb under her chin, before centering it again.

“So…The onions in my court?” I said. The smile reached her eyes this time, before she looked down at her clipboard.

“Why don’t we start with the encounters of sexual exploitation?” I felt any sign of a smile fall from my own eyes, as I dropped my gaze to her desk top again. I lifted one of the small, silver balls hanging by thin wire as high as I could before dropping it. Watching the small, silver ball on the other side as it sat peacefully in place; before the inevitable collision reaction to come. Then, they clicked back and forth. Each one, their own, and the others cause and effect.

“When, or where did it all start?” She continued.

“I...I don’t know.” I felt like she didn’t believe me. Or that I owed more of an explanation.

“I was numb at the time.”