I want to stop this, but I can’t.
Instead, I look at the alarm clock across from my bed: 3 a.m. I’ve been awake for hours. Sweat glistens on my skin. I clutch the sheets as my heart gallops so hard I feel my carotid artery pulsing in my neck. My body hungers for air, yet all I can muster is a shallow inhale. Punishing thoughts race through my mind. How could you be so stupid? Now they’ll see exactly who you are and kick you out.
Nine hours earlier, I’d replied to an email from one of my professors. New to graduate school, this professor and my coveted assistantship, I wanted to make a good impression. But I’d typed “their” when I meant “they’re” and only noticed the error after it was too late to unsend the message. Panicking, I dashed off a second reply, apologizing for the mistake.
At first, the mea culpa felt like enough. Soon, whispers of doubt washed in, then more and more, until the swell became a tidal wave that overwhelmed me with the urge to apologize yet again for this mistake, for cluttering my professor’s inbox with a second email, for being accepted into a master’s in counseling program, and maybe even for existing.
I want to dig a hole, crawl in and never resurface.
Eventually, my body gives in to exhaustion and I fall into a dreamless sleep.
The next morning, my professor replies, “Great work. Don’t worry about the typo. I’m sure you’ll find one of mine soon enough.”
I exhale. Humiliation replaces my terror as I realize I made a big deal out of nothing. Again.
That incident happened in 2009, yet I’d repeated this cycle endlessly throughout my life. In the middle of a dinner where it’s clear my friend doesn’t like the restaurant I’ve chosen. Hours after asking my boss for a raise. The night following a big reading, my mind stuck on a word I stumbled over. The nakedly vulnerable moment I clicked the link for my first publication. Every single one left me quaking as I succumbed to a terrible, yet familiar force. A wise part of me knows this is an overreaction — that whatever I’ve done is either benign, no big deal or possibly good — but to my jacked-up nervous system, these events are death-penalty-level infractions.
If I talked about it to my therapist at the time, I probably said something like, “I was triggered last night.” That I felt possessed by something beyond my control is a detail I’d never offer. Besides, I knew I didn’t have to. I’d learned to mask this problem so well most…
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