Rylie's Story

Clack, cl-cl-clackclack.

The psychiatrist across from me recorded notes in her laptop as I sat on her couch. Her office and all was cozy and bright and her laptop gleamed with a professional glow, but she handled herself with a warmer professionalism which intimidated and comforted me. I didn’t think that I would ever end up actually seeing a professional, and to see what used to be such an abstract concept in front of me, in the flesh, was like a dream.

“So what brings you here? I’ve heard some cliff-notes from your therapist, but I want to hear it in your words,” she asked.

I fidgeted with the hair tie on my wrist. Well...

My entire life I have been a people pleaser. I fear letting people down, and sometimes that fear leads me to disappoint others more. I’ve taken to perfectionism since at least those fifth grade days where I stayed up until midnight on put-off book reports and I’m sure the habit is rooted somewhere deep in me, like a choking weed. I get along with my peers just fine but avoid confrontation like the plague and will take the long way around if it means I can get out of asking an adult for a favor.

Over the years, I settled deeper and deeper into my ways, allowing weeds to slowly grow through my garden because I was afraid of the dirty earth that would peek through if I removed them so the flowers would grow better. Junior year and I was buried in homework and relationships that I was stuck in because I couldn’t handle the painful confrontation to set healthy boundaries for myself. I cried every day until it became as natural as breathing, and I imagined more and more creatures around myself. I felt I was beginning to slip into a reality between the gaps, a reality filled with creatures who wanted to slam my bones into the walls and ooze which flowed thickly over my scalp. I was scared. I didn’t know how to handle the strange feelings of terror and helplessness around me, and I went into therapy after my closest attempt to end my life in order to try and figure it out.

Click click! Clack!

After some personality inventory tests and speaking with my therapist, I was finally with the psychiatrist, her seated across from me. I hoped for clarification. Within a single hour long session, I finally had some.

Some people experience anxiety through illness, some through exhaustion, others through self isolation, but I used my creative little mind to imaginatively visualize my stress, which can become self deprecating and self violent. I didn’t have any sort of psychosis as I feared, but I did have some sort of anxiety and my controlling voice was far louder than my self supporting, pleasure seeking voice. I understood myself better, and self understanding equipped me with tools to recover from anxiety, tools that I never thought I would have.

Be patient and attentive. Help comes in different forms when we need it, and for me it just happened to be in the form of a little slip of paper written by a psychiatrist with options for the future. Even after years and years of neglect towards our own gardens, they flourish once we seek to work on removing the weeds so that the flowers can spread their leaves toward the sun.