By Sarah Ledet
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brief mentions of self-harm, disordered eating, and dissociation
hello. welcome. we are here. well, you are here and not here which is why you are avoiding therapy in the first place, sometimes you swear if you made an appointment with a therapist it wouldn't matter, they wouldn’t be able to see you sitting in the chair, so you don't call CAPS. sit in your room dissociating for that hour instead, but that's not really the point of this so hello hi welcome. step 1: you’re fine! you’re fine! and you've always been fine! because you listen to your father saying: “just don’t let the anxiety get you down, i’m not telling you not to feel it, but you can’t let that kind of stuff stop you from doing things. you just buck up and handle it.” you’re fine, you see how clearly fine he is and based on his established sliding scale of functionality, you, too, are fine. just fine. ignore the thoughts. repeat to yourself: this is fine. step 2: listen to really loud music. eardrum cracking, decibel fracturing, hearing aids with health insurance aren’t that expensive, right? but that's from your grandfather, who got them from your dead aunt for free so maybe he isn't so reliable. if the music is loud there’s no room for the “you don’t need lunch” voices, the “grab the scissors” voices, the “you can stay up a little later just drink an extra coffee in the morning” voices. the david bowie singing oh you pretty thing voices, driving mama insane voices, the but what if i already am? voices. insane, that is. step 3: fashion! clothes! the queer defense, next to arctic fox hair dye and brass knuckle collections of rings. you make your clothes loud, louder than your music which is already threatening to bring cinder blocks cracking around sanity but who cares? it's fine. fine. as long as you can stomp passive aggression and patriarchy into the ground when you shake too sharply to say “that isn’t something i can handle today.” if you dress loud enough “gay” enough art enough cool enough someone will tell you they like your outfit. you’ll ride that high for the rest of the afternoon, until you cuddle up with your girlfriend and watch subbed shows from an illegal site, then fall into fistfuls of fitful sleep. step 4: today i’m not fine? the voices are loud this morning. louder still when you remember you aren’t at home with a sliding scale to measure yourself against. your cuticles are raw this morning. you text your best friend this morning, ask if she can come hold you this morning because you are worrying apart and this might be the time you shake apart so hard you slip apart but you call her and she comes. she always comes. you thank the god childhood you believed in for blessing you with one that always comes. step 5: i am not fine. you schedule the triage you know you will thank yourself for later. the voice stretching over the phone is kind. the voice is always kinder when it's not your own. they cannot see you sitting on your bed, under weighted blanket and weightier expectations of yourself, but they know you exist. they hear your voice, they will see you in the chair. you let yourself be visible, breathable, expandable, show devastation and triumph and a flourishing signature on a release form saying “yes, it's okay that my parents know i’m here.”
sarah rose ledet is an undergraduate at susquehanna university studying creative writing and publishing and editing. speculative fiction is the cave their writing calls home. one day, they hope to be paid to drink coffee and observe people on a park bench. you can find them on twitter @srledet02 and on instagram at @sarah.ledet.
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