I am lying in the fetal position in my bed. Eyes wide, I stare at the fan blowing dust around. It feels like insects are crawling through my innards. My head unconsciously moves side to side. Hair crumples then smoothes, crumples then smoothes. A wet spot grows on the pillow.
“I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”
I sound like a child refusing to eat their vegetables. My breath hitches and I inhale spit. And I can’t stop the fear.
Two minutes ago I had been sitting up, talking on the phone, acting normal. Being normal. Then I said yes. Not to anything weird or illegal. I said yes to a job interview.
Yep, something I’ve been asking for people to give me for the past two months of unemployment sent me into a tizzy. An anxiety fuelled, irrational, inexcusable, tizzy.
A simple request for an interview, something I’ve done many, many times over the years, reduced me to a weepy, childlike, shadow of myself. No longer am I the owner of a Bachelor’s degree in psychology. I’m not an adult woman who took care of her elders for the majority of her life. I’m not even the author of a story that was published in her university’s literary journal of no renown.
From the moment I gave into the anxiety, I believe I became a failure of a person. Unable to handle reality. Unable to be me.
People ask me why I hate myself. This is only one of the reasons.
