“So I do,” he said, a playful look on his face. He tapped on the screen and my phone started to ring. He smiled at me and nodded toward my phone.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Just so you know, I don’t text.”
“Oh no?” I asked both perplexed and amused.
“Nope - nothing like words without inflection to cause distance and misunderstanding.”
“Well,” I said, “thanks for letting me know…Good talk!” I grinned, narrowing my eyes playfully at him.
“Yeah, you too. I really like talking to you. Bye.” He was still smiling when he slipped his phone back into his back pocket.
“See you second hour,” I said.
“I’m looking forward to it; I missed you yesterday,” he confided. He took a step closer, causing my heart to beat faster, leaned down and kissed me. His lips were warm and sweet; he tasted like peppermint. “Can we make this official?” he asked.
“Official?” I asked playfully.
A small smile spread across his face lighting up his eyes. “Will you be my girlfriend Amy Lockhart?” he asked seriously.
“Hmm,” I teased, studying his face. The subtle curve of his upper lip relaxed as the seconds slipped by. I reached up and placed a hand on either side of his jaw and pulled his face toward mine. “Of course,” I whispered.
He leaned in the rest of the way and kissed me again. “Get a room!” Nolan interrupted with a wink and a playful shove. I stuck out my tongue toward him and nestled my head against James as we headed to first hour. I couldn’t help but feel giddy; James was such a bright presence in my life. The endless winter, the slushy wet slop in the streets, the painful memories of Lisa, my anxiety and the homework load of our senior year were all made a little bit better by the cute brown-eyed boy who waited for me each morning. And now he was mine - officially.
…
As I was leaving 3rd period, an office helper came down the hall by the gym and handed me a sealed envelope. Not thinking about the contents, I popped the seal and pulled out my appointment time for Mrs. Millen. I tucked it back in my bag as quickly as possible and waited for the bell.
Study Hall approached faster than I wanted it to, and I trudged down to the office for my appointment. In some ways, I was dreading having to talk about “my anxiety,” as Mr. Monson put it, yet at the same time I was hopeful; maybe she could help. The door was shut, and unlike every other door in the building, Mrs. Millen’s door had a thick curtain blocking the glass. Her office was located inside of the main office between the athletic director’s office and a supply room. There were two chairs in the hall, and I realized with a sinking feeling that the person before me was still in there; meaning I would see him or her and he or she would see me. Pretending that this was no big deal, I dug through my bag and found my assignment notebook. I was pretending to study it when the door swung open. I breathed a sigh of relief when I didn’t recognize the student. He was young, probably a freshman. My secret would be safe with him.
“Come on in Amy.” Mrs. Millen smiled and motioned me into her office. It was similar to Mr. Monson's. The same Barnes and Noble chairs were positioned around a coffee table like we were going to have a book club. She walked over to her filing cabinet, pulled out a skinny manila folder and sat down across from me. I could tell that this was my “file;” right now it was empty, and I felt like bolting. I wanted to say, “You have this all wrong.” But I didn’t leave; instead I took sip from the glass of water she handed me and settled into the chair.
At first our conversation greatly resembled the chat I had with Mr. Monson; however, when I got to the part about driving around the block to make sure I hadn’t hit someone or something, Mrs. Millen straightened up in her seat.
“How many times do you circle the block when this happens?” she asked.
“Usually two or three, but sometimes I’ll look again when I’m on my way home from where I was headed,” I admitted.
“And on a scale of one to ten, how upset can this make you?”
If I dug deep, the honest answer was pretty upset. I thought about the day I drove out to the preserve - how I watched the news as soon as I got home - afraid that I’d run over the construction worker’s foot. Then there was Valentine’s Day, when I dwelt and stewed about the bump on Maple Street. “Honestly…probably a seven or eight,” I said, my voice sounding small.
She had me detail the instances to her and asked similar questions about my germ fears. She gave those fears a name: “contamination fears.” After listening for a while she asked me, “Do you remember ever feeling this level of anxiety before?”
“Not really,” I responded truthfully.
“Well Amy, Mr. Monson mentioned to you that you might be having some anxiety issues right?”
“Yeah, he said that.”
She continued carefully, “Anxiety is another word for fear, and I’m afraid as a society we only think of panic attacks and nervous breakdowns when we talk about anxiety; but there are many other forms, and I think you’re experiencing one of those.”
“Okay,” I said. I got the impression that she was tiptoeing around something, but I had no idea what.
“Have you ever heard of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?”
“Yes,” I said slowly. Images of people counting things relentlessly and organizing their socks in rainbow order filled my mind. “Why? You don’t think I have that do you?” I asked incredulously.
“I know it sounds scary, but let me explain.”
“It doesn’t sound scary,” I interrupted. “But I don’t count things or have to have things very clean.”
Mrs. Millen smiled patiently, and I felt bad for interrupting her. She continued, “OCD manifests itself in many different ways. But basically, an unwelcome thought enters your brain that makes you uncomfortable until you do something about it. For example, you run over a piece of slush, and your brain makes you wonder if you hit someone’s dog. Your brain thinks it’s a real possibility, and it keeps repeating it to you until you go back and check. In a normal brain this would be enough, but when OCD is involved, it only relieves the fear for a moment. It’s like the brain hiccups or bounces back the idea, and you are driven to do it again and again.”
I wasn’t processing what Mrs. Millen was saying. I was still imagining a scene from a movie my dad likes, where this old guy opens several new bars of soap each time he washes his hands. Like soap can get dirty. The idea that I had OCD seemed absurd.
“Now,” she continued. “Movies will have you think that everyone with OCD is a neat freak, but for every neat freak, there is someone who needs to check their homework over and over and others who need to make sure the doors are locked and the faucets are not dripping. Others might fear they have harmed someone accidentally, even if they know they haven’t. The problem with OCD is that it doesn’t allow you to be rational; your brain might know something to be true, but you can’t believe it because of the ‘what ifs’ that OCD creates.”
Listening to Mrs. Millen, it actually sounded like this might be what was happening to me. Still, I had questions, “Well why did this just start now?” I asked incredulously. Why senior year when I was about to graduate? Why when I finally have a shot at dating a really great guy? Why when I’m almost ready to go off to college?
“Sometimes when we are under a great amount of stress, OCD can worsen. It’s likely that you’ve had OCD your whole life or at least the predisposition to it; but perhaps when your Aunt was in the hospital, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.” She paused and looked at me, her eyes full of understanding. “Amy, I’m not saying your aunt being in the accident caused your OCD; it just may have been the final stressor.”
The scene of kissing Lisa and panic that followed flashed quickly through my mind. “Well,” I started, “to be honest, the first time I felt this kind of fear I was at the hospital. I kissed Aunt Lisa and then proceeded to freak-out thinking that I’d make her sick and hurt her chances of surviving.�
�� When I admitted this, my eyes filled instantly, and it felt like I swallowed a golf ball. I was making a terrible habit of crying in counselor’s offices.
Mrs. Millen slid the tissues across the coffee table. I had a fleeting mental image of a classroom filled with future counselors learning the importance of passing the tissue box at the right moment. It took me a few minutes to get myself semi-composed.
“So what now?” I asked. “Am I going to do this stuff forever?” I gulped - trying not to cry again.
“Not at all Amy. There are a lot of things for us to talk about and work through. I think you’ll find that coming in to talk will help you out a lot. I can help you identify your fear thoughts and teach you how to handle them. Then, there is always the possibility of adding medication if you need it; but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This has already been a very good session.”
Mrs. Millen got out of her chair and fished around on her bookshelf. She pulled out a book on OCD and a pamphlet.
“Now Amy, I’m not going to tell your father about our meeting. It is going to be up to you to talk to him.” She paused, “Take your time; when you are ready, you’ll know. The interesting thing about anxiety is that it can run in families. It’s possible that one of your parents, aunts or uncles, or grandparents has dealt with OCD.”
I shuffled the book and pamphlet that she gave me.
“Go ahead and read through those materials on your own time this week. Did this time work out for you? Can we meet again next week?”
I had the sense that the next “client” was out in the hall. The bell was about to ring anyway. “Sure, we can meet next week,” I agreed. Opening my backpack, I slid my calculus book out so that I could hide my new reading materials. When I stood to leave, Mrs. Millen made one last request.
“Amy?”
“Yeah?” I answered.
“Please stop in anytime if you need me. I know it can be very difficult when you’re beginning to deal with and understand something like this. And here,” she added handing me a business card, “This is my cell phone number, call anytime day or night if you need me.”
“Thanks,” I said. I was stunned. I took the card and walked out of the office. For four years I attended this high school, never imagining that deep in the hub of the school office lay this resource. I walked to last period studying the faces of my schoolmates, wondering if any of them had ever needed Mrs. Millen. I imagined her office full of students, hour after hour, day after day, and I began to feel less alone.
Chapter Fourteen
I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.
~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
It was hard for me to think about my meeting with Mrs. Millen and not feel broken. I went from believing that I was a completely normal teenage girl to knowing that something was wrong with me. No longer could I brush off my need to follow the rules as a harmless personality quirk. My brain - something I had always taken for granted - was malfunctioning. Thinking about it made tears well up in my eyes.
After my session, I went home and Googled OCD. When I found out that it was something I’d likely be dealing with forever, I started to bawl. As my tears calmed I read further, and when I found out that the OCD was caused by the serotonin level in my brain, I felt a little bit better. It made me feel relieved that there was a physical reason for it - I wasn’t randomly struck with OCD. After reading posts on an OCD support forum, I was filled with the hope that someday I too would experience the “remission” several of them spoke of. Perhaps Mrs. Millen would be able to help me figure it all out.
As we settled more deeply into the semester, the school days began to pass more quickly. I continued to find it difficult to pay attention in most of my classes. My thoughts tended to snowball out of control, but art was another story; it was my oasis, a piece of calm, a place where I could fall into the rhythm of my paintbrush and the music and everything else faded away.
Our current assignment was to incorporate a quote into a painting. Not putting the words on canvas, but rather have the painting “describe” the quote. For instance, you could paint the quote “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” by painting a person eating apples and a doctor standing far away. Now obviously that would be rather elementary, but it’s just an example. I’d spent a lot of time trying to find something that would work well and have meaning to me and relevance to my life. Lots of ideas came and went mostly because they were too cliché. I wanted something that would ring with some truth, some authenticity. Nothing came to mind the whole time I tried to come up with something. Like many other things in life, the answer came when I stopped looking.
…
A couple weeks after Valentine’s Day, James and I finally got the opportunity to head out on another date. I promised I would pick him up as his car was in the shop. As I approached his house, my nerves were about shot. I wondered if I’d have the ability to keep my anxiety in check long enough to get us to the art museum. I was already sweating - I had circled around his block three times due to a “mystery bump,” all the while hoping that he wasn’t looking out his front window wondering what I was doing.
I was about to get out and ring the bell when the front door swung open, and he made his way down the walk. I grabbed my purse off the passenger seat and tossed it in the back.
“Wow! I could get used to this,” he grinned, “Warm car…beautiful girl…” he winked at me.
I looked him up and down. “You aren’t so bad yourself,” I teased. I shifted the car into reverse.
“And she drives stick,” he said emphatically while slapping his knee. Looking determined he said, “Amy…I have an important question for you.”
“Yes?” I asked amused.
“Will you marry me?”
“Hmm,” I mused. “I’ll think I’ll need at least a couple of years to think on that,” I teased in return.
When we were about half-way to the museum, I needed to change lanes. When I did so, a loud thunk rattled under my back tire. I glanced up in my rear-view mirror, and not seeing anything behind me, kept going. My breathing was steady; I didn’t feel the intense need to go back and check. I paid enough attention to my anxiety patterns to realize that something was different for me. Somehow just having James in the car neutralized my anxiety. I almost felt normal. I managed to drive all the way to the museum without having any OCD moments. It was amazing.
We walked through the halls slowly. Despite having been to the museum dozens of times, this was my first time there with a fellow painter. Hours passed as we meandered through the history of art. Over the years, the art museum has become my sanctuary - my tranquil space. When I paused in front of a Renoir, James settled his hand over the small of my back and rubbed my tense muscles with his thumb.
As I relaxed into him, I savored a quiet moment of appreciation. I’d not had one strong pang of anxiety since I picked him up.
“Too bad it’s practically irrelevant now,” he sighed.
“What is?” I wondered out loud.
“This. Art. I could spend years mastering all the ideas of light, reflection, perspective…and believe me I can get lost for hours, days on end, without taking a break for anything else. But sometimes I can’t help but feel like it’s a waste.”
“Why would it be a waste if it’s something you love?”
“Not that it’s a waste of my time per say, maybe more that it’s perceived as a waste of energy and resources. Why spend years of your life learning to paint if a camera can capture everything in a second?” he asked. He motioned to the portrait on the wall. “Centuries ago, being a painter made you a historian of sorts. The only way a person or place was remembered was through the hands of an artist. Mostly the portraits were of the wealthy and politically important, but it was a skill, a livelihood. In today’s society we take photographs and we use computers…we have all these electronic ways of preserving images that make an artist something of the past; someone to do caricatures
at fairs. I mean, seriously, what could I do with an art degree? Nothing, except get my teaching certificate along with it; and then I’d be stuck in an elementary school teaching the color wheel, building paper mache dinosaurs and setting up art shows at the library.”
His eyes stopped studying the Renoir, and he turned to me.
“Sorry,” He sighed, “I get so twisted up about what it is that I want to do with my life.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I used to think I wanted to go to art school…and I’ve been accepted; but part of me feels like I’ll never get to do anything with the degree, so why bother?”
“Well, why did you apply? Is it because you love to paint?” I asked tentatively.
“Yes!” he emphasized his eyes dissecting the painting in front of us, “I fall into paintings. I get lost walking in the layers of color; the smell of the paint, and the texture of the canvas. The quiet that is the rest of the world when I’m painting.” He smiled at me and kissed the side of my forehead while leaning in flirtatiously, “They are your only competition for my affection,” he whispered.
I nudged him in the side with my elbow and kissed him gently on his jawbone, his stubble rough against my skin. “I guess if I’m your girl, I’ll allow you your paints as your mistresses.”
“That’s a dangerous allowance,” James warned winking. He continued more seriously, “The rest of my classes are fine; I’m smart enough to get good grades in all of them really, but they don’t inspire me. They don’t make me want to get up in the morning.”
“So you want to have a career that you love, but you don’t want to teach kindergarten art?”
“Simply said, yes.” He smiled and asked “So what do I do?”
I paused, not wanting to rush into anything. “You go to school. You do a double major. You paint to your heart’s content, but learn the history too or maybe the business side of it. Maybe you could work in a museum. You could work in collections, acquisitions, or fundraising - James there are so many different directions you could take this.”
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