The Choice (a Painful Past)

106

"Okay." She replied, then typed a little bit into the computer, before she turned back to look at me. "Callie, I'm pretty sure that you had a panic attack. Now, I'm not a psychiatrist, or a therapist, but that's what it sounds like to me. You may have a touch of PTSD. Do you know what that is?"

"Um, yeah." I answered, scrunching my face up. "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. But I thought that you had to go through trauma for that. I haven't been through any trauma."

She scooted her rolling stool towards me and lay her hand on my knee. "Callie, from what you've told me, you did go through trauma. You may not see it that way, but you did. I'm going to set you up an appointment with a therapist, okay? So that you can have someone to talk to about all of this. In the meantime, I'll prescribe you some anxiety meds and an inhaler. Do you still have your inhaler from the last time? I know that I prescribed it to you, thinking that you may have had a touch of asthma, or something, because you're a smoker, but now I think it's always been anxiety. So, let's try this method out. Does that sound good to you?"

I nodded and swallowed hard again. It felt like my throat was made of sandpaper.

I had to go see a therapist?

She thought that I had been through trauma?

I didn't think so...but what did I know? Will had never beat me, or anything like that. I had never been sexually abused.

I thought that's what trauma was.

What had happened to me last night was a panic attack. I had never had one before. Yes, my anxiety had always been pretty bad, but nothing too extreme.

I could live my life normally, for the most part. Now, I had to experience feeling like I was suffocating. I had joked about Will driving me crazy, but damn. I guess he really had.

It wasn't fair. I had to go through all of this bullshit to get over him, while he was just living his life, with his new fiancé.

Why did he get to move on so easily?

Why did he get to love again, after what he put me through? Life wasn't fair and it pissed me off.

"Also, it looks like you've gained a fair bit of weight. You may want to keep an eye on that. It raised your chances of diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Especially with your family's health history. You're really too young to be dealing with things like that, so I'm going to recommend a Diabetic Diet for you. Okay?" She added.

Embarrassment flooded my body. I knew that I had put on a few pounds, but I never checked my weight so I didn't know how much. It was just another blow to my ego.

After the doctor got everything set up, I picked up my prescriptions and went home with my mind whirling. I felt like going to therapy was calling myself a victim of something. I wasn't a victim of anything, except my own stupidity.

I held up the bottle of anxiety meds and looked at them. I knew people who took things like this just to get high. They acted like drooling zombies afterwards.

I didn't want to be like that. I swore right then, that if these things made me act like that, then I was just going to deal with the anxiety. Attacks and all.

I would not turn into another fucking pill head junkie.

I popped one into my mouth and swallowed it down with a bottle of water. I guess I was going to find out how it affected me. I took out the paper with the recommended diet on it and started to look over it.

It actually didn't look too bad. The meals sounded delicious, but I was going to have to do some shopping. I wasn't even sure that I could afford to eat like this.

I usually had to buy the cheapest things that would last the longest. For example, pasta, rice, and bulk cans of vegetables. For the meats, the cheapest things were usually chicken and ground beef.

It got old, but at least they were versatile. I was just going to have to learn to cook things in a healthier way. There was no way that I was going to allow myself to fall into this trap of eating everything and killing myself.

Knowing Will, he would probably think it was because of him. Maybe it was, but I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me fall. No. I would never allow that again.

I could do this, and I would do this. I was determined.

I found out pretty quickly that the anxiety meds knocked me out. I fell asleep with the diet sheet still in my hand and slept for a good 8 hours. When I awoke, it was time to make dinner.

Thankfully, my brother had went to get the kids for me. Mom told me that she couldn't get me to stay awake, so she asked him to do it.

"These will only be for bedtime." I said, dropping the bottle of pills into my basket on my bedside table.

There was no way that I would be able to function on those things during the day.

When Friday arrived, Denise sent me a text around lunchtime.

"Heeeyyy bestie! You ready for tonight? Do you need help getting ready?"

I was eating a turkey sandwich, which I promptly dropped into my lap. I had forgotten about going out with them tonight. Fear wrapped itself around me, making it hard to breathe.

I didn't want to go. I changed my mind. There was no way in Hell that I was going to a fucking club tonight.

Just the thought of all of those people swaying and knocking their bodies into me, had me wanting to run and hide.

"Um, I don't think I can go. Sorry. Something came up." I texted back.

I picked up the sandwich and put it back on the plate. I was no longer hungry.

What the hell had I been thinking, making those plans? My phone buzzed, letting me know that I had another text.

I opened it, hesitantly, already knowing what Denise was going to say.

"NO. YOU ARE NOT BACKING OUT ON ME! Come on, Callie. You need to get back out there. Even if you don't want to meet a guy again, you have to get out of that house and have a little fun. I promise that it won't be that bad. Just come hang out with us. Pleeeaaasssee?"

Damn it.

Why did she have to beg me?