No one tells you that working through trauma can be just as physically exhausting as it is mentally. By Friday morning of the third week of group, I felt like I had run a marathon. Despite desperately wanting to stay curled up in my bed, I fought through and pulled myself up. With the minimal energy I had left in me, I grabbed an old t-shirt and pair of shorts out of a drawer, pulled on a pair of aging light pink Keds, which had been sitting beside my bed for weeks, and threw my cardigan inside my handbag. Then I tied my hair up loosely and walked out of my room, not bothering to put any make-up on. Grabbing an apple from the bench, I left through the front door with a wave to Mum, who was busily getting herself ready.
As I walked toward the station, I was overwhelmed by a familiar smell. It was a flower or maybe a tree? I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it reminded me of those first few years in Australia, of games played in the street and running home before the sun set. It took me back to a time before everything changed. So, I stopped for a moment and breathed in deeply, cherishing the nostalgia that came along with that scent. It’s amazing how closely linked our memories are to scent. In one tiny breath, we can be transported far away to another time.
Outside the library, I noticed a rather large group of people, most with headphones, standing around someone wearing the most offensively bright yellow t-shirt. A tourist group, I deduced, when one member of the group raised his hand to, presumably, ask a question. This was not an uncommon occurrence. The library was a must-see landmark for travellers from all over the world. What was unusual, was the man on the far end of the group. He seemed uninspired and disconnected – he looked a lot like me on my first day of support group! He opted to not wear headphones, which could have meant he spoke English and didn’t need them, but something about him made me think it had more to do with his utter disinterest. The man wore an oversized sweatshirt, which must have been excruciatingly hot in the New York Summer, and had a large backpack slung over one shoulder. If I’m being honest, he scared me a bit – there was something in his vacant expression and the cold way he stared through the library’s open doors that sent a shiver up my spine.
“It’s nothing,” I whispered to myself.
But a tiny voice in the back of my head suggested the backpack was dodgy! I read something the other week about the size of those improvised explosive devices. A backpack would be just the right size.
This was a little game that my anxiety and I liked to play: it would try its damn hardest to convince me that seemingly harmless things were a potential threat, and I would work in overdrive trying to prove it wrong. My anxiety usually won, of course. You know in those kids shows, where someone’s making a big decision and they put a tiny cartoon devil and angel on each of the person’s shoulders to anthropomorphise the good and bad parts of their subconscious? That’s basically my anxiety – except it’s just the devil, and he’s living inside my head, and he will not shut up under any circumstances.
As I made my way into the library, someone grabbed on to my shoulders abruptly.
I jumped.
Harry stood behind me on the staircase, laughing, then placed a kiss on my cheek.
We walked into the room together and took our usual seats side by side. We were commencing day two of “Trust”, a series of exercises that were supposed to help us not only trust others but trust ourselves. I didn’t see much of a point in any of it, but I guess that the decrease in the frequency of my eye rolls at Andrea’s words must have meant that we were making some progress at least. The session began with trust falls, an exercise in which we had to fall backwards into a partner’s arms and trust them to stop us from hitting the ground. Harry and I had not gotten very far – we had spent most of the allotted time giggling and making fun of each other. Andrea, who kept glaring at us from across the room, had clearly had enough.
“The teams who are not working as well as they should be will be chosen to demonstrate appropriate trust falls to the entire group,” Andrea said loudly to the whole group, but it felt like it was intended solely for us.
There was a muffled grunt from Dwayne who had now dropped Aaliyah on the floor seven times. He had continued to try despite Aaliyah’s insistence that they switch places or at least take a break.
Pulling myself together, desperate to not be called out again, I nodded to Harry before turning around with my back facing him. I was just about to fall when I heard it. A massive explosion rang through the entire building, glass shattered, and then there were screams, louder than anything I had ever heard. The world around me spun until suddenly ... everything went black. Something thick covered my eyes and entered my lungs. I couldn’t see ... I couldn’t breathe. I threw my body to the ground and felt everything falling around me.