“And where I can’t lose control and break anyone’s heart, literally or figuratively.”
Silence.None too subtle, Armstrong.
“And it gives me healthier ways of releasing stress,” he said, barreling on before she could challenge him—if she even wanted to. “I found when I threw myself into the physical side of it, when I trained longer and harder than anybody else, when I reached the point of exhaustion, there was no energy left for guilt or regret—and I no longer had a problem getting to sleep. I no longer needed drugs to keep me going or help me stop. You get the endorphins hitting, and even when I got dog tired—which was a lot in the early days—they gave me enough of a high to ride out the emotional stuff. I was getting through each day, and each day was pretty uncomplicated. And I got lucky enough to eventually get into a team where we’re all that physical and focused—and maybe a little obsessive—each for our own reasons.”
“You mean Flynn and Angelito.”
“Aye, until Angelito retired,” he said, clipping the lid on the first-aid kit as he wandered back to the living room. “And Texas. And the others. We’re all a little fucked up in our own special ways.”
She sat on a bar stool at the kitchen island as he repacked the kit. “There’s a saying in Ethiopia. ‘He who conceals his disease cannot expect to be cured.’ I’m no psychologist, but aren’t you just hiding from the problem and hoping it’ll go away? Wouldn’t it make more sense to face up to those triggers and try to disconnect them, rather than avoiding them? Because you don’t always have a choice when they show up, yes? Like last night.”
“Ha,” he said, perching on the arm of a sofa. This conversation was getting a little deep, a little personal.Eject,caporal.“Like your panic attacks.”
“Awo, like my panic attacks. If I could live my entire life in a happy bubble, I wouldn’t get them. But that’s not possible. Problems will always come—not always as dramatically as this craziness—but you can’t control what they’ll be or when they’ll come.”
She was dead right, of course. But she’d also given him an opening to wriggle out of the microscope. And he’d take it. He slid down onto the sofa cushions, crossed his legs and planted his feet on the far arm.
“So what are your triggers?” he said.
“No surprises there. Fear.”
“And you feel as if you can’t breathe, obviously. What else?”
“I get this cold wash of terror sweeping down my body.” She shuddered. “My heart’s racing. And I get dizzy and shaky and my vision blurs.” She held her hand flat in front of her, palm parallel with the floor. “Even half an hour afterward my hand can be still shaking.”
“And what do you do to combat it?”
“That’s the problem—when it starts I no longer have control. Sometimes it stops again, sometimes it gets really bad, like in the ambulance, but I don’t know which way it’ll go. There’s nothing I can do.”
“And what’s going through your mind? What are you fearing will happen?”
“That I’m going to flake out. Even die, from lack of oxygen.” She jabbed her pointer finger. “But you don’t need to tell me it’s all in my head. I know that. I tell myself that and it doesn’t help.”
“Most people’s problems are all in their heads.”
“Including yours?” she said, archly.
“Definitely mine. But let me tell you this.” He swung his feet to the floor and planted his elbows on his knees. “It’s very, very,veryrare for somebody to faint when they’re having a panic attack.”
She tilted her head. “It is?”
“And nobody dies. Your body flushes with adrenaline, your heart floods with oxygenated blood—that’s the very thing paramedics and doctors try to replicate when we...” He winced. “Whentheyresuscitate people. Your panic attack is your body’s way of keeping you alive when it senses a threat. Okay, your body’s reaction is a little over the top and that’s the problem, but you’re not going to die. So you can let go of that fear.”
She chewed her bottom lip.
“And you’re not going to pass out, so you can let go of that fear, too.”
“It certainly feels like I’m going to.”
“And even if you did pass out, it’d probably only last a second and you’d be good again. Your body would be shocked into resetting.”
“Really?”
“Aye. So if those are your worst fears, you can let them go.”
She stared at the bare wall over his shoulder so intently that he fought the urge to check behind him. “I can’t try that until I’mina panic attack. It’s easy to solve a hypothetical attack.”
“Aye, in the same way you can’t test your road crash avoidance skills until you’re seconds from death. But one thing you can practice? Breaking the hyperventilation cycle, where you feel like you can’t breathe, so you take faster breaths but your breath is too shallow, so you hyperventilate...” He stood, and crossed the space between them. She returned focus to him. “Let’s try something.” He picked up one of her hands and placed it flat on her chest, and the other across her belly, keeping his hands on top. “Breathe for me, nice and deep, filling your lungs, and then hiss it out until it’s completely gone. And I mean empty. Then breathe in again.”
