Anna stood and stepped swiftly over to her, crouching in front of Victoria and taking her tightly balled fists into her hands. “Let it happen, Victoria. Don’t push it down. Let it go through you. Scream, if you have to. Cry. But feel it. Let it out.”
No. No. No.
“You don’t have to tell me anything of what happened right now.” Anna’s voice was as calm as Victoria’s nerves were not. “I’m only asking you to let yourself have this panic attack. I can show you how to come down afterward. It’s okay to feel this, Victoria. It’sbetterto feel it, and to let it out.”
“No,” Victoria rasped, her breath coming in ever more shallow, burning gasps as her lungs felt held in a vise. “No, make it stop…”
“Don’t be afraid of this. This is normal, Victoria.” The soothing drone went on as Victoria drowned, pulled under waves of memory, of Daniel, of Hilary, of shrieking alarms and shouted commands, of guilt and rage and helplessness. She pulled in as deep a breath as she could, and nearly choked on it.
“You’re safe, Victoria. You’re in my office, we are alone, and you are safe. Your memories can’t do anything more to you than what they’re doing now. They hurt, but they can’t do more than that. You can face them. You will survive this. They’re only memories.”
The panic peaked, crested, squeezed one last agonizing time.
Released.
The next breath Victoria took filled her lungs, deep and refreshing. As did the next. With effort, she pried her eyes open and pulled her fists out of Anna’s hands. Uncurling her fingers, she saw that once again she had cut her palms open, eight little bloody crescent moons.
Without another word, Anna got to her feet and retrieved a box of tissues from her desk, bringing them over to Victoria. She thought they were for her hands at first. Then she felt the saltyburn of tears on her cheeks. She lifted one shaking hand to touch them. “Oh…”
Anna pulled a tissue from the box, then gently brushed Victoria’s hand aside to dab at the tears. “You did so well.”
“I… I don’t like…” Victoria drew in a shuddering breath.
“You don’t like feeling out of control,” Anna suggested gently. “I understand. Panic attacks are awful, frightening things. Have you ever let yourself ride one out before?”
Wordlessly, Victoria shook her head. She’d never been able to allow herself to do it before. It had been too terrifying to even contemplate, just the way the panic and anxiety had wrapped dark fingers around her ankles and pulled at her had made her want to scream and hide. She had thought that allowing the memories to consume her might well kill her.
“But now you know what doing that feels like.” Anna turned Victoria’s hands palm up and began to dab at the fingernail cuts. “How does it make you feel?”
It took several swallows before she could get out, “Less… frightened. But also completely knackered.”
“They can take a lot out of you,” Anna agreed. Leaning down, she reached for Victoria’s tea flask and put it carefully in her hand, wrapping her fingers around it with so much gentleness that Victoria almost wept. “Drink some tea.”
“You sound like my grandmother,” Victoria rasped out, thumbing the little spout flap open and taking a long drink.
“I do think you Brits are onto something with the tea drinking.” Anna’s smile was sweet, and Victoria realized that the therapist was still holding one of her hands in both of her own.
Any other day, any other person, she might have snatched her hand away. But on this day, with Anna… she said nothing, did nothing, only drank her tea and allowed herself to enjoy the sensation of a soft warm hand in hers. It had been so long since anyone had been allowed to touch her…
But then she got a bit of a rude awakening. “I think you’ll find that allowing yourself to work through future attacks will make the next one easier to deal with,” Anna said, and, oh, that was a deeply unwelcome thought. Victoria frowned.
“I would, on the whole, prefer not,” she said. “Can’t we do something to just make them… stop?” They often prescribed anti-anxiety medication to patients before procedures. That had to be an option here, though it had never been one she entertained before. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it now, except that if she never had to ride through a panic attack again, she’d take it.
“There are medications.” To Victoria’s disappointment, Anna’s hands left hers as she stood up and returned to her chair, picking up her notebook and pen. “They would take time to work. You might feel a bit like a guinea pig while we found the right one for you, the right dosage. I’m not saying we can’t go there.” Her smile was reassuring. “We absolutely can, and I’m glad you’re open to it. But there are other reasons I would like you to consider allowing yourself to experience the panic attacks and learning how to manage them.”
Victoria tilted her head. “And those would be?”
“Prolonged emotional repression can lead to memory loss, for starters.” Anna tossed the fact out there as casually as if she were dropping a water balloon on Victoria’s head.
“Oh.” She hadn’t known that.
“And you might find, eventually, that you’ll start avoiding going places that trigger panic attacks.” Anna leveled a significant look at Victoria. “Could start making your chosen line of work a bit awkward.”
Victoria thought about how she had been running away from the hospital more often lately. “There is that.”
“Andthere’s the physical toll these attacks take. Just constant adrenaline floods, mental exhaustion… look how tiredyou are just coping with this one attack after months of repression.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “And you are already tired every time I see you… do you sleep?”
Victoria looked down at the tea flask in her hands and fidgeted with the spout flap. Everything about her was starting to feel heavy and pulled down towards the earth. “Not… I don’t…” She sucked in a long, deep breath and tried again. “It’s hard to sleep. I… dream of Daniel Jennings,” she said, haltingly. “Of that… of that day. And…” She inhaled again. “Of other days.”
