Chapter 13

“Avi? You seem unable to focus today - is there something else going on?” Amelia asks gently, but I don’t reply. I just…I don’t know.

Some days I just feel so empty and numb, for no particular reason.

Some days I just can’t be bothered.

Sometimes I wish my emotions were explosive. I feel envious of people who are able to get angry at the smallest things - is that weird? But sometimes, all I want is to be able to feel.

And then all I have to do is think one thing and I end up in a downwards spiral, feeling sad that I feel nothing, feeling nothing because I feel sad…

“I don’t know,” I eventually say. Because I really don’t. Today was a fine day, nothing bad happened, and after school I went over to Chester’s house again to study. We’ve been doing that for the past few weeks, and it’s been good. I have a nice time with him, and with Jeremiah and Alison too.

So why do I feel like this now?

So empty, so numb and…grey?

“It isn’t normal to…feel nothing, is it?” For some reason, my voice comes out sounding so totally vulnerable that it takes me completely off-guard.

“Sometimes Avi, it’s just too exhausting to feel things. And it’s so much easier to feel nothing at all, than the other option.”

“But feeling nothing sucks too,” I whisper, staring down at my wrist. The cast is finally off after having it on for what feels like far too long - the majority of my time at this school, anyway - and it’s almost weird, being able to actually see my hand again.

“Yes, it does. And it also means that the other option I mentioned? Those other feelings? They may be so deeply muted right now that you can’t feel them, but they will come back, and they will come back strongly. And when they do…it won’t necessarily be a bad thing, but won’t be all good either. It will be a mix of both good and bad - that relief when you realise you can actually feel your emotions- but that in itself is scary.” Amelia gets it. She’s got to have experienced this herself.

“Why am I feeling like this then? Why did…why did you feel like this? Do you still feel like this?” I ask quietly, feeling desperate to hear Amelia’s answer.

She smiles softly, her gaze trailing away from mine. “I can’t say for sure why you feel like this, but for me it is a mix of depression and external stressors. For me…my own mental health undulates, but most of the time, it doesn’t get too severely high or low. But if someone important to me starts to struggle, then I find myself in a depressive episode. I feel nothing, and everything becomes…grey. It can last days, even months sometimes. But eventually…it moves on. And then I feel back to ‘normal’, although that normal includes a few mental breakdowns here and there. But at least I feel again.”

Holy fuck. After days of sitting in the living room opposite this woman, I always thought that she must have impeccably good mental health to be a therapist. But it’s exactly the opposite. She helps others, and maybe that helps her too in the process. 

She’s able to help because she knows.

“So am I depressed then? Is that what this emptiness is? But I haven’t had anything bad externally…I just don’t get it. But I want to understand,” I tell her honestly. Amelia smiles, clasping her hands together.

“That means you’re already making the first step. We’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks already Avi, and I must say that I am very impressed with your will to get better. You’ve been able to start eating some food again, and unless you’ve been keeping something from me, you haven’t had another panic attack since that night I met you. Your wrist has healed well, and your cast is now gone. Time is wonderful healer, but the conditions for healing have to be right as well. Broken bones need a splint; fractures a cast. And mental health…trauma, anxiety, depression…they need support, and love, and safety, and effort. And time. Nothing will completely erase these feelings from your life permanently, but the thing with mental illnesses is that we have to learn to live with them.”

“Do I just have to wait for it to pass then? Do I just have to ride it out, brave the storm or whatever?” I need to know. I’ve never felt like this before, but now that I do, I need to stop feeling like this.

Wait, I have felt like this before.

For a really long time. I felt absolutely nothing, and tuned it all out. I always assumed it was my coping mechanism, and maybe it was, but maybe it’s also…maybe it’s whatever this new thing I’m feeling- or not feeling, is. 

Am I depressed? Anxious? Traumatised?

Maybe. I don’t think so, I don’t feel like I’m sad all the time, or nervous and stressed, or scared of something.

But then again, nothing is ever that simple. 

“How can I help myself feel again?” 

Amelia tilts her head to one side, lightly resting her cheek against her curled up fist. “You can just wait for it to pass. Or you can try to help…push it along, if you will. Or you can pretend it isn’t there in the first place, and ignore it.”

“That sounds extremely unhealthy.”

“And that’s also what most people do, with most of their problems. Because it’s the easiest option. Even easier than waiting for the problem to go away. Because if you deny the problem…well that’s so much less painful than dealing with it, or waiting for it to wish itself out of existence.”

Amelia has a way with words. This therapy session hasn’t been at all like our previous ones…normally, she asks me some pointed questions and I do most of the talking. But this time…this time she’s doing most of the talking, and instead just making me think.

Really think. Think deeply about what to do to help myself, and what I want out of this situation. What’s my real goal here? To never feel like this again? That’s far too unrealistic. But is it naïve to just want this to all go away?

Why can’t I just go back to sort of being able to enjoy school, taking some notes in a few of my classes and occasionally writing things down on a test, hanging out with Chester and sometimes Jeremiah too after school? Why can’t I just go back to that rhythm I’d finally found? Wasn’t it the healthiest, the happiest I’d felt in so long - since my parents died? It was simple, but it was distracting for my mind, and that was what mattered.

But now I’m back to feeling like shit - or no, feeling nothing and that’s what’s making me feel shit.

“So, Avi. What outcome would you like to see after this? And what will you do to get yourself there?”

It takes me a while to come up with an answer, but I eventually get one. “I want to keep going. I want to feel how I used to feel, and preferably better too, because it’s not like I’ve ever been at the pinnacle of good mental health before.”

Amelia smiles again, tapping her pen against the edge of the notepad. “Alright. So what’s the plan?”

“Keep going to school. Hanging out after school too - I liked that, and I skipped it today because I felt tired, but now I feel worse than yesterday, when I didn’t skip the study session, so…keep doing that.”

“Do you like studying again?”

Shrugging, I pick at my trousers. “It’s fine. But I guess the real reason I go is because I like spending time with Chester.”

My face heats up slightly at the admission, and I instantly start back-tracking. “Just because I haven’t had a friend in a while, and I have other school friends too but he’s cool and easy to talk to and whatever. But I definitely wouldn’t spend time with him outside of school, if it wasn’t for the study sessions.”

“Would you like to spend time with him, as friends, other than studying together?”

Chewing on my lips, I slowly nod. “Yeah. I guess I would.”

“Maybe you should invite him bowling or something. There’s a nice bowling hall only about a half an hour drive from here.”

“Why bowling though?” I raise an eyebrow, not sure where that suggestion came from.

“Chester loves bowling.”

My blood runs a little cold, and I sit up straighter in my seat. “Wait, what the fuck- I only mentioned a name, who do you know which Chester I’m talking about?”

Amelia pales a little, before shaking her head. “Sorry, I got carried away. There’s only one Chester in town that I know of, so I assumed you were speaking of Chester Kennedy. I do believe you two would be in the same year,” she says awkwardly, making me a little unsure as to whether she’s telling the full truth or not.

That should make me scared - is my therapist lying to me? How could I trust her, if that’s the case? But I know it’s probably more complicated than that. What if Chester is one of her other clients, and he’s mentioned me in therapy before? It could be something simple like that, so there’s no need to overthink things.

“Um. Yeah I guess it’s a pretty unusual name. Why does Chester like bowling so much?”

Amelia shrugs, standing from her seat and carefully placing her notepad and pen back inside her bag. “I suppose you’ll just have to ask him that in person, tomorrow at school.”

This was a very odd therapy session. But I didn’t hate it, not at all. It was good - really good, actually - to hear a bit about Amelia’s own experiences. It not only makes me respect her more, but it helped to relax me. Knowing that she’s helping me this way because she understands what it’s like.

Sure, we’ve only just scraped the surface of my feelings surrounding my parents’ deaths, and we haven’t spoken about my foster carers, but Amelia has already helped me a lot. And I guess…part of that is down to me. 

I’ve helped myself, too.