I didn’t mean to be a bad friend. I really didn’t.
I didn’t want to make people feel like I didn’t care about them, but my inability to not feel guilty about every little comment that likely made other people feel self-conscious or criticized.
I was driving home from a lunch date with a couple friends from school who wanted me to live with them when we finished college that spring. I told them repeatedly that I liked the idea of rooming together in our own super cool apartment off campus, but truthfully, the thought of living with other people gave me nervous sweats and constant nausea.
“Sounds great!” I said.
“I’d love to!” I gritted my teeth.
“We will have so much fun!” I choked out.
All the faked enthusiasm was because I needed to please people, and it was about to bite me right where it hurtmy brain.
It was a typical January afternoon in Raleigh, North Carolina, and even though the local meteorologist promised it was supposed to be warming up outside, the air had a chill to it that stung my skin when the wind blew. I was driving back to my apartment after a future roommate get together where we were supposed to talk about how we’d save our money to rent an amazing chick-pad and all the ways we wanted to decorate it. I should have been stoked, but instead I spent the cloudy drive home reflecting on how I’d let everyone down by anxiously telling them that I just couldn’t live with them. I didn’t even really have a legitimate reason’.
I just kept saying, “Girls, I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
We were all seniors in the Communication Department at NC State University, and everyone else was thrilled about our impending graduation. But I wasn’t. I was twenty-one years old and lived alone in an apartment above my parents’ garage.
Anxiety was an evil pet—it lived inside of me and followed me everywhere. Sometimes it was quiet, but most of the time anxiety was an internal whisper that grew louder and more intense depending on the day. It was always there, and I couldn’t separate the anxious lies it whispered in my ear from the truth based in reality. When irrational thoughts invaded my mind, I couldn’t accurately remember conversations or recall situations. These unwanted thoughts kidnapped reality.
In my driveway I heard the familiar popping sound of acorns being flattened under my truck tires. Soon I would be able to hide myself away in 600 square feet of my own thoughts and concentrate on the fears of the day without interruption. Well, not completely without interruption, because I still saw my parents every day.
I liked the idea of living on my own with a group of girls, but having my parents close by gave me the control that I felt I needed to survive. Change in any form was not something I welcomed. I had been deeply afraid of change since I was a child, and it was a characteristic I was stuck with.
My mom was gardening in the side yard beside the house. “How’d it go, Naomi? Did the girls understand why you wanted to live at home this spring?”
Nurse by day, gardener at heart, my mom was my friend, my confidante, and one of the only people I felt comfortable opening up to about my brain games. I walked around the car slowly and she stood up from behind a shrub to straighten her sun hat. She was covered in soil, and her luscious silver bob was full of leaves and little bits of pine straw.
What gardening chores there were to do in the middle of January was a mystery to me, but there she was with her gloves and rake, working the soil once again. My parking spot was on the other side of the house, so often I was able to sneak into my oasis unseen. Not this time.
“Fine, I guess. I’m sure the girls think I’m nuts for not wanting to live with them. I couldn’t even really give them a decent reason why.” I slapped the keys against my hand as I spoke. The sting of the impact kept me from hearing my rowdy thoughts.
“Well, all you can do is trust your gut, sweetie. Do what’s best for you, and don’t worry about what they think. Trouble was, you kept saying you would live with them. You have to learn how to set your boundaries and stick—”
“Stick to them!” I finished for her.
I’d heard the boundaries talk more than I cared to remember. I had heard it all my life, along with the talk on how if I organized my binders correctly, I would get better grades. Ha! I wish. It didn’t seem to matter how many tabs or files I had. By the end of every semester, my bookbag looked like a paper war had gone down inside, and there were no survivors.
“Honey, I’m just trying to help you get more organized. That includes how you communicate in relationships. Don’t say yes to something unless you’re prepared to follow through.” She shadowed me up the stairs that led to my front door.
“I know, I know, Mom. Easier said than done. Trust me.” I closed my door before she could follow after me. Once alone, I could relive the conversation with my friends over and over, detail by detail, facial expression by facial expression.
I sat on the edge of my bed, bouncing up and down as I picked my cuticles while turning over the lunch conversation like stones in my head. The dreaded “what if” game seeped up from the deep crevices of my mind. My friends acted like they understood why I wanted to live at home, but what if they don’t understand because I ’didn’t really give a good reason? What if they think it’s because I don’t like them?