“Do you suffer from panic attacks?” the school nurse asked. She was old—probably in her mid-fifties—and she hovered over me, looking into one eye and then the other.
“I have claustrophobia,” I replied. My voice shook. My entire body rattled, and the nurse saw. She grabbed a blanket to wrap around me, but I protested.
“It’s clean,” she said, and I decided to believe her because I was freezing. And in shock.
I pulled the blanket tightly around my body, huddling into it protectively.
“Do you know what triggers your claustrophobia?” the nurse asked.
And that question told me everything I needed to know about school nurses.
I looked at her with raised eyebrows. Was she an idiot or purposefully ignoring my sarcastic facial expression?
“I don’t know,” I said flippantly. “Tight places. That’s usually what triggers claustrophobia.”
“But you weren’t in a tight place,” she replied. “You were in an open hallway.”
It came out smug, like she was ready to trap me. Like she knew I thought she was an idiot for asking me such a stupid question only to prove she wasn’t. I wanted to punch her in the face.
“I guess it felt closed up,” I mumbled. I was angry at the way she made me feel like I had no legitimate excuse for fainting since I was in a large, open hallway. Like it was my fault.
“I see. Have you ever had an attack in any other open spaces?” she asked.
I thought for a moment. And then the memory flooded my mind. It had nothing to do with open spaces. It had to do with an old McDonald’s playground, particularly one piece of play equipment: the Officer Big Mac jail. I was seven, and we were on vacation, traveling down to Texas. We stopped for lunch, and I asked to play on the playground because none of the McDonalds back home had a playground like this one. All of ours were plastic and safe. This one was shiny metal—glittering and dangerous in the hot sun—and it beckoned me.
I saw a few children playing in the Officer Big Mac jail, and I wanted to join them. It was a long metal tube that housed a ladder. The top of the jail was a huge flattened sphere in the shape of a hamburger, the top and bottom buns separated by metal poles to resemble a jail cell.
I had my first panic attack from claustrophobia that day as I climbed the ladder to the hamburger. The inside was just large enough to crawl comfortably, but I couldn’t stand. And I couldn’t lift my head all the way up to see in front of me. I crawled once around the whole thing, and decided I didn’t feel right. I wanted out. But the ladder was blocked. More kids were climbing in, so I had no choice but to shrink back, wait for them to get in before making my way down. They kept pouring in, moving to the left and right, trapping me against the metal bars.
I panicked. I tried to move around a skinny boy, but he yelled at me. I felt hot tears roll down my face as I looked out beyond the bars to my parents sitting at a table below. They were immersed in conversation. They didn’t see me. They didn’t realize I was trapped. I screamed for help, and they finally looked up. They waved at me and smiled, thinking I was playing. No, no! I thought, shaking my head so hard I loosened my barrettes. I’m not playing! Help me!
I couldn’t breathe. I knew I would have to kill someone to get out. Even at seven years old I thought, Who builds a playground like this?
I turned to the children smashed inside the jail and screamed at the top of my lungs: “Get me out of here!!”
Their eyes went wide. I must have looked crazy. My hair was sticking out everywhere. My face streaked with tears. The children pushed each other to one side, creating a bit of space for me to crawl around them for the ladder. Once my foot hit the first rung, I felt the panic subside. I looked down the tube at a girl who had just entered and was grasping the sides of the ladder.
“Get out of my way!” I screamed at her.
The girl looked up for a second, bottom lip quivering, then ran off crying.
I slid down the ladder in my haste to be as far away from the Officer Big Mac jail as possible. I sprinted for my parents, flinging myself on my father who pulled me onto his lap and asked me what was wrong. I cried hard into his chest, so hard that I couldn’t breathe. A store employee saw me and went for a paper bag. She came back and told me to breathe into it. I obeyed because she was an adult, and I automatically trusted her.
I looked at the adult standing over me now.
“Are you okay?” the nurse asked softly.
I had no idea I was crying. “It’s all Officer Big Mac’s fault!” I sobbed.
One side of the nurse’s mouth quirked up. “I hated that damn jail, too.”
***