I curled my lip. “I got really good at not thinking about them.”
Dr. Pritchard lifted an eyebrow. “For eight years?”
I shrugged. “I can look at pictures, I can have a thought about them, but I carefully avoid actual memories of us together.”
“But your panic attacks have started up again?”
“I let my guard down. I let the memories in—took a panic attack at the gym and then at a friend’s family dinner.”
“What were you thinking about at the gym?”
I shifted uneasily. “I’m a writer. Well, trying to be. I started thinking about my mom’s story. It’s a good story. Sad. But I think people would like her. Anyway, I had a memory – a few actually – of my parents, and their relationship. They had a good relationship. Next thing I know some guy is helping me off the treadmill.”
“And the family dinner? Was that the first family dinner you’ve been to since being in foster care?”
“We never really had family dinners in foster care.” I smiled humorlessly.
“So this was your first family dinner since losing yours?”
“Yeah.”
“So that triggered a memory too?”
“Yeah.”
“Has there been any big changes in your life recently, Joss?”
I thought about Ellie and Braden and our coffee morning a week ago. “I moved. New apartment, new roommate.”
“Anything else?”
“My old roommate, my best friend, Rhian, she moved to London and her and her boyfriend just got engaged. But that’s about all.”
“Were Rhian and you close?”
I shrugged. “As close as I allow anyone to get.”
She smiled at me, a sad pressing of her lips. “Well that sentence said a lot. What about your new flatmate then? Are you allowing yourself to get close to her or him?”
“Her.” I thought about it. I suppose I had let Ellie in more than I’d intended to. And I cared about her more than I thought I would. “Ellie. We’ve become fast friends. I wasn’t expecting that. Ellie’s friends are cool, and her brother and their crowd hang around a lot. I guess my life is more social now.”
“Was it Ellie and her brother’s family dinner you had a panic attack at?”
“Yeah.”
Dr. Pritchard nodded and scribbled something else down.
“Well?” I asked.
She smiled at me. “Are you looking for a diagnosis?”
I raised my brow at her.
“Sorry to disappoint, Joss, but we’ve barely scratched the surface.”
“You think these changes have something to do with it though right? I want the panic attacks to stop.”
“Joss, you’ve been in my office fifteen minutes and I can already tell you that these panic attacks aren’t going to stop any time soon…unless you start dealing with your family’s death.”
What? Well, that was just stupid. “I have dealt with it.”
“Look, you were smart enough to know that you have a problem and that you need to talk to someone about that problem, so you’re smart enough to realize that burying memories of your family is not a healthy way to deal with their death. Changes to daily life, new people, new emotions, new expectations, can trigger past events. Especially if they haven’t been dealt with. Spending time with a family after years of not having one of your own has broken through whatever wall you’ve put up around your family’s death. I think it’s possible you might be suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and that’s not something to ignore.”
I grunted. “You think I have PTSD. The thing that veterans have?”
“Not just soldiers. Anybody who suffers through any kind of loss, or emotional, or physical trauma can suffer from PTSD.”
“And you think I have that?”
“Possibly, yes. I’ll know more, the more we talk. And hopefully the more we talk, the easier it’ll become for you to think about and remember your family.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
“It won’t be easy. But it’ll help.”
8
I loved the smell of books.
“Don’t you think that’s a bit brutal for Hannah?” Ellie’s soft, concerned voice asked above my head.
I smiled at Hannah, who stood an inch above me. Like her mom and sister, the kid was tall. Twisting my head around to look up at Ellie hovering behind me, my look was incredulous. “She’s fourteen. It’s a YA book.”
The book slipped from my fingers as Hannah took it before Ellie could stop her. I was spending my Sunday morning with them in the bookstore where Hannah was having a great time spending her gift card from Braden.
Ellie seemed perturbed. “Yes, about a dystopian world where teens kill one another.”
“Have you even read it?”
“No…”
“Then trust me.” I grinned back at Hannah. “It rocks.”