‘For Christ’s sake, Steffi,’ Mum hissed at me as she led me – sobbing all over again – away. ‘You have to be able to talk in an emergency. What if you really did get lost? Do I need to put a label round your neck with our address on it? How do you think you’re ever going to grow up if you can’t talk?’ She gave my arm a shake. ‘Well?’
I was such a wreck by then I couldn’t even talk to her. It took me hours to get my voice back after that particular incident, and I refused to return to the supermarket for months.
‘I won’t do it again,’ she promised. ‘It was just an experiment, and it didn’t work, so it won’t happen again.’
She never said sorry, though.
Keir eventually drives me back to Dad’s house, where I grab Rita and take her for a walk in the dark. I tell her about the Golds and my mother and metemgee and Atonement. I ask her if she thinks I’m hiding behind BSL and she cocks her head at me, then pokes her wet nose into my hand.
I smile. ‘I love you too,’ I say.
Steffi’s list of diagnoses – age five to present
Selective mutism
Anxiety disorder (various)
Situational anxiety (school)
Then updated to:
Generalized anxiety disorder (severe)
Social anxiety (severe)
Panic disorder (moderate)
Glossophobia (fear of public speaking)
I meet Jane, my CBT therapist, the following Tuesday afternoon after school. I see her once a fortnight for an hour that’s usually filled with going through my worksheets from the last couple of weeks and making plans for the next lot. I used to think CBT was a transformative kind of experience, something you learned once and then had forever, as if the T stood for Training instead of Therapy, as if my mind can learn commands as easily and permanently as a dog learning to sit and stay. But CBT is a process, like pretty much anything, and it takes work. A lot of work.
And a lot of worksheets.
‘How did you get on with the experiment?’ Jane asks, flipping over one of the sheets and scanning it quickly. She gives me one of her therapy smiles.
‘Well, I did it,’ I say. ‘So . . .’
‘Well done,’ she says. ‘And how did it feel?’
Part of my CBT is to do behavioural experiments, and this time it had been to go into town by myself on Saturday morning and buy any three items in three different shops. It didn’t matter what the shops were, so long as one of them was the supermarket. Jane and I had filled in the preparation sheet at our previous meeting. I had to write down things like what I worried would happen and how likely I thought a particular scenario was. Like, ‘I think if I go to the deli section of Sainsbury’s I will have a panic attack and die.’
OK, so the point of the exercise is not to exaggerate, so Jane wouldn’t actually let me write ‘and die’. But the panic attack bit – that’s a real worry. Do you know how horrible it is to have a panic attack in a public place? Very. That’s how horrible it is. Very horrible.
Anyway, after I got back from town I had to fill in my review sheet, which is basically comparing the reality with my original expectations. I hadn’t had a panic attack, for example. In fact, I’d made it to Boots (new mascara), WHSmith (a set of new pens) and Sainsbury’s (milk) and back home again without freaking out once.
‘This is excellent progress,’ Jane says, smiling. I study that smile carefully, looking for cues. It actually looks like it might be a real smile. ‘Really excellent, Steffi.’
‘This is stuff ten-year-olds can do,’ I point out. As weird as this might sound, I don’t like getting credit for stuff that my rational mind understands is really simple. It just reminds me how pathetic I am.
‘Could you have done it at ten?’ she asks.
‘Well, no, but—’
‘Well, then,’ Jane says. Her smile is definitely real now. ‘How are you getting on at school?’
I shrug. ‘OK, I guess. I answered a question in my Maths class.’
‘That’s fantastic!’ Her whole face actually lights up. ‘Out loud?’
I nod. ‘It was a bit of surprise, actually. I didn’t realize I was going to.’
‘And how did you feel?’
‘Awful,’ I say. ‘Like I wanted to throw up.’
‘That’s understandable,’ Jane says smoothly. Nothing ever seems to throw Jane. ‘This is all an adjustment period, like we’ve talked about. It’s not a small thing, taking medication. And that’s what I’m here for, to talk it all through.’
‘Why is the solution to everything talking it through?’ I ask. ‘Why’s there such an emphasis on talking? It’s not fair.’
‘Because being part of society involves living with other people,’ Jane says. ‘And we’re not a telepathic species. Talking is an essential part of understanding each other.’
‘I can understand people just fine,’ I grumble, flicking my fingernail against the skin of my thumb.
‘But can they understand you?’ Jane asks gently. ‘Remember life is about dialogues, not monologues.’
I look up at her. ‘Do you want to write that down so you can use it with your other clients?’
Jane laughs. ‘That’s not the first time I’ve used that phrase.’ I laugh despite myself and she grins. ‘How would you feel about working on talking out loud in class over the next couple of weeks? Maybe answering some more questions? Or even asking them yourself?’