Fast forward a bit to April of Grade Twelve; I was at a friend's house accompanying him while he guzzled beers and intermittently made jokes about the mountain of used tissues that rested up against his single bed. I ruminated about what his mother must have thought when she saw his clump of masturbation rags resting on the carpet. It was a welcomed distraction because otherwise I just sat there, swallowing razor blades while snot ran down my face at break neck speed. When the discomfort became too much I surmised that it was probably a good idea to head home. I could almost feel the plethora of flu medications coursing through my body, as I continued to suck on an ungodly amount of cough drops while meandering my way home.
I arrived home at midnight, climbed onto my futon, yes, a futon, the idea of having a futon was ultra cool, but actually sleeping on it wasn't so cool. I could feel the boards underneath the slim mattress pressing into my ribs, but coolness reigned supreme back then, so, there I was lying on the thin balgonie slice of a mattress as my eyelids slowly began to shut, then the welcomed black behind tired eyelids stole my vision, but wait, there wasn't just black. The blackness turned into a flashing, I opened them up briefly, it stopped, and then I closed them again in an unsettled fashion. "Ben settle down buddy, there's nothing to get riled up about", but the situation seemed beyond my ability to calm, to soften, to relax. Flashing, and more flashing; I started to panic. I raced up the stairs and into the kitchen where I grabbed a glass and began frantically gulping and chugging cup after cup until eight glasses were fully consumed. I only stopped because I knew that the next glass would find its way up and out of my esophagus.
I fled into the living room and sat down on the couch. My body felt like it was floating or perhaps levitating. I rocked myself back and forth to try and calm the shaking that now flooded my form. "Am I dying?". My body began to shake, my hands became cold and wet; I couldn't seem to settle down, as a last resort I walked down the two flights of stairs in the house to my Mom's room. She answered the door and through sleepy eyes said "what is it?". I told her that we needed to go to the hospital immediately. She said "are you sure?". Mom could tell by the wild look in my eyes that this was a desperate situation. We headed up to the hospital in a blur. When we got there, we were told to sit in the waiting room, which I was fine with, there was a comfort in knowing that help was just an arms-length away.
Mom bought me something to drink and I just sat there, wide-eyed attempting to slow the increased heart rate that left me painfully aware of my own chaotic neurotic disposition.
The comfort of being in the waiting room soon wore off. My body began to shake once again, my Mom rushed to grab the nurse and then it felt like time was no longer a continuous reel, but rather it was morphed into a flashing picture show of sorts. First flash, I'm desperately gazing at the nurse's office wondering if I'm dying. Second flash, I'm being rolled into the emergency section of the hospital in a gurney, is this a dream? Third flash, my Dad arrives, he grabs my hand and says that "everything will be okay". Fourth Flash, they insert a needle into my arm, my body goes limp with relaxation and euphoria; a welcomed stillness. Fifth Flash, I'm walking through the hall of the hospital, feeling perfectly calm and looking to pee.
As I walk through the pale tiled hallways, pushing the stand around that held the bag of saline that was connected to the needle inserted into my arm, I felt like a patient roaming the halls of a psyche ward, proposing conspiracy theories to anyone who will listen. My past-time consists of yelling at people, using my feces to write on the walls of my room and I also like to make tooth-pick statues of small dwarves and devilish elves.
After emptying my bladder, I was told it was okay for me to return home. To me this was all just a bad dream, except for the wandering in the hall bit, I was definitely given some sort of sedative that aided in that slow-motion expedition. But other than that, I wanted to forget this nightmare and return to my "normal" life.
No one told me definitively what had happened that night. When I left the hospital a few hours later, I was sure it was over, the sedative they had given me was still coursing through my veins and it continued to wash over me as Dad drove us to his place for the night where I fell into a calm restful slumber.
The following day everything seemed normal. I arrived at school and made it through first class. Second class was English; during the first ten minutes we were told to get out our novels for silent reading, while fetching my novel from my backpack I looked around the room slowly. A sense of panic moved it's may up into the center of my torso, just underneath my ribs. I felt spaced-out, separated from my body, like I was watching myself from a few feet behind; I was a witness to my own third-person action-adventure-game, accept this one is ultra-boring and the lead character is having a mental-breakdown. I notify the teacher that I'm not feeling well and have to leave. Soon after being dismissed from class I call my Dad from the office telephone and ask him to come get me at the High School.
From that moment onward, I was a prisoner to my Dad's home and to my Dad's side. Either I had to be in his house or I needed him to be with me otherwise I'd go into full-out panic mode.
There was this ever-present sense of impending doom. That feeling of being incredibly nervous before a public speech or before a first date was literally always in the pit of my stomach. I could not escape the onslaught of irrational thoughts ... "I'm going to hallucinate" "I'm going crazy" "I'm going to die" I'll never escape the confinement of this house" "I'm never going to lose my virginity" "I have a disease" "I have a tumor".... At night I had to sleep in the same bed as my Dad. I was 18 years old. It was devastating, confidence destroying, and demoralizing.
My days were spent watching boring talk shows and eating incredibly healthy foods. I thought healthy, clean eating might be the remedy my presumably diseased body was craving.
Dad took me to many appointments. The optometrist froze my eyes in order to check behind them for any trace of cancer that might be present, why they needed to be frozen is beyond me. Anyways, after the freezing was administered I had an extremely rare allergic reaction to the freezing. I started to sweat profusely and small purple diamonds began flying by in the lightlessness. When my vision began to return, I just remember looking at the Optometrist... he looked as perturbed as I felt. That was a little off-putting. Dad looked to him for solace, his panic stricken face did not help ease the tension, but hey, I survived.
My father also took me for an MRI/CAT scan, I had my blood tested, I got chiropractic work done and an allergy test administered. All of them came back to say that I was one healthy puppy.
The conclusiveness of these tests gave me a temporary sense of ease, and I'd think that I was finally free from the hell I'd been living, but, almost immediately after a sigh of relief, the existential sinister dread I felt second to second would return to my bones and render me utterly paralyzed with fear once again.
Despite the waking nightmare that left me reeling for answers, amidst all the chaos in my head, I was graciously awarded the "Turnaround Student of the Year Award" because I went form averaging 67% to averaging around 90%. I was getting into STU, and they had given me a bursary! Evidently, some things appeared to be coming to together.