by RDA
Florence, July 2014.
It’s hot, and this valley seems to be on fire.
I go to the university early in the morning, so I can walk in the shade and enjoy the air conditioning in the library. Today, I have three exams to take. My brain fries.
Walking in the sun is crazy. I can’t wait to get home and lie down.
Marisa asks me to accompany her to see a flat in the centre. She’s been visiting me for a week, and we haven’t done anything together because I’ve been studying like crazy. Although I feel exhausted, I go out with her.
We take the bus to the central station and then cross Piazza Santa Maria Novella. We walk through the alleys until we get to Ponte alla Carraia. We start to walk along it.
Suddenly, the noises appear extremely loud, my vision blurs, and I feel an electric shock going through my whole body. Marisa shouts, “Robi, what’s going on?”. I shout back to her to take me away from there. I feel pervaded by a feeling of fear, like I’m dying.
We continue walking.
I feel that something inside me has changed.
I am afraid to be out and about.
I just want to be at home, curled up, and possibly with my mother to calm me down.
I can no longer cross bridges or squares.
I can no longer walk calmly, looking up.
I spend my days wondering what’s wrong with me.
If I think about going out, I feel my pulse quicken, and my breath shorten.
I talked to the doctors, and they told me it’s anxiety, accompanied by agoraphobia and panic attacks. It all leads to depression.
For nine years, I have been wondering if all this would have happened the same if I had simply rested that day in July instead of going out.
For nine years, I have not been able to rest.
For nine years, I have not felt like myself.
So many people tell me that I have changed. I wonder if they would have reacted differently, because it seems to me I can’t react properly to what happens to me.
Yet when I think about where I was nine years ago and where I am now, I feel like I have come a long way, that I have grown up, that I have experienced everything I felt like experiencing. Even if I have done it together with anxiety.
Why can’t I simply accept it instead of fighting it and pushing it away? Why does it have to hurt so much?
© Robidag 2023-05-03