Sarah + Anxiety
Sarah & the Clipboard
Content note. Anxiety, repetitive checking, and disrupted sleep. A back garden, cold tea, and a chair that thinks it has a job.
From the room
Adam
We're in Sarah's back garden. Late afternoon, cold tea, moss asleep on her foot, and behind her left shoulder, an empty chair.
Clipboard
Occupied in an advisory capacity.
Sarah
Squatting with stationery.
Sarah
Clipboard. Disappointed face. Never taken a day off. Thinks that's something to boast about.
Clipboard
My attendance is exemplary.
Sarah
So is damp's. Wakes me up to tell me I'm not getting enough.
Sarah
I started checking the locks, then checking whether I'd checked them. Dad said I was becoming responsible. Gave me my own key. I needed someone to notice I was frightened. I got promoted.
Sarah
From a distance, fear looks astonishingly like a transferable skill.
Sarah
Sometimes getting better starts to sound like letting people down. I don't want to become unreliable. I want to get to the pub without doing an unpaid shift first.
Sarah
I can be choosing a yogurt and suddenly be responsible for the whole street.
Adam
I used to tease you. I thought it was a quirk.
Sarah
You saw a minute. You didn't see me sitting with the keys in my hand, knowing the cooker was off, trying to make knowing count, then going back anyway.
Clipboard
For the record, returning to the property was the correct decision.
Sarah
You don't get to chair my apology.
Clipboard
A completed check is only accurate at the time of checking.
Sarah
Even done has terms and conditions.
Clipboard
Certainty. In writing. Nothing bad happens to Sarah, or anyone Sarah loves. Ever.
Adam
That's impossible.
Clipboard
Then we'll need to start earlier.
Sarah
It's a job you can't lose, performed by someone you'd never hire.
Sarah
Once, a gas smell. A genuine problem. We got help. It's been dining out on that ever since.
Clipboard
We don't retain the false alarms.
Sarah
You're an arsehole with a filing system.
Sarah
Twenty-six. My GP said generalised anxiety disorder. First I felt relieved. Then smaller. As if I'd gone in as Sarah and come out as a condition with a coat.
Sarah
Nobody should diagnose themselves from me arguing with a clipboard.
Sarah
Mum said we all get worried sometimes. Then she said, but you've always been so capable. As though I'd turned up in the wrong costume.
Sarah
I'd cooked, cleaned, checked the locks four times. Then you all arrived and became five more people I could let down.
Clipboard
It had candles.
Sarah
It was a birthday. We weren't overthrowing a government.
Sarah
I wanted you to stay. I needed you gone. Both at once. After you left, I sat in the kitchen wishing you were still there.
Sarah
I was happy you were there. That wasn't fake. The rest was happening too.
Sarah
Put that on my birthday card. Present throughout. Saves you choosing something affectionate.
Sarah
Three in the morning my brain would like to discuss the birthday, the bin, and a conversation from 2009.
Clipboard
They weren't eating.
Sarah
They've probably retired. I'm still on probation.
Sarah
Ask. Don't turn I can't into the opening bid in a negotiation. Keep inviting me. I might say no. I still want to be asked.
Sarah
Don't suddenly withdraw kindness and call it treatment. Don't start a project called Sarah.
Sarah
With me, not when I'm frightened and you're bored of waiting. I shouldn't have to make it entertaining so you're comfortable hearing it.
Sarah
Warn me. Don't veto my life. Happiness isn't evidence I've stopped caring.
Clipboard
Who would handle complaints?
Sarah
I would.
Clipboard
About you?
Sarah
You've managed.
Adam
I was going to ask if you wanted dinner.
Sarah
Still anxious. Also hungry. Don't make it a breakthrough. Ask what I fancy.
Clipboard
That is not a plan.
Sarah
If we survive dinner, you're not putting it on your CV.
If worry or checking is affecting daily life, a GP or a qualified mental health professional can help assess what is happening. Lifeline 13 11 14. Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636.
Next time: Marcus, and the landlord who wants everyone to stop asking for things.