Where Am I Now? by Mara Wilson

Author:Mara Wilson [Wilson, Mara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-08-23T17:25:51+00:00

Hanging with some llamas on a crew member’s farm with Laurie. This is about the only positive male attention I got in middle school.

But I couldn’t completely distract myself. At night, the anxiety would catch up with me. The attacks seemed to come on days I hadn’t slept very much, so I had become obsessed with getting enough sleep. The prospect of getting less than seven hours was enough to send me into a panic. There is a twelve-hour turnaround between wrap and the next day’s call time for child actors, but with travel time, homework, and calling my friends and family back home, I was often cutting it close. I would stare at the clock and cry as the numbers got bigger and then smaller, feeling helpless. Worst-case scenario, I thought, I could always cry myself to sleep.

One of those nights, Lucy heard me crying and came into my room.

“Just focus on your breathing,” she said in her gentle British accent.

“It’s going to be so bad if I don’t sleep enough,” I said.

“That’s not happening now. You’re safe now. Just think of your breathing, think of calm blue waters.” I never understood how she could be so calm and steady. She was never anything less than positive. I wished I could be more like her, or even Laurie, who was anxious but had it under control.

There were many more nights like that.

“It won’t work,” I told her once, after she had sat with me for what seemed like an hour. “Nothing’s going to work. No matter how much sleep I get, I’m always tired.”

Lucy was quiet for a long time, and then she said, “I think that’s depression, darling.”

It was the first time an adult had ever suggested something might be wrong with me. Instead of feeling upset, I felt grateful. I reached out for Lucy and hugged her. If I did have depression, if I could be sure that was it, if I could just identify the patterns, maybe I could get better.

* * *

For the first week home after Thomas, I was miserable. I had gotten so used to Lucy and Laurie being there for me, listening to me, and I felt lost without them. They might as well have been gone forever. I should have felt better by the third day, like always, but I didn’t. The panic was back. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t do anything but cry.

My father sat with me as I lay curled up in a ball, sobbing into a pillow.

“I’ll bet it was probably really nice to spend time with such nice women, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” I said. Another wave of anxiety rocked through me, and I sobbed harder.

“How about we go up to the mountains tonight?” he said. “There’s a meteor shower. We can sit back and watch it. Bring some lawn chairs and hot chocolate.”

“Okay,” I said into the pillow. He could be so kind. It was too much. Something could happen and I could lose him.

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