111.)

"So, how does this work?" I asked under my breath. I was holding my fingers firmly in my lap, back straight, as still as possible. In a great paradox, I felt like I needed to hide all my problems from Stephanie, even after she gave me that big monologue on confidentiality.

"Well, let's start with why you're here. Your friend got you this appointment?"

"Blossom," I said, filling in the blank. "She thinks... we both think I have some anxiety issues."

"How so?" she asked. She didn't have a pad of paper or a pen or anything. Already, she was already very different from my old therapist.

"Well, when I get stressed out, I pull at my fingers or scratch my arms," I admitted. "Sometimes I have panic attacks. Or, I guess I assume they're panic attacks..."

"What circumstances usually lead up to your panic attacks? Is there a pattern?"

"Uhhh... school, tests, sleeping..." I decided to explain that last one. "It's really hard for me to fall asleep. Then, after a while, I get really stressed out about it and I can't sit still. So I get up and bake."

"Bake?"

"I bake a lot. It's sort of like this... automatic motion. A thing I can do that keeps my hands busy, something that isn't destructive."

"So, like a coping mechanism?" Stephanie asked.

"Yeah. I mean, I don't want to kill myself or anything. Or hurt myself. The most I've ever done is scratched myself, but that's incidental. An unfortunate side effect; not the point."

"So the cooking is moreso to keep yourself from having a panic attack, so you don't hurt yourself."

"That sums it up."

"Well..." Stephanie looked like she was going to say something, but then she changed her mind. She asked a different question. "How do you feel about cooking?"

"Baking," I corrected. "I can't cook."

"I am admittedly not great at either," Stephanie laughed. "Baking, then. How do you feel about it?"

"Uhh... I'm good at it?"

"So you feel... proud?"

"Not really..." How did I feel about baking? Honestly I didn't feel anything about it. That was the point. "While I'm baking, I don't feel anything. When I'm done, I mostly feel... exhausted? And kind of angry at myself for wasting so much of my time?"

"Huh..."

Stephanie made no effort to hide her interest. Sometimes when I said something, she acted like it was important. Other times, she acted like it wasn't important at all. I hadn't found a pattern yet.

"Does it waste a lot of time?" Stephanie asked. "I don't think I have a very accurate picture of what this looks like."

"It depends... sometimes just a few hours, but more often than not it's... I dunno. Six? Eight?"

"Wow, that is a lot of time." Stephanie seemed impressed. "How do other people feel about this? About you baking for eight hours?"

"Blossom doesn't like it; she thinks it's unhealthy. My mom doesn't mind. She taught me to do it."

"Taught you?"

"Uhh... wrong words, I think..." I tried to think back to when I was younger, eleven or twelve. "School stressed me out a lot, even though my mom thinks the whole American education system is a total joke. She never put a lot of stock in grades. Honestly, I don't either." Fuck, I wasn't even sure why I cared so much about tests! "But, uh. When I was younger and I had a test the next day, my mom would make cookies with me the night before. Or brownies, or whatever. She's a terrible baker though. It always helped calm me down, often enough to fall asleep."

"Would you often bake for eight hours?" Stephanie asked. "When you were younger, I mean."

"No... uh, we just made one batch of something. Never more than an hour."

"Hm."

Another interesting tidbit of my life, apparently. Stephanie was thinking about that one.

"What about your support network? Can you tell me a little bit about them?"

"My mom's great. I feel like I can talk to her about a lot of stuff, but I don't like to worry her so I tone it down sometimes. My best friend is Lin. She's great company, but... hmm..." How was I supposed to describe my relationship with Lin? "We aren't superficial. We talk about stuff all the time, but just... not very... emotionally? It feels more matter-of-fact."

"Is that a good or bad thing?" Stephanie asked.

"Neither? Talking about stuff in a more detached way helps me process, but it's hard to reconcile, like... some of my feelings feel ridiculous, so I can be overly critical of myself."

"A lot of feelings are ridiculous," Stephanie laughed, "but they all have a function. Even if the intensity doesn't always line up, all your emotions make sense in a nonsense kind of way."

Sense in a nonsense kind of way. I said something similar in Academy Works.

"What about my anxiety? That doesn't seem to have a function."

"Anxiety is a motivational tool. When your car needs an oil change, you feel anxiety. That anxiety motivates you to get your oil changed before your car breaks down. The problem is, that anxiety isn't very helpful when you're laying in bed at the end of the day. In a perfect world, you'd only be anxious about something when you can do something about it. Unfortunately, that world isn't this world."

Amen.

"So what do I do about it?"

"Honestly?" Stephanie looked a little apologetic. "I think you should let yourself be anxious."

"Oh, why didn't I think of that?" The sarcasm came out before I could stop it. I wasn't trying to act like a brat.

"Listen," Stephanie said with a sigh, like she was giving bad news, "you're stressed out when you can't sleep, right?"

"Right..."

"So what? What's the worst thing that happens if you can't fall asleep?"

"I dunno... I waste my whole night tossing and turning? I'm tired the whole next day? I can't focus on anything?"

"Versus baking all night," Stephanie argued, "in which you're tired the whole next day and you can't focus on anything."

"At least I don't have a panic attack," I pouted. She was annoying me a little; she was acting like I didn't know my options. When one option was having a panic attack and one wasn't, obviously I was going to pick the latter.

"I'm not trying to be dismissive of that fear," Stephanie tried. "I know how a panic attack feels. I also know that they don't last forever. And I don't know about you, but they usually tire me out too."

"So I'm just supposed to ride the wave of anxiety through my insomnia? Let myself freak out?"

"What's the worst that could happen?" Stephanie repeated. "You won't die. You might even get some sleep."

"I might hurt myself," I answered. "I'll scratch up my arms."

"Mm... I know this might be an unpopular opinion among therapists, but physical self harm isn't always worse than mental self harm. I think a lot of your anxiety is because you're afraid of being anxious, and maybe the way to reduce that is to confront it."

"This sounds so stupid," I sighed. But how was it any different to Blossom's fear of being afraid? She didn't let her spheres touch because she was scared of how she would feel if they did.

"You don't have to listen to me," Stephanie admitted. "And I just met you half an hour ago. I'm not the expert on you. But so far, from what I've assessed, you aren't in physical danger. All your coping mechanisms aren't entirely healthy, but even the worst ones are still there to help you cope. Even cutting is better than suicide. If I had to rank your behaviors, I think the cooking - or, uh, baking - thing is causing you more distress than the scratching. And from what I know about you - again, admittedly not much - I think you have a better sense of healthiness than happiness. I trust you to keep yourself safe. Should I trust you to make yourself happy?"

Stephanie was really drawing a lot of inferences, but she wasn't wrong either. I wasn't going to kill myself. Even if I was having a panic attack, I wouldn't risk my survival for anything. It would absolutely destroy my mom, and I still had to finish Academy Works. Stephanie was right to trust me to stay safe. But that question she asked...

"I guess not..." I admitted.

"Then do me a favor," she said. "Between this week and next, let yourself have a panic attack. If it comes up, I mean! Don't like... seek one out. And you only have to do it once. After that, you can go back to baking if you want. Okay?"

"Sure..." I really didn't like this homework assignment, and I wasn't sure how I felt about Stephanie yet, but I really didn't have any better options. In the presence of the unknown, it was best to fall back on the scientific method. Experimentation. It wasn't the worst idea.

"Now, back to your support network," Stephanie said. "Tell me more about Blossom."