My Doctor Said I Was Anxious. My Doctor Has a Lanyard. — Submitted by M.P., Phoenix, Arizona
Submitted via postal mail, using a post office box return address “for the same reasons the Reverend has explained at length.”
In our third therapy session, I described my condition as “a persistent awareness that things are not as they appear, and a difficulty relaxing around people who don’t seem to share that awareness.” My therapist wrote something down. I noticed she wrote something down. I noticed I noticed and then tried to look like I hadn’t noticed, and I noticed I was doing that too. It was a difficult ten seconds.
She said I might be dealing with anxiety — in a way that implied the awareness was the problem, not the things the awareness was pointing at. She had a lanyard. The lanyard had a logo from a hospital system I have been researching for separate reasons.
I finished the session. I did not make another appointment. I found the Cult of America newsletter three weeks later. The Reverend describes the awareness as a feature. Every other authority in my life has described it as a malfunction. I know which framing has made me feel more like myself, and “more like myself” is a meaningful data point, even if I cannot yet explain it on a spreadsheet.
I am not anxious. I am paying attention. Those are different things. — M.P., Phoenix, Arizona (post office box)