Wake up on your back feeling like you’re mid-scream. You’re screaming louder than you’ve ever screamed, but you’re not. You’re silent. You can make a whimpering sound, you think, so you try it. It comes out sounding like the last dying moan from a pile of sourdough that hasn’t been baked yet. You’re aware that someone is lying next to you in bed, but who? Do they have a head or is it a large turnip root still covered in dirt? You can’t be sure. What are eyeballs? If you saw a set of eyeballs right now, would they see you too? You’re still screaming/not-screaming but now it also feels like a cackle mixed with underwater mermaid practice. Who is lying next to you?? Ask her. “Megan? Megan is that you?” She doesn’t reply so you’re sure it’s a cardboard box but what’s in the box? Should you get up to pee? What if you never come back? What if the hallway isn’t empty? How many times can you think about stars before you’re not allowed to think about them again? Can you end a star’s life by thinking about it too much?
Gently kick the thing next to you in bed to make sure it’s not cardboard. It doesn’t move but it is warm, so it’s a person or at least person-like. What kind of hair do they have? Is their face frightening? Would their eyes see you if they rolled over to face you? You can’t breathe through your nose but opening your mouth only makes grumpy sounds come out of it. Close it and open it several times until the sounds stop, but then get confused about when it’s open and when it’s shut.
What if you opened the door and nothing was there? Why is there ever anything there to begin with? What if you always thought a floor was there but you were really just walking on powdered insect shells? Why are exoskeletons so shiny? Is skin just a soft, matte exoskeleton? Does the person-like thing lying next to you have real skin or just this soft matte exoskeleton?
“Megan.”
It isn’t replying so maybe it’s a tree wrapped in soft matte exoskeleton and it’s your fault it’s in your bed. Did you bring it here? What if you did a lifetime of things you can’t remember? What if everything you thought you’ve ever done was a dream and this is being awake? Why shouldn’t it be?
Roll over like flipping a cassette tape: a new song will play / you will become a person who is asleep. The pillow is too close to your face now. How do people lay so close to their pillows and mattresses? It would feel better if you could float slightly above the things you’re being pressed against right now. Gravity is too much.
Wake up screaming/not screaming again and realize that you are awake now, which means you were just asleep. What keeps waking you up? Why can you not just stay asleep? Roll over so you’re lying on your back and the covers are up around your face. The fan is so loud, you have the rain sounds coming from your phone. What if the rain sounds are really subconscious messages? You don’t even know who created this app, it could’ve been anybody. They could be trying to do anything to you.
Wake up gasping for air and realize that you weren’t breathing. All you want to do is sleep. What is in the hallway?? You have the feeling something is in the floor next to your bed, but what? It’s luggage, you tell yourself. It’s luggage. You have to pack it so you can get on a plane and you might die there on that plane or somewhere else. You’ll definitely die somewhere at some point. Roll over so you’re facing the thing lying next to you in bed. It could be a man. What if you’ve woken up in a reality where this thing lying next to you is a man and he thinks you love him, so you can’t push him away or yell or cry when he rolls over and says “What are you doing?” Roll back over on your stomach so that gravity is terrible again and the pillow is smashing into your face and neck and chest.
Wake up gasping for air again. You’re lying on your back now and something is happening to your heart. It’s beating. Remember that crying is something you can do and consider whether now is a good time to do it. Maybe. What’s in the hallway? Should you get up to pee? Who is lying next to you in this bed? If it were a tree filled with bugs but wrapped in a soft skin exoskeleton, would it speak? Why shouldn’t it be a tree? What’s stopping it from being a witch from a children’s story that just looks like a tree wrapped in skin? Realize that this is getting out of hand, but what is there to do about it? Roll over to face the other side of the bed and remember there’s something there in the floor. It’s luggage, you think, but you know it’s not. You’re laughing but the sound that comes out of your mouth is more like a moan. Roll over onto your back.
Wake up gasping for air again and thinking about moths. Are there moths flying around the room? It’s likely. You could be inhaling them. You check the time on your phone and realize you got into bed almost two hours ago. It felt like 15 minutes ago. Where have you been?
“Megan.”
It was supposed to be a yell but it was someone else’s voice and they were whispering.
“Megan! Megan! Megan!”
You remember that Megan has Xanax and that Xanax stops this. Whatever in the living fuck this is, Xanax will stop this and the moths and the woman in the floor who is supposed to be luggage but let’s just be honest, is definitely an angry woman, will go away if you can make Megan appear and give you the Xanax.
“Megan!”
“What! I’m here!”
“Can I have a Xanax! I need a Xanax I think!”
“Ok yes.” But she’s still asleep because you’re not screaming like you want to be, you’re whispering because the luggage woman is right there. You try your luck with the thing that responded to Megan and push its arm quickly.
“I’m scared. I can’t breathe!”
“Here, it’s here.” She hands you a tiny blue pill and you roll over to turn on the phone’s flashlight and find the water on your nightstand.
“ARE YOU STILL THERE?” Your voice sounds autotuned. You can’t see her and she’s the only thing helping you right now and what if she’s gone?
“Yes I’m right here.” She pushes her hand against your back so you know she’s there. This is how she always does it.
You swallow the Xanax and you’re crying now. Good, yes. That was a good idea you didn’t mean to have. You decide to get up to pee, luggage-woman and hallway-made-of-nothing be damned. In the bathroom you cry more and more and make sounds that aren’t yours. You accidentally see your reflection in the mirror above the sink and it doesn’t look human — more like a mute, feral animal/human hybrid. You run back to the bedroom and slam the door shut to get away from the wild-eyed thing in the mirror.
Under the covers you’re shaking and crying and making sounds that still aren’t yours. Oh they’re like whimpers, you think. You want them to be like screams but something is stopping that from happening. The lady, the luggage, the hallway, the eyes, the tree Megan could’ve been, the screaming you’re not doing — it’s all happening at once now instead at a steady pace one-by-one.
“You didn’t have to let it go so long,” she says. “I’m always right here.”
I didn’t know you weren’t a tree, you think. “I didn’t know what was happening,” you say instead.
She’s holding you hard with both arms, like you’re a giant stuffed animal she’ll never sell at a yard sale. You’re glad she’s there but you really hope you don’t have to look at her face because what if it’s not really Megan? If your face didn’t look like yours, why should her face look like hers?
You can see two towels hanging on the back of the door and you know they’re yours and Megan’s, that you both put them there, but you’re not sure about the ones in the mirror. Anyone could’ve put them there. The towels don’t like you, you can feel that in your bones like an electric current. Why? What did I do to you?
“Do you have enough water? I can get you some more water. Some of the coconut flavored water? Does that sound good?”
No you don’t have enough water, and coconut flavored water does sound good but she can’t leave. You don’t know what’s in the hallway and what if she never comes back or what if you get lost while she’s gone?
“No you can’t go anywhere right now please.”
You’re sobbing now and you’ve turned the whimpering into little tiny screams, like letting air out of a tire. This is a relief. There are just all these screams right there in your throat and you can’t hold them in forever.
“Ok I’m right here. I’m staying right here.”
It feels like something was trying to possess me, you want to say, but you don’t. You were a tree éclair wrapped in skin, you don’t say. I’m screaming so loud right now but we can’t hear it. You have to say something to stop the stream of things you’re not saying, so you say, “I never want to watch that show again.”
“Bob’s Burgers?”
You shake your head.
“Bloodline?”
“Yes. Everyone is so mean.” It feels like something was trying to possess me.
“Ok. You’ll never watch that show again. We’ll watch something else.”
This is the part where you try to make sense of what happened/is happening.
Was it the show? That show is stressful as fuck and every character in it is a horrible fucking person. Was something trying to possess— stop it, that is crazy. Was it a nightmare and you just thought you were waking up? It lasted for two hours, you could’ve been dreaming.
But you were awake.
You remember the time in Florida on vacation when your mom was severely dehydrated and had to be hospitalized. You were all out shopping and the dehydration had caused her to have a panic attack and you thought she was going to die; you’d thought about how you’d tell your boyfriend that your mom was dead.
Maybe you are dehydrated.
“I think I’m dehydrated.”
“Do you want the coconut water?”
Shit. You really don’t want to say this but, “You can’t go downstairs because I don’t know what’s in the hallway and you might not come back.”
You’re crying and shaking again and you’re so mad at whatever is in the hallway because it’s really, really fucking up everyone’s night.
“Ok.” She says it like you told her you’d like to grab some tacos after work. “Do you have enough water right now? How much do you have?
“What’s happening to me? What is this? I’m so scared, I was so scared. I didn’t know who you were or — and my face! My eyes in the mirror Megan! I kept waking up and not being able to breathe. I was doing that thing where I wake up and I can’t breathe? I can’t breathe right now!”
And you can’t. You can’t make your chest open up until the very last second before it feels like you’re going to pass out.
“When does the Xanax start working??!”
“Soon. It’s soon,” she says. “Do you want me to turn on the TV?”
“No!” You didn’t mean to shout that. “I’m sorry. I think I’m losing my mind.” More crying. You feel ridiculous.
“It’s OK I promise. It’s OK. This is what I’m here for. I’m right here.”
You’ve done nothing in your lifetime to deserve this person, who by the way has to go to work tomorrow, and you are officially the worst person on earth. You yourself might be evil. You would outright scream but, again, whatever prevents a person from screaming at 3 a.m. is still intact in your electrocuted potato brain. You drink the rest of your water, so now you’ll definitely need more and you know you can’t go get it yourself because whatever’s in the hallway is still there and definitely won’t let you make it down the stairs alive. And now you’re going to throw up.
“I’m so sorry can you please get me some water I think I’m going to throw up. But can you talk the whole time you’re down there so I know you’re still here?”
“Absolutely. Yes.”
She jumps up from the bed and turns on the hall light, illuminating nothing new and nothing vicious. While she’s downstairs singing “I’m getting some water for my girl! I’m right heeeere! Getting some water in my kitchen for my girrrrrrl!” you let yourself really consider it. Something was trying to possess me. It was like before, but worse.
You think about 2000, when you’d moved back in with your grandparents for the spring/summer and were hanging out with that old hippie guy and ‘finding yourself’ — your mom’s finger quotes, not yours — and specifically that time at the picnic table when you’d told him that lately, it had felt like someone or something was trying to get into your spiritual plane while you were sleeping. You’d told him you felt vulnerable and like it was fucking with you, something unwanted and with selfish, vile intentions. You’d felt crazy then, just saying those things out loud, but who else could you have told? And what else could you have said? It was your truth and you’d just started thinking of truths in terms of things that could be yours. He’d asked if you had your tarot deck with you and you did. He had you shuffle them while you asked them for protection — no, for guidance in the name of spiritual protection. You were going to choose one card and then put it on your bedside table, and before bed each night you would light a candle, ask the universe to keep your astral planes locked, put your intentions into that card, then blow the candle out.
“It’s OK to separate the deck overnight like that?” you’d asked.
“For this? Yes,” he’d said. He had you spread the deck out facedown across the picnic table. “Pick one to protect you.”
It had felt stupid but also real, terrifyingly real if you were being honest, and you’d done it. You’d reached out and chosen Strength, flipped it over and stared at it, stared up at him. However much he’d known about tarot, you’d known even less, but in that moment that card felt like a mother in a thunderstorm.
“That’s your card? Shit!” he’d yelped. “Damn!”
And he’d laughed, and you’d laughed but you didn’t really know why.
“That’s your fuckin’ card, man. Ha!”
So for the next few weeks you’d put it on your table and lit the candle and set your intentions and snuffed it out. You’d fallen asleep knowing Strength was on your table and on your side and that your planes were locked. And it had worked. You’d stopped feeling vulnerable. Your planes had started to feel safe from uninvited energies and you could sleep again.
She’s still downstairs singing and you wonder if you should find Strength in your deck and light a candle right now, but maybe that’s not the best idea at 3 a.m.? Maybe you should tell her that you think something was trying to possess you. Isn’t this the premise of at least a third of the horror movies? Maybe you are actually losing your fucking mind.
She bounds up the stairs singing, “I’m on my way back and I’m coming back and I’m right herrrrre!” with a coconut flavored sparkling water in one hand and a giant cup of ice water in the other. You’ve done nothing in your lifetime to deserve this person.
You don’t tell her that you think something was trying to possess you. You don’t get out a card and you don’t yell at the towels on the back of the door for being so mean. The Xanax kicks in and she big-spoons you like the future of civilization depends on it and you fall the fuck to sleep.
It’s the next day, when you’re writing this and remembering the thing with the Strength card and your friend at the picnic table, that you realize: you’re Strength. You protected you then. You locked your fucking planes. The Strength card! It was hilarious. That motherfucker.
You try to think of a way to tie this all together with a nice bow but there isn’t one, there doesn’t have to be one. Strength is doing shit for yourself and strength is asking for help — whispering it or yelling it — when you know you can’t do it alone. Strength is having a panic attack (or surviving an attempted possession) at 3 a.m. and begging for someone to show you reality while you apologize and scream and cry and write about it the next day. Strength is just being here, I guess.
I don’t really have any words after reading this, other than just to say thank you for sharing this.
Too real.
<3 <3 <3
you're an amazing human being, you know that?
Oh, Laneia. <3
I don’t have anything productive to say, but thank you thank you thank you.
Also “like you’re a giant stuffed animal she’ll never sell at a yard sale” is so lovely.
Welp I read this while waiting to see the doctor and that was clearly both the worst and best idea all at the same time. <3
Thank you. I needed to read this today.
You’re a beautiful human.
Thank you for sharing this scary thing with us. You are Strength. <3
Thank you for this. I especially like the phrase “electrocuted potato brain.”
Yes, I am filing that away for later use.
excellent! i mean tbh there were only a couple of phrases i felt really strongly about in this post and that was one of them.
Thank you for sharing this with us. Bookmarking for those moments when I need to remember that even I have a strength card to play <3
Well you just altered everything I have ever understood about Strength.
WOW. Incredible. Thank you Laneia xx
I don’t have words for how much this struck me. Thank you for writing it <3
Thank you for being here, Laneia.
I keep waking up in the middle of the night convinced that my girlfriend is someone else and all I can think of is putting more clothes on, and my pulse races and it takes so long to understand what’s going on. Sometimes I wake up with more clothes than I fell asleep with. Those minutes/hours between being asleep and being awake are the worst fucking thing.
what I mean is thanks for writing this because I feel less alone now, and I too have probably done nothing to deserve that person who is solid and warm and real and fetches water in the middle of the night.
<3
Thank you.
I want to go back in time and show this to my middle school english teacher who was unfairly biased against 2nd person narration. This is that great.
Thank you <3
Quietly founding a Megan appreciation society.
yes
for real
One time, Megan helped me carry my suitcase to my cabin at the (very snowy) A-Camp 4.0 because she saw that I was struggling to pull it through the snow. She seems like a kind and generous human being.
Megan sounds a delight! Thanks for giving us such an insight, this was really stunning.
I’ve walked to the TJ’s Megan works at, delight is accurate. Every ‘dealing with your crazy’ panel camp has had that feat. Laneia I thought “But Laneia is the chillest ever human” and it’s true this stuff can be totes invisible.
Fantastic. Just amazing. <3
This is an excellently-written account of an awful experience. The paranoia/bug-tree-Capgras-syndrome ish is all very evocative and compelling and creepy as heck. (You could easily turn this into a horror-fiction story about an actual possession, if you wanted.)
Thank you for sharing!
All the <3
I love you. This is so real and so brave.
Well this is just the most heartbreakingly beautiful piece of writing.
Laneia, just being you is enough to deserve the world.
xoxox
I strongly second this
Fuck. Laneia, I want to let this sink in, but thanks for sharing. Panic attacks are fucking terrible and talking about it is hard – much less sharing on the interwebs.
<3
Thank you, Laneia. I’ve never had a panic attack but I’ve had anxiety attacks where all I could feel was incoherently angry – so upset all I could do was cry and lie helpless on the grass and nap and wake up feeling worse and there was no room in my head for any thoughts or feelings other than rage and ‘get me out of here please please please please please’. There was a person there but they didn’t understand and they didn’t help.
Anyway, it is good to feel less alone. I hope sharing this helps you feel better. I promise I will stop pronouncing your name wrong in my head (it’s been “la-nay-a” ever since I started reading in 2010 and you were still green sometimes). And if you would like suggestions for tv where no-one is mean, please let me know. I got you.
Thank you. I identify with this. <3
Thank you for this. I don’t even know what to say, but thank you for writing this and for sharing your strength and your vulnerability with us. <3
This was really great. Thank you.
How many times can you think about stars before you’re not allowed to think about them again?
I really like this it’s been going round and round in my head since I read it. It reminds me of all the weird things I used to think about when I was younger
This line totally stood out for me too. Kinda sums up those teenage years in a funny kind of way
Thank you for sharing and for being here. Your writing of this terrifying event is beautiful and so is your strength.
I tried to read this while having a panic attack (right now- fun!), but I can’t quite function as a human. What I’ve read so far is beautiful.
I don’t have anything meaningful to contribute except to say, thank you. A million thank yous for sharing this.
I’m in love with your words. Thank you for sharing.
<3
holy.fucking.shit.
I’m just gonna go ahead and sleep with a xanax and a coconut lacroix next to my bed from now on. this seems prudent.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. you were so brave.
“Strength is just being here, I guess.”
Each and every day. Keep showing up. Thank you for sharing, Laneia <3
Gosh, I really love you Laneia and I really love everything you write especially this, “It feels like something was trying to possess me, you want to say, but you don’t” because yeah, that’s exactly what a panic attack feels like. Thank you so much for writing this. Thank you for your Strength.
Thank you so much for this, your words are beautiful and feels relevant to me. Your strength is lovely.
I was going to try to quote pieces of this that really struck me but I can’t pick them out. you are such a beautiful writer and soul, Laneia. thank you so much for opening up this part of you to us. sometimes I pace my room because it feels like if I stop pacing, the world will cease to exist. like everything will actually have not been real and it will go away forever and the only way to keep the world spinning is to walk back and forth. I’m tucking the last few sentences in my back pocket for the next time I have to pace to keep the world turning
I cannot handle how sweet this is.
Thank you for sharing this
Also, access to this is for sure one of the most compelling reasons I’ve seen to join A+. Just sayin’, this is why I’m paying to be here.
I also have a wonderful human that I did nothing to deserve.
We are so lucky.
This was so hauntingly beautiful, and in a self-absorbed way, I really relate to Megan. Some days I still wish I could be someone’s Megan. (And now I’m crying again. Goddamnit.)
Testimony as to why Megan is one of the bestest people in the universe.
Laneia, it kind of sounds like you have nighttime hypoglycemia. The brain runs out of glucose (its energy source) while you sleep and forces your body to produce large amounts of adrenaline. Adrenaline stimulates the release of glucose from the liver, but can cause night terrors if it happens while sleeping.
I have had a few nighttime attacks and they are terrible. I get this overwhelming feeling of dread like there was just a nuclear holocaust and everyone I love is dead, I can’t get my heart to calm down. When it gets bad, I see all sorts of nightmarish images and sometimes hallucinate.
There’s also some deficiencies that can cause this, maybe private message me?
Sorry if this was out of bounds, I understand if you don’t want to talk about it.
Try having a low GI snack before bed. Some wholemeal bread perhaps, with some cheese, should help.
thank you so much for this! i hadn’t considered it could be anything other than just poor timing and exhaustion. i’m reading into nighttime hypoglycemia now and i’m going to ask my doctor about it. seriously, thank you so so much.
Yay! Hopefully you’re able to get some answers.
Wow
Well this is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. Thankyou.
This is an amazing piece of writing. It’s one of those pieces that conveys the experience so viscerally that I really found it hard to read. And yet I’m so grateful to have been able to read it. Just, wow.
<3 xx
Thank you for reminding me it’s okay to need help, and that mental illness doesn’t make healthy, loving relationships impossible (it’s very easy for me to get trapped in a mindset that illness makes me automatically a burden/too much for anyone, and that just leads to me further isolating myself which of course isn’t good). Anyway thank you thank you thank you. And bless the AS community for being a place where we can share strength with each other, you know. <3
This was gorgeously written and you are beautiful and I love your brain.
Everything everyone else has already said. It’s amazing what we can live through and how we find our deepest strength in our deepest fear.
Just the same, have a protein rich drink and a complex carb snack before bed too. Especially if it’s been a bit of hit and miss day food/drink wise.
Thanks for writing this.
<3
I can relate to this all too much, though thankfully, I haven’t had a panic attack in years. This felt real and true, and your writing is beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing this piece with us.
Wow. Amazing.
this is so good <3
Laneia, your writing is just oh so wonderful & inspiring!
I’m always simultaneously mesmerized by your tone, pace, imagery, perspective, context, themes.. I really enjoy reading your pieces out loud, especially this one.
The title of this is perfect. I know that feeling all too well.
Thank you for this.
HEY THANK YOU ALL. i’m so sorry i couldn’t reply to every one of you individually because i was traveling yesterday and then today was trying to catch up on other work but i’ve been reading every single comment you’ve left, and they’ve all given me life, really. i had this panic attack a couple of weeks ago and the next day it was all i could think about, so i typed the first paragraph into our senior editors slack chat and everyone said, “yeah i’d read that.” so i wrote it because it was the only way to end it.
you wouldn’t believe how many things start off with one of us just throwing some of our guts out and another one/several of us saying “yes i’d like more of your guts if you wanted to keep throwing them.” and it just feels so fucking good to throw some guts around, you know?
thank you so fucking much for reading this and commenting and taking up space with your own stories! that’s the thing — telling your story and taking up space. every time you talk about something, another person gets to see they’re not the only one.
i fucking love you.
I really loved this
I put off reading this until today because my own head has not been so great, but I’m so glad I did read it.
I realised about a third of the way through I was holding my breath. Laneia, your writing is just so vivid. Thanks for throwing your guts around.
laneia, you are truly a gift from the universe.
thank you @amy_yam for tumbling so i didn’t miss this
So beautifully written. Thank you so much for sharing
So visceral! Thank you for sharing such a personal moment with us. <3
woke up in the middle of the night last night completely consumed by anxiety for the 800000th time in my life, but this existing made me feel so much less alone. you are an amazing human. this is an amazing place. i am so grateful.
thank you
My partner has panic attacks sometimes but hasn’t had one around me yet but now I feel like I maybe can understand (not really but you know what I mean) what they might be going through and feel like I will be prepared to be their Megan when they need me
Also this made me feel like crying and think about times when I have in my words “freaked out” and felt like I was so filled with feelings, mostly rage-pain-chestexplodinganxiety-grief that it felt like I wasn’t myself, like something was possessing me, like I couldn’t talk to anyone because they would think I was crazy, so thank you. Again.
Thank you for this.
This is hauntingly beautiful. And I’m very glad to know i’m not the only one…which is the point sometimes.
But really, what I want to say more than anything is: you and everyone else out there are totally worthy of a ‘Megan’ and you don’t have to do anything to deserve them other than be you and love them back…because chances are, that’s why they are there- because they love you, and you love them back.
Laneia, you are incredible. This is incredible. Thank you for existing.
‘I didn’t know you weren’t a tree, you think. “I didn’t know what was happening,” you say instead.’
love love love this.
Laneia thank you for sharing this. This is part of why this is such a great site.
However I have to disagree with one thing, I’m pretty sure Megan would argue that you’ve done many things to deserve her being there for you. I wish you joy together!
This is an incredible piece, the most honest thing. Thank you <3
I don’t know what to say other than you are the best and yes more of your guts always <3 <3 <3
i could finally read this now
i was having several panic attacks each night/day for months this winter,
and it was the absolute worst and scariest thing i have ever experienced
thank you for writing this
Holy shit, how am I just reading this now? I guess I just needed to hear this:
No words <3
Thank you <3