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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Saturdead on 2024-09-06 22:02:03+00:00.

I had a lot going on during the Covid pandemic. My dad passed away from an unrelated illness, and lockdown was driving me mad. I’d always been a bit paranoid, but being locked inside turned it all up to 11. My home was converted into a makeshift prison; an asylum where I was supposed to be my own caretaker.

I didn’t have much trouble switching to remote work. I usually worked exclusively with overseas clients anyway, so the only thing that really changed was the software, the chair, and my pre-rendered background.

But as days turned to weeks, it became increasingly obvious that I wasn’t okay. I’d sleep anywhere from 2 to 12 hours a night, and with no discernable pattern.  I’d wake up crying without knowing why. Sometimes I couldn’t even open the bathroom door, as I tricked myself into believing there might be someone on the other side.

Having lost my dad, I was feeling more mortal than ever. The news, the internet, and the radio were all saying the same thing; going outside was the end. And at that time in my life, I couldn’t handle more death.

Everything feels different when you’re forced to stay inside. The walls seem closer, and your chest tightens. It feels like the air grows thinner; warmer. You can feel your breaths enter your lungs, but they don’t sustain you. Your knick-knacks and doodads look like souvenirs from a place you can’t go back to. A mockery; like notches on a prison wall.

Sometimes when I slept, I’d forget what was going on. Waking up, the nightmare would fall on me like a rock, knocking the air out of my lungs. I’d grow increasingly scared of going to sleep, as if that rock would grow heavy enough to crush me.

And yet, it was all better than going out there, among the others. I couldn’t take a step outside my door. Even if the lockdown was to be lifted that same day, there was no way for me to convince myself that everything was gonna be fine.

Nothing was fine. And it wouldn’t be for some time.

My colleague, Dana, was the first to take notice. I’d been up for about 53 hours. She pulled me into a chat after a remote meeting, telling me I looked sick. I melted. I poured my heart out about anything and everything, barely forming a coherent sentence along the way. If someone asked me to recall what I said that day, I could only hazard a guess. Dana tried to understand but must’ve realized this was above her pay grade.

“I get it. It’s a lot right now. It’s a lot for all of us,” she said. “It might be time to talk to someone.”

She reminded me that we had an agreement with one of our main partners, Hatchet Pharmaceuticals. They handled our health insurance, which also included mental health treatment. In fact, they’d expanded on it since the start of the pandemic.

“They got a remote counselling program,” she said, holding up a brochure. “Just use your company login and sign up for a session. What do you think?”

There wasn’t much to say. I was willing to try anything.

I filled out a questionnaire and got a response within a couple of hours. I was sent a link to a calendar app and got to pick a name from a list. There were a couple of short descriptions by each available counselor, giving me a bit of insight into what kind of person they were. There was a man named ‘Gareth’ who had an empty calendar. It was strange. See, each counselor could be sorted by seniority and number of patients; and Gareth was at the top. He was, by a good margin, their most experienced employee. So how could his schedule be so empty?

I signed up for a session with Gareth the next day. It felt like a stone settling in the pit of my stomach. I was nervous, and I didn’t even know why. Maybe it was the prospect of a changing routine that scared me, or maybe it was the thought of opening up to a stranger. Either way, it affected me way more than I thought it would.

I went back and forth on cancelling the whole thing. I wandered around like a cat on a hot tin roof, feeling the walls closing in. I ended up on the floor, gasping for air, curled up like a ball. I just wanted it to be over.

I took a day off work to have my first session. It was just past lunchtime. I’d prepped a cup of earl grey and a microwaved cinnamon bun as comfort food, but that wouldn’t stop my hands from shaking. I got a popup on my screen with a blue sunflower logo. Clicking that “Connect” button felt like dipping my heart in ice water.

Gareth popped up in a little video feed. He was a man in his late 50’s with combed-back salt-and-pepper hair. He had bushy eyebrows, a trimmed goatee, and a white shirt with a black tie. It looked like he was in a large office with wide, open windows. It looked pleasant. Airy.

“Good afternoon!” he smiled. “I’m glad you could make it. It’s difficult to take that first step on a new path.”

“It really is,” I nodded.

“But I’m glad you did!” he said. “Now, how about we talk a little bit about who we are? Would that be alright?”

We took turns talking about ourselves. We shared our names, our professions, our age, and a little bit about our families. Gareth was 57 years old and had worked as a mental health professional for 23 years. He had two sons who lived in Philadelphia, just like my mom. We spent some time talking about how we’d adapted to the pandemic, and how we felt about having to stay inside, wear masks, and the way it affected the way we looked at other people.

I barely noticed it, but Gareth had accidentally made me reveal my issues without me even realizing it. He was good. Real good. I had told him about how difficult my life felt; that I felt trapped in my own home, but that the outside was even worse.

“You’re describing it like you’re sailing a frying pan on a sea of fire,” Gareth said. “Like there’s no way out. That must be stressful.”

He was spot on. It felt hopeless, like spiraling down a black drain. But he just smiled and nodded.

“We can work with this.”

I decided to see Gareth twice a week. I could book any time I wanted, his calendar was wide open. I wanted to ask him about it, but I didn’t. There was a part of me who didn’t want to get too personal. Gareth seemed nice, but he was also just doing his job.

I was asked to sit by an open window during work hours as an exercise; a way to get used to the sounds of the outside world. It was nerve-wracking. Every passing car felt like a freight train, and every stray voice from a passer-by felt like a threat. But slowly, day-by-day, it turned to background noise. And with that, the world started to feel a little bigger. The walls breathed again.

Over the next few sessions with Gareth, we tried a couple new exercises. Leaving the window open when I slept. Leaving the front door unlocked during work hours. And, by our fourth session, he asked me to try something new.

“About half an hour a day, right before you go to bed, I want you to open your front door,” he said. “Stand or sit there, taking in the sounds of the city.”

That night, I tried it. I opened the front door and sat down. I tried to mentally record everything I saw, one thing at a time. The walkway down the road. The ill-kempt playground. I counted the cars, the windows on nearby buildings, the light posts, the parking meters. I put some conscious thought into observing things from a new perspective.

But through it all, the one thing that made me want to go back inside was the sight of other people. It wasn’t just the threat of a spreading pandemic; people seemed nefarious to me. Ill-willed. Dark silhouettes roaming about in the night, their wants and haves a mystery. If the news were an indicator of anything, everyone was struggling to make ends meet. Everyone was a potential assailant. At best, they were indifferent.

Perhaps I had it all wrong. Maybe it wasn’t the virus closing my throat that was the greatest issue; maybe the real problem had been people all along. Looking at the nameless shapes staring at me from the windows across the street, that sentiment felt more true than ever.

The more sessions I had with Gareth, the more I realized my priorities were changing. I was letting go of my claustrophobic tendencies, but I couldn’t help but to feel threatened by the people around the neighborhood instead. Gareth seemed very interested in this, asking me to describe my feelings and mapping out my day. It was very thorough, and I got new exercises to deal with my anxieties.

I was asked to record my nightmares and worries. Another day, I was asked to write down stray thoughts on paper. Another day, we had a session about how to practically deal with intruders, and how it made me feel that there might be people out there who wanted to harm me. We talked about the many ways people could disappoint you, and how easy it was to retreat from the public.

But I didn’t get a good read on Gareth. It seemed to me like he wasn’t really trying to treat me anymore. The exercises he suggested did little but to zoom in on the worst feelings that lingered in the back of my mind. My anxieties were emphasized; not examined.

But one thing that remained was my nightly routine to sit with an open door, looking out over the neighborhood. I’d stopped mapping the objects I could see; instead focusing on the neighbors. Strangers walking past in the night. I had convinced myself that they wanted my money, my car, my brand name clothes… all of it. I had this feeling that if I were to leave my place for a night, I’d come back to it being ransacked – if I came back at all. It was eas…

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