Leggy Blonde: A Memoir by Aviva Drescher Read Free Book Online

their house. I was instantly anxious. What would I wear? Ralph was the king of American fashion. I wore Armani. (Major blonde moment.) I walked into their beautiful elegant home. Ralph kissed me hello and said, “Where did you get such great style?” He knew about my leg, and probably assumed I’d be nervous and insecure. A total mensch, he put me at ease with that one phrase. He couldn’t possibly know, however, what was making me really nervous. The couches were white. I had my period. All I could think of was, What if I leak on Ralph Lauren’s white couch?
    At dinner, the subject of my dad’s first-class meltdown came up. I apologized on his behalf. Ralph assured me it was an airline mix-up. He never used his name to put anyone out. I believed him. We all laughed about it. Ralph said that the incident was what drove him to buy his own jet. A pissed-off George really was that crazy.
    •  •  •
    When I was eight years old, I would go to sleepovers at my friend Daisy’s house. Seventy-five percent of the time, I wound up calling my parents, crying and asking them to come pick me up. Even though she lived two blocks away, I was homesick. Dad dutifully came to get me each time. Not being able to handle a separation might’ve been the first sign of my anxiety problems. I trained my parents, and myself, to let fear win. As soon as I felt a pang, I called in the cavalry. Nowadays, the conventional wisdom is to talk an anxious child down and make her stay at the sleepover to habituate her to fear. Removing a child from a stressful situation reinforces the message that she can’t handle it.
    Well, I sure couldn’t. When anxious, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. There was a tightening in my chest and throat. A nameless, crushing dread stole the air from my lungs. I thought I was dying. I’d tell my mother that I couldn’t breathe. She’d rush me to the doctor, who’d listen to my chest. Since I could actually breathe, the doctor would send us on our way.
    Anxiety wasn’t a popular diagnosis back in the pre-Zoloft era. People took Valium, but that was for stressed-out, overworked adults. Children were too young to get depressed, feel stress, or suffer from anxiety. Psychopharmacology barely existed then, and if it did, it was for the clinically insane. Of course, nowadays, it’s almost too easy for anyone at any age to get a diagnosis and prescription to treat neurological and psychological symptoms. As a diagnosis, anxiety has moved to the top of the list.
    Thinking you’re suffocating was a known precursor to a panic attack. And yet the word “anxiety” never came up in all those doctors’ visits. This went on for three years. And then, at eleven, I had my first full-blown panic attack. It coincided with recognizing my mother’s drinking problem. I could hear her vomiting in the bathroom five or six times a day. One day, after she emerged red-eyed and shaky, she called me into the den, asked me to sit down on the couch, and then just stared at me.
    I asked, “Mommy, what’s wrong?”
    She said, “I’m sick.”
    “Like a cold, or a tummy bug?”
    “It’s a different kind of sick.”
    She looked weak and fuzzy, but she didn’t have a fever. She was throwing up, but didn’t have a stomachache. None of it made sense to me, and that was terrifying. My mom was my everything, and something mysteriously bad was going on with her. I found out latershe was taking Antabuse, a pill that makes you violently ill if you drink any alcohol after taking it. It was meant to be a deterrent to prevent drinking, but Mom was more determined than that. Dad seemed upset that she was “sick.” More than upset. He acted like her illness was her fault. His anger erupted at night. He wasn’t violent, but he was on the edge—his rage was palpable. He’d scream and threaten to throw her out the window if she couldn’t stop.
    Stop what, though? I had no idea.
    The day after a particularly menacing late-night fight, my