Amanda Stern

Now I'm an adult, but instead of my mother being the central thing around which my dread has organized itself, it's my apartment.

My apartment has become my mother.

Only now, just the thought of leaving sends me to the bathroom to throw up.

I worry that any small movement will set me off, so I stay as still as I possibly can.

But then I worry that I'm running out of air, so I race to the window and I open it, but as soon as I stick my head out, I can feel the dread in the wind rushing towards my face, trying to murder me.

And I slam the window down and I race back to the bathroom to throw up.

But this doesn't stop me from worrying that I'm running out of air, so every now and then I check.

I open the apartment door, I take a couple of steps out, but nope, nope, nope, I can feel that black cloth of dread wanting to drop over my head and pull me to a grave and bury me alive in cement.

And I race back to my apartment, and I always end up throwing up in the bathroom.

I can't even have friends over because I'm so afraid they'll breathe all the available air and I'll die from socializing.

I want a big life.

I want to perform and be on stage.

I want to write books and do readings from them.

I want to host dinner parties and actually attend them.

But how can I do any of this when I can't even be around people?

The only way out, the only thing I can figure to do

is just to end my life.

It just makes the most logical sense.

But before I do that, I need to know the name of the thing that wants me to kill myself, and I know the person who knows that is my mother.

I know that my mother has been keeping a secret from me.