I ghosted my therapist today. It’s not that I disliked her or anything. I actually liked her quite a lot. She had this thick Chicago accent that was oddly comforting in a specific way. Her words of wisdom soothed like the first swallow of a steaming peppermint tea. Also, she wore this dorky headphone set that reminded me of my elementary school computer lab. I appreciated the palpable nostalgia that they filled me with.

During one of our sessions, she confessed to me that she had moved to Canada to reunite with her long-distance partner of eight years. Learning little details about her life was always so rewarding, like I somehow mastered therapy and manipulated her into switching roles. I realize now that these rare drops of control she prescribed me were her way of making me feel comfortable. 

I started seeing my therapist because I could no longer handle my nightly obsession with death. Not in a suicidal way. It was actually the opposite. I was brimming with the yearning not to die and spent each night in a tossy-turny, sweaty panic stewing on the recurring thought of my impending mortality. The idea would form like a bud in my mind and burgeon into these wicked vines taking root within the pink folds of my brain. On particularly rough nights, I would convince myself that I would not wake up the next morning. 

“Remember that kid who went to middle school with your brother?” it would say. 

“Remember how, one day, he didn’t show up to school,” it badgered, “his parents came home to find him dead in the same spot they left him in the morning?” 

That was when I learned about the phenomenon of brain aneurysms, and the unwanted knowledge has haunted me since. I imagine the boy being discovered by his parents. They initially believe he has skipped school to stay home and watch TV, until they look closer and see his limp body and slackened jaw. Soon they realize his brain went pop! Easier than taking a sip of water. 

In one of our first sessions, my therapist prompted me to recount the first time I had experienced this all-consuming fear of death. I hesitated for a moment and then decided to tell her a story that took place when I was eight years old on a Christmas shopping trip with my parents. We were driving home from buying my brother this garish ceiling light that resembled a Toronto Maple Leafs scoreboard. That was the same year my parents painted his room blue with white stripes to match his favourite hockey team. When he finally painted over it all I told him how tacky I always thought it was. 

In the back seat of the car, I used my finger to practice my cursive with the built-up condensation on the window. I was trying to save myself from another embarrassing scolding from my terrifying third-grade teacher, Mrs. Paul, when the steamy winter window suddenly became one overwhelming yellow light. “Jackass!” my dad’s scream mixed into a cacophony with the low blaring of the car horn. 

As I cautiously lifted my head, I caught sight of my mother in the passenger seat with her palms cupped over her eyes. She slowly peeked through the thin slits between her fingers and let out an exhalation. For a second, I remember wondering what it was that she did not wish to see. But an image of our limp bodies hanging in suspension in our beat-up, upside-down, Volkswagen formed in my mind and I understood. Her hands would act as a shield, transitioning her from one blackness to the next. My parents were atheists, so they were always softly blunt about the unforgiving nature of death — “worm food,” they’d say. 

Most people can relate to being nearly pummeled to death by a bad driver. So, that is the story I told my therapist. The story is real, I would never lie to my therapist; I just preferred to withhold some truths. What she didn’t know was that it was not the first seed. 

I hate this next story. It is not particularly upsetting for me to tell, despite the ongoing trauma it has generously bestowed upon me. I hate this story because not a single person I tell this tale to can control their laughter. If they are at least trying to be polite, they will give me a quick snort, shrug, and mumble a sorry. But I always catch their stupid grins beneath their failed poker faces. So, here it is. When I was seven years old, I choked on an entire hotdog. Not just a little bite. The entire thing lodged in the esophagus of my four-foot body. It started off with a fight between myself and my brothers on whether to watch The Rugrats or SpongeBob. As most fights ended between us, I was outnumbered, and they got what they wanted. Though I soon realized to my apprehension that this show was funny. Really funny. So funny that I simultaneously let out a burst of laughter as I was about to take a bite of my hotdog. My gaping maw turned out to be the perfect slip-’n-slide and the hotdog decided to take a ride. The whole thing was very cartoonish. The way the hotdog escaped its bun with a single burst of energy from the vibration of my laughter could have been a bit straight from Looney Tunes. But the seriousness of the situation was never a question to me. The simple task of breathing was no longer an option. With some sort of survivalist adrenaline, my body shot straight up and bolted to the kitchen. What little breathing I could muster was raspy and gargled. I sounded like those elderly smokers from the anti-smoking advertisement they would show us at school who have to get holes made in their necks. 

With one pleading look up at my mom, she knew. She turned to my father and screamed at him to call an ambulance. The look on his face in that moment is burned into my memory. I have never seen anyone freeze the way he did, with one hand reaching for the landline and the other pulling at his thinning hair. His panicked eyes could not take their gaze off of my tiny body writhing with every failed breath I tried to take. “What are you doing?” my mom yelled. “Call 911!” 

My father snapped out of his trance and stumbled as he grabbed the phone off of the receiver. My mom just kept urging me to cough. Cough! Cough! Cough! she screamed. I don’t remember any of the pain, but I remember how irritated I was, thinking how I was supposed to cough if I couldn’t even breathe. What discomforted me the most was the unsettling feeling of the wet hotdog bun glued to the roof of my mouth. I stuck my fingers into my mouth and began to scrape at the soggy bits of half-chewed bread. “Stop it,” my mom cried, constraining my hands, “you have to try to cough. Please, honey,” she spoke through her sobs. 

My mom did not know the Heimlich maneuver at the time, and we were running out of options quickly. She did the only thing left she could think of. The same thing her own father did to her when she choked on one of those round white mints that old people always seem to be stockpiling. She bent my body over like a rag doll and slapped on the middle of my back as hard as she could. The hotdog shot out like a cannonball and made a dramatic splatter onto the kitchen floor. Our golden retriever sneakily wiggled over and began to lick at my regurgitated dinner. 

“Oh my god, she’s okay. She’s okay,” my dad cried into the phone to the dispatcher before hanging up. Our quaint kitchen was a full house. My brothers stood at the entrance to the kitchen, gaping speechlessly at me. My father slumped defeatedly over the kitchen counter, wiping a bead of sweat off of his brow. My mother collapsed on the floor with me in her arms, kissing the top of my head. And our dog in the centre of it all, enjoying his hotdog. 

  So that was the real first seed. I can’t say for certain why I kept little secrets from my therapist, stashing them away like a squirrel preparing for hibernation. All I know is that every inch of my body would reject the complete transfer of control over to her. The worst moments were the pregnant pauses. Her eyes seemed to grip at me through the laptop screen. While twiddling the pendant on my necklace back and forth between my fingers, she would break the silence, “I can tell you are becoming emotional right now. Would you like to talk about that?” With a quick glance at my own reflection, I would see the splotchy reddening of my complexion.

I ghosted my therapist after my doctor prescribed me antidepressants. Miming my mother on that winter drive, I chose to close my eyes in the face of death rather than confront it. But the medication worked. The nagging thoughts of death slowly faded with each dose, and for the first time in two decades, I did not fall asleep in an existential panic. Sometimes, I can still feel the low hum of the seed deep within the chasm of my brain. Before it can sprout above the surface, I add more dirt.