Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne Page B

her with my filled-out survey. This is what some of it looked like. Not all of it – I don’t want to be personally responsible for the death of the rainforest.

    On and on it went. Pages filled after pages. I’d even started writing on the backs of them. I’d got a lump on my finger from the non-stop scribbling. Every single thought, over and over, sillier and sillier, and yet scarier and scarier as those days went by.
    When I handed it in, Sarah took one look and said, “So, yeah, you did need all those five sheets, didn’t you?”
    And so it went on.
    But not any more…
    Present day again: I hand my new Worry Outcome survey to Sarah. Only one side of paper. Never, ever, did I think I would see the day when I only used one side of paper. For a week. A whole week! Oh the pride in being normal.

    Every single session I was amazed how blasé Sarah was with my Worry Outcomes. She’d just collect them like they were art homework and, if we had time, we might go through one of two of the worries at the end.
    â€œSo,” she said, scanning this week’s. “Take it the date didn’t go well then?”
    â€œYou could say that.”
    â€œSo let’s fill out the rest of the columns…” She grabbed her pen. “You were worried the date wouldn’t go well…and…it didn’t. So would you say the worry came true?”
    â€œHe slept with someone else, Sarah. On our first date. Would you call that ‘the date going well’?”
    She mumbled something.
    â€œWhat was that?”
    She didn’t make eye contact as she repeated herself. “I did warn you…”
    I crossed my arms. “You’re going to lecture me on boys? You are an NHS Cognitive Behavioural Therapist. Tax payers are spending a fortune for you to help me get better so I can become a functioning member of society. Are we really going to go down the ‘boys are no good’ route? Can’t I just charge that to my new friends?”
    She always changed the subject when I got difficult.
    Effortlessly, she looked down to the bottom worry. “Ah, yes, your new friends. You’re worried they’ll find out about…about what?”
    I gestured to the therapy room. The beige walls, the box of crappy toys, the nondescript desk… “About this. Being here. Why I have to come here.”
    That prompted a scribble in the pad. “And what’s wrong with coming here?”
    A lump trampolined up my throat, as it always did when the topic came up. My eyes prickled with Yet. More. Tears.
    â€œYou know…it’s embarrassing. They won’t get it.”
    â€œWhat won’t they get?”
    â€œAny of it.”
    I crossed my arms and made the “I’m-not-going-to-talk-about-this-one” face and she let me off this time.
    â€œAll right…we can discuss that one later. You’ve written here that you’re scared you’re ‘going mad’ again?” She tapped the sheet with the end of her pen. “What’s that all about?”
    I thought of the knitting-needle-in-my-guts moment before the date. The bad thoughts. Immediately my tummy began to swim in the extra adrenalin.
    â€œBefore the date…” I started. “I was…washing my hands…just the once…but then I wanted to wash them again…and again…” I remembered touching Ethan’s hand and winced. “And again.”
    Unperturbed, Sarah asked, “What else was going on before the date? How were you behaving?”
    â€œI dunno…I was a bit jumpy, I guess. Wound up. My brain did that thing where it stepping-stoned from place to place and my heart was beating all hard. But it was okay…but then I wanted to wash my hands. I’ve not felt like that in a while…” The throat lump soared up on the trampoline again, wedging itself just behind my tonsils. I tried to swallow. She gave me a moment to