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Alison hadn’t struggled with her mental health in a long time; the last panic attack she had had was exactly a week after she had gotten married to Mike. The stress of the wedding, the fear of the future… it had all gotten too much for her. By that point, she had been in therapy since Year 12, and on medication for anxiety since not long after. Mike had been a great help to Alison once they met at her sixth form college. Sixth form had been one of the lowest points in Alison’s life, but Mike had helped her through it and so, she’d gotten to where she no longer really had many symptoms, almost completely off her medication and the most content she had been with life in years.
Then, Alison questioned as she woke up to the blaring of her alarm, why did she feel so awful. Coming round from sleep, Alison immediately recognised the characteristic brain fog and heaviness in her chest, the same shakiness and terror that came with episodes. Mike was still fast asleep beside her (as he often was - Alison had her own alarm and Mike had his, half an hour later than Alison’s) and she didn’t want to bother him, so Alison chose to ignore how she was feeling. It had been years since it had felt so wrong, so Alison chose to believe this would be a passing feeling.
The clock shone ten past eight in the morning as Alison finally roused herself out of bed - the feat wasn’t usually difficult and she was, in general, quite a morning person, but today, the energy needed to leave her bed was almost more than she could muster. Alison pushed through how her mind and body were screaming at her to stay in bed, she had more important things to attend to. She had to time the Captain at nine o’clock, for example, turn Kitty’s pages in her book, show Robin the morning newspaper’s crossword section and - Alison felt her chest constrict as she listed the rest of the tasks to herself.
Ignoring, again, the way she felt, Alison made her way to the kitchen. Perhaps she was tired or hungry. A nice cup of coffee and some scotch pancakes would surely help cure how she felt. Pressing down on the button to turn the kettle on and waiting for a click, Alison grabbed the pancakes and the toaster, laying everything out. Then she sat down, much to her detriment.
“Alison! Alison!” Kitty bounded into the kitchen, the optimistic ring of her voice startling Alison who had now been staring at the kitchen wall for three minutes and twenty four seconds instead of making breakfast.
“Morning Kitty,” Alison smiled the best she could.
“It’s almost half past eight, and I am very curious as to what happens next within the novel!” Kitty beamed, beating around the question of directly asking Alison to just turn the page for her because there must have been a reason she had forgotten and she didn’t want Alison to dislike her.
The novel… The novel!
“Ah, I’m sorry for forgetting, Kitty. I’ll come do that now.”
“Don’t worry!” Kitty smiled, about to walk from the kitchen, hoping Alison would follow her.
It was strange just how much she felt lead, how moving felt like wading through thick swamps of mud. Alison’s hands lightly trembled as she braced herself against the side of the kitchen table, willing to make herself just keep going. It wasn’t even eight thirty yet, she couldn’t just stop the day before it had begun.
Abandoning her coffee and pancakes, Alison followed Kitty.
“There we are - let me know when you’d like it moved again,” Alison spoke, trying to not let her tone drop too flat, there was no point in worrying anybody if she didn’t seem like her usual self.
“Thank you!” Kitty smiled, eagerly sitting on the stool in front of the book.
After Kitty, Alison had Captain to attend to, and Thomas, Robin, and Fanny… Alison couldn’t help the spike of white hot anxiety that shot through her again at the thoughts of everything else she had to do that day. However, before any other residents of Button House could appear, from her bedroom, Alison heard the blasting of Mike’s alarm.
“Good morning,” she paced back to her room, gently getting back into bed and pressing her lips against Mike’s cheek to wake him up.
“Morning,” he spoke, groggily.
“Do you want pancakes?”
“Mmm,” Mike hummed in the affirmative.
Alison forced a grin. “They just need toasted. I’ll go do that now, I’ll see you soon.”
Alison left the room again, making her way back to the kitchen where the kettle had long since already been boiled and the water was now lukewarm. Once again clicking on the plastic switch, the kettle began to boil as Alison, this time, grabbed two cups and two plates from the wooden cupboard and began to carefully spoon a few heaps of coffee into each mug. Food didn’t seem very appealing to her at the moment, but she had to. For Mike.
Once the kettle had pinged, Alison placed two pancakes into the toaster and began to pour the boiling water into each cup. Shakily, Alison missed her cup, splashing the hot liquid directly onto the back of her hand. In any other circumstance, she would have yelped, pulling her hand away and running it immediately under cold water. Today, however, she barely felt it.
Once the pancakes had popped up from the toaster, she smeared a little butter onto each and placed them onto plates, not bothering to slice them, while Mike walked in. She didn’t have to do this. Alison knew she didn’t have to put on a brave face for Mike; if she needed to, Alison knew he’d be more than happy to spend all day in bed together, holding each other. But there was too much to be done.
“Is your hand okay?” Mike asked, sitting down, taking a plate and mug from the side bench.
“Hm?” Alison asked, looking down to the hand she’d spilt hot water on to, noticing how, now, it had gone rather red and there was clear indicator it could blister. “Oh.”
Without a direct reply from Alison, Mike cocked his head to the side a little and squinted. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah… yeah. I’m fine, I just didn’t sleep very well.”
“Do you want to go back to sleep for a bit? I can do whatever needs to be done here today.”
Alison shook her head, taking a bite of the pancake. Usually these pancakes were Alison’s favourite breakfast, melted butter on top adding to the deliciousness of them. But today, like many things, they tasted wrong. They felt wrong. To Alison, it was as if she was taking a bite of cardboard that felt like a rock in her throat as she swallowed. The one bite made her feel ill.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes, it’s almost nine. I’ve got to do Captain’s running ghost war thing,” Alison spoke suddenly, pushing her plate off to the side. “ You can finish that if you want. I’m not hungry.”
“Alison! Alison!” Captain had been yelling her name for the past three minutes and he was starting to get distressed. There was a routine to Button House in the mornings and Alison wasn’t following protocol. The longer Alison took, the faster he tapped his swagger stick against his leg and cleared his throat - Pat watched from the window, calling down to him.
“I’m sure she’ll be here any minute, mate!”
“Would you just go look for her?”
“I’m here. I’m here!” Alison said, now walking into the room where Pat stood.
“There you are! What the bally hell do you think you’re playing at?” Captain was angry and unhappy with the delayed start and that couldn’t help but seep in through his tone.
Alison swallowed. “Sorry.”
“Right, well. We can begin now.”
Alison grabbed the timer, pressing start as Captain ran. Alison was always very vigilant with the time, for the off chance Captain would get anything other than two minutes and thirty seconds, however, she couldn’t stop the fogginess that took hold of her mind as she stared out to the courtyard of Button House. Alison’s eyes couldn’t quite seem to keep themselves focused, she wasn’t intending to blur them, but they blurred anyway, making her surroundings blend into an array of greens and browns and greys. This also meant, however, Alison didn’t recall when Captain finished his run, not stopping the timer until at least three minutes.
“Are you okay?” Pat asked Alison who had barely snapped out of her daze.
“Yeah,” she chewed on her lip when she looked down to see the time was much different than usual and she was sure Captain was going to ask. Without saying much, Alison left the room, leaving Pat alone and confused, she’d explain the time to Captain later.
“Alison!” she heard from every angle as she stepped out of the room. The Button House residents had emerged. She was so late to the routine, all the routines, there were many different things she should have already done before nine in the morning and it seemed to have upset more than just Captain.
“I’m sorry- '' Alison weakly offered, now all too aware of the fast pounding in her chest, replacing the emptiness she had awoken with. Alison didn’t enjoy the change in routine much either, but it was the distress of the others and the time management that was now out of place that really got to her. She enjoyed spontaneity. But the kind of spontaneity which occurred whenever everyone was happy with it.
“What ‘bout the sounds?” Mary asked.
“Crosswords!” Robin was next.
“My music! A poet may not be deprived of his muse!” Thomas gasped with as much drama as he could find within himself.
“I’m sorry,” Alison choked out, repeating herself. It was ten past nine, she was shaking.
Without warning, the dizziness set in, her breathing remained even for the moment, but a sudden disconnect hit, paired with waves upon waves of a dizziness which meant she had to hold onto the table in the corridor to steady herself.
“Alison?” Pat’s voice. “Alison, mate, are you sure you’re alright?”
Alison, despite her best efforts to smile and agree, grimaced. Either this was all going to pass and she was going to be stuck in some sort of dissociated state the entire day and maybe she could tell Mike what was wrong and they would cuddle and order take out, or, she was going to have a panic attack.
“Where is Alison?” Captain asked, appearing from the stairs. “I must know my time.”
The option her body went with was panic attack.
Alison wanted to get Mike before it got bad, before she started to hyperventilate so badly she was unable to think or see straight. But it got too bad too quickly. For the moment, Alison remained standing, her chest heaving in and out and with every fast breath, she attempted to make a slow and deep breath. She had the techniques mapped out in her mind. She knew the square breathing and the 5 things you can see, Alison could rhyme off any of these to anyone else, but she knew they didn’t help her.
It wasn’t long before she could no longer remain standing, her hands and neck and legs tingling as she squeezed her hands together and willed everything to just stop. Alison wasn’t sure as to how the ghosts were reacting - her hearing often stopped working the way it should, as did her eyesight, whenever these occurred. She could feel her whole body tremble and heave and then the tears started.
Welling up and relentlessly falling, tears pooled on the edge of her pyjamas, a repurposed t-shirt from when she was younger. The tears made it harder to breathe, she was fighting to make them stop as she scrubbed and scrubbed at her eyes, teeth digging so hard into her bottom lip she could taste blood.
“Please…” Alison whispered to herself through hyperventilation. The self-talk she had been taught never worked, and, granted, neither did the self-talk she used, but still, she begged to nothing to make it stop. In the moment, she didn’t care that there were definitely ghosts watching her and, probably, trying to help. When a panic attack consumed Alison, there was never much else she could focus on.
Relentless. The two or so years it had been since something like this had happened felt like they were all crashing down upon her, like the two years were the buildup for something awful. She wanted Mike. Alison wanted Mike but there was no strength left within her to trail herself back down the stairs, and she certainly didn’t trust her voice to shout for him.
Then, Alison heard a crash that made her shudder, her breath drawing in sharply. And then… she felt arms around her, wrapping her up in a hug that, years ago, they’d discussed that helped.
“Just listen to my voice, yeah?” It was Mike.
“Mm.” Alison couldn’t reply.
“Okay…” Mike pondered for just a moment. “I know all the traditional panic attack stuff doesn’t work on you, so I want you to feel me first. Feel my hug, hold my hands, whatever feels comfortable for you.”
Alison nodded, leaning into his touch.
“Now… let’s imagine. We’re at a beach, alright? The waves gently crash against the sand and we can feel the water, it’s cold, right?”
“Mmm.”
“There are seagulls too, they’re making bird noises and are brilliant white colours. Other people are eating fish and chips and the seagulls want the fish and the chips.”
Alison nodded again, tears were still flowing down her face and it seemed as if she was clutching onto Mike for dear life, but her breathing was slowing down a little, evening out.
“We have ice cream. What ice cream would you buy?”
“Strawberry,” Alison whispered.
“What’s the temperature like? On the beach.”
“Hot. Ice cream… is cold,” Alison struggled the words out, although her breathing was almost even again, she was still left breathless.
Mike smiled. “I’m proud of you,” he kissed Alison gently across the cheek, not moving. “Do you want me to keep talking?”
Alison shook her head, so they both sat in silence for a further few minutes. The tears had stopped running and Alison was breathing fine again, there was still a heaviness and dissociation that always came after panic attacks, but she no longer felt as dizzy as she had. There was also a characteristic nausea that had settled in her stomach, although she knew she’d feel worlds better with some water, food and rest.
“I knew something was off this morning,” Mike spoke first.
“Huh? Did you?”
“Yeah… you didn’t seem yourself. It’s been ages since that’s happened though, hasn’t it?”
Alison nodded. “Everything got a bit too much today.”
“We’ve been doing work on the house nonstop for months - let’s take a rest day today.”
A sigh of relief escaped Alison’s lips - she wouldn’t have suggested it herself, but if Mike did, then she’d be able to go along with it.
Mike stood up from the floor first, helping Alison up, knowing she was always a little woozy after panic attacks. The ghosts had dispersed from the corridor - she wasn’t sure how long they’d been gone for, but she almost certainly knew where they were. Alison clasped onto Mike’s hand as they both walked down the stairs and into the living room, the ghosts exactly where Alison presumed they’d be.
“I’ve got… ghost things I need to do for a minute.”
“I’ll make us some tea,” Mike smiled, walking into the kitchen.
“Alison! Oh, Alison! Are you alright?” Kitty asked, she seemed as if she’d been upset herself.
Alison nodded slowly. “It was a panic attack. I don’t get them very often anymore, but I used to have them a lot when I was younger.”
“What’s a panic attack?” Kitty asked.
“Well…” Alison took a deep breath and began slowly. “You get scared, right? Anxious? Fearful? Panic attacks are a bit like that. But they’re very intense, it sort of takes over everything you can feel and in my case, it makes my hearing and breathing go funny. They’re different for everyone, though.”
“Oh!” Pat spoke knowingly. “I had a scout once, bad anxiety, I think. He had similar things happen too, we never knew what to call them.”
“I’m sorry if I caused you any distress, Alison.” Captain cleared his throat.
“It’s alright, really. Everything just got on top of me today - it happens.”
“Well, I hope you’re feeling alright now,” Captain finished as the others nodded in agreement.
“You can tells us to be quiet if you wants to,” Mary spoke up. “I know it gets very loud in here sometimes.”
“Thank you, Mary,” Alison huffed a smile.
It wasn’t long before Mike came back, two steaming mugs of tea in his hands and Alison directed him to the free seat beside her before picking up the remote and heading to Netflix.
“I wanted to come find you before it got bad, but I couldn’t get up. How did you know?” Alison asked.
“I heard a crash from upstairs and wanted to find out what it was - you were more important.” Mike replied.
A crash. Alison glanced at Julian and mouthed “thank you”; Julian nodded back to Alison.
“Thank you. I couldn’t ask for anyone better.”
“Let’s do nothing today, we deserve it.”
“We do.”