“Are you okay?”
The person asking me this question has slight build, almost black eyes. An apron covers black skinny jeans and an enourmas sweater so big for him that I wonder how he doesn’t get lost in it. Scruffy hair sticking out from under a beanie pulled down low so that it covers most of his face. A concave-down nose. Small hands for a man in his thirties.
He asks me this question at least once each time I see him, or else he explodes with a harsh little “relax! calm down!” Out of nowhere.
He notices that my muscles are tensed up, I am standing too perfectly still, my breathing is too shallow, my eyes are a little wider than they should be – long before I start to feel the work-stress in my body. Before I notice the anxiety begin to really kick.
“can I diagnose you with something?” I ask, a little snappishly, after the third time he asks this question in the space of an hour or so.
He raises his eyebrows. I take a deep breath.
“when you were a child, you had an emotionally volatile parent,” I tell him, carefully choosing my words. “you learned to constantly monitor the emotional states of the people in the room with you very quickly and very well. for safety. this is something you have always been very good at. it’s not really empathy at all, it’s called hypervigilance.”
as I speak, he slowly melts into laughter. this is the most genuine expression I have ever seen on his face.
“It was my mother,” he tells me.
I know.
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