#bc the amount of angsty yaps in there is kinda crazy

[made-my-peace-with-all-the-bad]

Welcome to my Marcia with anxiety yap:

Thinking about Marcia with anxiety. Thinking about how it all started with little Marcia. Marcia who was nine years old and confused as to why she woke up on her birthday alone. And then she was scared. Because every other year, her parents had been there waking her up and spinning her around. If they weren’t doing that, something must’ve happened to them right? And so she spent the entire day at home, worrying about them. To the point where she could barely even make herself lunch. And whenever someone asks her about her anxiety, that’s the moment she pinpoints as when she first really felt it. But it never went away. It followed her as she got older. Some days it was a violent yell, making her so anxious that she could barely go about her day, and some days it was more of a gentle whisper, a constant voice in the back of her mind. She’s not sure which days she preferred.

So now, she feels like she’s always on edge, and usually when she is, she goes to Cherry. Because Cherry understands. Cherry helps her through it all. Whether she needs someone to just tell her it will be ok, or if she needs someone to breathe with her through a panic attack, she knows Cherry is there.

Until she isn’t. Until Marcia encounters what she would probably describe as two of the worst weeks of her life. Those awful weeks that started the night Bob was killed. Because Paul was mourning and on a war path, he pushed Cherry away from them. And part of Marcia still hates herself for not immediately going to Cherry’s side and staying there. So instead, Cherry was pushed away and didn’t speak to any of them for almost two full weeks. And this fourteen days almost killed Marcia inside. She tried everything she could to make her anxiety lessen, but nothing worked. So instead, she was quieter than usual. Because suddenly the one person she relied on was gone and honestly, who was she to call Cherry and beg her to come help? So Marcia had her anxiety attacks in silence. She was so restless in class that she almost failed two tests, and she was so exhausted during the day because she barely slept at night. She tried to explain it to Trip, but how could she tell her boyfriend that she was so worried about everything and anything that she could barely function? How was she supposed to explain it to him when half the time he was the cause? So she didn’t, she kept quiet.

It wasn’t until a couple days after everything settled down, that Marcia worked up the courage to call Cherry. And when she did, she was so scared Cherry wouldn’t pick up the phone. But Cherry did. And Marcia just began to ramble out apology after apology while Cherry sat in her room in silence, stunned at how much it seemed like Marcia had been through in the last week. Cherry would never say it, but when Marcia started talking, she sounded exhausted, scared, and just so small. And by the time Marcia had finished, the line had disconnected. Ten minutes layered, Cherry was at her door, pulling her into a hug. Because how could she not forgive her? That’s her best friend. That’s the girl who would French braid Cherry’s hair when they were eleven because Cherry didn’t know how, that’s the girl that Cherry learned how to eye liner on, that’s the girl who Cherry would drop anything for, that’s her best friend. And god, did her best friend need her right now. They could talk about everything else later, all that mattered was that Marcia needed Cherry, and Cherry was there.

Marcia’s anxiety never really gets “better”. It’s still there. She still has days where she is so in her head that she spirals so fast that before she knows it, she’s hyperventilating in a bathroom. But now she knows that she’ll always have someone she can go to. If it’s not Cherry, then she can go to two bit, who now knows all of her signs and how to help her. She can honestly even just go to the Curtis house and almost any of them are willing to sit with her and hold her hand through an anxiety or panic attack. But she also has days where it’s less bad. She has days where sometimes it’s just a few thoughts that she can use the coping mechanisms that she and Cherry thought up. It doesn’t always work, but still, just like on bad days she has someone who is always in her corner, promising her she won’t feel this way forever, and everything will be ok. She doesn’t always believe them, but still, it’s progress, and that’s better than nothing.