The Unspoken Lexicon of Healing: When My Symptoms Became Stories

The Unspoken Lexicon of Healing: When My Symptoms Became Stories

The first time I told a doctor about the weight on my chest, she didn’t ask if it felt like wet sandbags or a sleeping child or the ghost of every goodbye I’d ever swallowed. She typed two words: “Anxiety,” “Xanax.” The therapist asked if I had considered medication for the anxiety. I wanted to say, “No, I was struggling with transitions, I am grappling with the silence where my language used to be.” When I first moved away from home, I didn’t c…