Parasite
By Rebecca Harmon
She needed a trim. I waited on the uncomfortable salon chair, thumbing through my book. I couldn’t see her from my seat, so I shifted to a different one. She gestured to the hairdresser the length she wanted. I remember her saying she wanted just an inch off before we left our apartment. I smiled as I scanned my book again. I knew she would get at least two. My cell phone vibrated in my purse and I searched to answer it. I had to step outside for a minute, so I watched through the glass as the hairdresser led her to the hair washing basins. I answered the phone, my friend on the other line. I told him my sister was getting a trim. He mentioned he needed one too. Funny. We chatted aimlessly a minute longer before I peered through the glass again. My sister was coming back up to the front, looking around, probably for me. My brows furrowed as I opened the door slightly and whistled at her. She saw me and scurried over. I held the phone away from my face and whispered, “What is it sis?” She made a clicking sound with her tongue before laughing. “I have lice.”
My first therapist once told me that to conquer obsessive thoughts I needed to master the four Rs. Relabel. Reattribute. Refocus. Revalue. Obsessive thoughts can look something like this: I’m having the urge to throw my mug on the kitchen floor and watch it break into little pieces. Relabel: That’s a compulsion. Reattribute: This is my anxiety manifesting. Refocus: I’m going to go for a walk outside to breathe in the nice fresh air. Revalue: After I have taken my walk, I ask myself, “How helpful would it have been if I had broken the mug? Would it have solved my problem?” I would walk back into my apartment, to the kitchen, open a cupboard, and fill the mug with water. I would take a large gulp, fingers clenching the teal ceramic cup.
“So. Your sister has lice.” A lady from our church had approached me. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact. “You girls need to be extra cautious and not get too close to people. How long has she had the lice? Do you know?” She eyed me; her tight lips pulled into an attempt at a smile. I whispered, “About four months.” She shook her head. “That’s not just lice, that’s super lice. It can jump from head-to-head.” She saw my eyes widen. She continued, “I have leftover lice removal shampoo and conditioner that I lent to some other girls a while back. You come swing by my house today and I’ll give it to you. It’ll fix your problem.”
“It’s all in your head,” my mom said. I wanted to retort, “Well, yeah, it’s all in my head. It’s literally going on in my head.” But I kept quiet. I sat on the edge of her bed like I had hundreds of times before. It was my spot. My trouble spot. My mom always knew. She would stare into the bathroom mirror, watch me dangle my feet over the side of the bed, and ask what was the matter. When I was a kid, it was silly things. My friends weren’t letting me play on the glider, my brother wouldn’t stop chasing me around the house, or something as small as not being able to tie my shoes right. Now, it was the thoughts. They wouldn’t leave. The heaviness. It wouldn’t go away. She finished her mascara, took the curlers out of her hair and looked at me. Inside, I was pleading that she would fix me. She could see it on my face. She went to her dresser drawer, took out some essential oils, and gave them to me. “This will help,” she said. I wanted to throw the bottle across the room.
My fingers inched through my sister’s hair, little by little. It was a deep brown. Beautiful. It felt soft, I knew that she made an effort to brush it every day. She would rummage through the fridge, hand tapping on the door handle, while the other mindlessly detangled every silky strand. She would forget the brush on the counter, right next to the stove or her pill bottles. I would make sure to put it back in the bathroom on her side of the counter. Now, I made sure that the fine-toothed comb didn’t miss a single strand. I weaved with a delicate touch to remove the parasites feeding on her head. I had to do this every day to remove the lice. Over and over, I had to comb. For hours and hours, I would try to fix her.
I sat across from my second therapist, looked at my scuffed sneakers, up at her clipboard, and then back at my shoes. She tried to get me to breathe deeply, but I felt dizzy. “You can lay down,” she said. I felt uncomfortable on her couch. I realized I had been sitting forward, not taking advantage of the multiple decorative pillows. So, I adjusted myself and tried to breathe. The room was spinning. She let me sit back up when I needed to. “Now, I want you to close your eyes and just feel,” she said. “Feel every single emotion and don’t push it away. Let every single thought come to you freely. Accept it as it is.” My throat tightened and I couldn’t breathe again. And then I cried, painful, hot tears. I let my nose run. She whispered, “That’s good, that’s good.” It did feel good, until I felt nothing.
Adult lice would mosey around my sister’s head while the nits, or eggs, they lay, would stick to her hair. Nits would sometimes be empty; the babies having emerged and on the hunt for blood. Some would still have a little nymph inside. I took the lice removal shampoo and massaged it through her hair. It smelled medicinal and strong. It made me want to throw up. I held my breath and let my fingers caress her hair. I pulled too hard and she winced. “Don’t you want the bugs out of your hair?” I said. She grimaced and looked at me, on the verge of tears. “Yes,” she mumbled. “Then you’re going to have to be patient,” I replied. I was going to have to be patient.
I wanted to leave and not come back. I couldn’t retain it, understand it, or even like it. Relabel. That’s just fear talking. Reattribute. My brain is getting stuck and my anxiety is kicking in. Refocus. I just need to take some deep breaths, pay attention to what is surrounding me, and recognize that nothing is hurting me. Revalue. Would leaving the classroom have benefitted me? Would I have grown as a student if I hadn’t met the challenges head on? I guess we will never know.
I rinsed the comb into a bowl of warm water. The nits turned black and floated to the top of the liquid. I showed her and she looked satisfied. “Good,” she said. “Do you think we are getting close to being done? We’ve been doing this every day for a week.” I combed through her hair again and rinsed it. A whole slew of nits ebbed off the comb, and floated to the top of the water. Abandoned homes of nymphs swirled in my popcorn bowl. “No,” I said. “Not even close.”
As I sat across from my doctor, she said that there are four pillars to achieve a good balance in your mental health. Nutrition, physical fitness, sleep, and stress control. If I was able to balance the first three pillars, and that wasn’t helping me achieve good mental health, I could consider medication. “Will it work immediately?” I asked, on the edge of the chair. “You have to give it some time. Be consistent. It won’t fix the problem instantly.” After I picked up the prescription, I tore open the bag and looked at the orange bottle. I stared at the little blue pills and whispered, “This is going to fix everything.”
We laid on the floor and looked at the ceiling. The apartment was crusty, old, infested. It explained the lice and then later the bed bugs. We looked at the depressions that were made, the holes punctured by previous tenants and tried to make sense of them. We talked about how I had accused her for being a slob. We talked about how she accused me of being controlling. We tried to apologize to each other but it felt forced, like when I was a kid apologizing to my brother. I cried. I said that I was trying. I said that I was doing my best. I told her I felt so burdened. She tried to console me by holding my hand. I didn’t want to let her. But I looked over at her, the dark brown locks thrown around her head, my blonde curls fanning around me. She told me that I didn’t have to do it on my own. I looked away and stared back at the holes in the ceiling. I wanted to crawl through them and escape.
They call it Brain Lock. It’s basically how it sounds; the brain just locks up and can’t stop thinking or repeating a certain thought. To combat this, I needed to practice behavioral therapy. This is considered a breakthrough because it is self-treatment. I didn’t necessarily have to go to a therapist or take medication. These four simple steps were guaranteed to improve the quality of my life at no cost. However, it needed to be applied daily or it wouldn’t work. Consistency was key.
After we moved out of that crusty apartment, I searched online what a super lice actually was. They look exactly the same as regular lice. They don’t jump head-to-head like I had been told. The only difference between lice and super lice was the treatment. Super lice had mutated to withstand normal treatments. So, in essence, they were nearly impossible to kill.
Rebecca Harmon is a recent graduate of Utah State University with a degree in English. Besides writing, Rebecca enjoys dancing in her kitchen, hammocking with her husband, and eating copious amounts of popcorn. Her goal in life is to inspire people for good.