Between the ages of five and fifteen things disappeared. There was no mystery involved. When my mother made up her mind something had to go, it had to go. The book on my night table had to go. 

I read it over and over, comforted by the story of the sad Chinese girl.  I needed it to go to sleep and one night it was gone. 

You've read it too many times, my mother said. Find a new book.  

My mother had no time to indulge her small daughter's nervous habits. There were too many of them. She could only take so much.

You were born nervous, she would say. Decades later, her daughter's odd behavior would have a name. General Anxiety Disorder. A particular type of anxiety that is soothed by repetition, and sameness. An anxiety that is helped by order, predictability, and things that don't change if they don't have to.

My mother suffered from her own anxieties but she pooh-poohed all mental illness. If you were crazy, well, that was something else. Then you went to the place across town.  It was the psychiatric wing of the local hospital, known as the "R" wing.  I wondered what the "R" stood for. Really Really Crazy, I imagined. I just knew I didn't want to end up there. 

I worked hard to stay out of the "R" wing. My mother threatened me with it whenever one of my many anxieties surfaced. She gave stern warnings when I cleared my throat. I can't help it, I told her. My throat was always closing.  It was something I couldn't control, no matter how often I was punished. I sat in my bedroom closet to clear my throat so she wouldn't hear.

The day I cut bangs in my hair was the day my brother jumped on "the girl is crazy" bandwagon.  I'd cut them unevenly by accident so I kept cutting. I ended up with a bald spot the size of a quarter on the left side of my head. I tried covering it with the wisps of bangs that were left, but it was no use. They'll shave your head in the "R" wing anyway, my brother said.  The threat of the "R" wing loomed large.

That was the summer my turtles disappeared. I searched the bedroom, thinking they had escaped. My brother had let them go free. He said it was cruel to keep them in a fake turtle house. 

I held the empty turtle house as my tears splashed into the pond with the plastic palm trees. 

They were happy here, I whispered, my eyes overflowing and my throat closing tight. My brother glared at me.

Do you have any idea how crazy you look right now?