Twilight Sparkle sat bolt upright, heart hammering in her chest, eyes wide and breathing heavily. Had she really remembered to pack all of her books? What if she forgot one and failed out of school? What if Princess Celestia was so disappointed in her that she decided Twilight no longer deserved to be her personal student?
It was a risk she couldn’t take. The unicorn filly climbed out of bed and turned on the lights. She paused for a moment, looking over her shoulder at where Spike lay curled up at the foot of her bed. The last thing she needed was for him to wake up like he had two nights ago; he was really just a baby, but he had been able to tell something was wrong. And that upset him, so he had started to cry.
Spike rolled over, but remained asleep.
Satisfied that she hadn’t disturbed him, Twilight moved over to her saddlebags. Chemistry, geometry, principles of thaumaturgy. Good. They were all there.
Had she remembered all of her writing supplies?
Her parchment, quills, and ink were in the other compartment.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Twilight turned off the lights and went back to bed.
What if she had been wrong when she checked? Maybe she only thought she saw one of them!
No, that was stupid. She knew they were all there.
Did she?
Twilight turned over and groaned, pulse racing. Slowly, she once again left her bed and turned on the lights.
All of her books were there. She counted them twice, and then checked her writing supplies. As before, they were present.
She was halfway across the room and back to bed when panic struck again. Could she be absolutely certain that she had packed all of her books? Twilight felt as if she were drowning in a sea of fear and uncertainty, doubt and terror seizing her mind and clogging her throat.
Twilight turned around and checked again, practically running to her bags. Once more, all of her books and supplies were there. This time, she looked four times. She closed her saddlebags and turned around. She hesitated, and then checked one more time.
Behind her, the door opened. “Twilight, honey? Is everything okay?” Twilight Velvet asked softly, making her way over to Twilight and bringing her daughter into a tight hug.
“This is the fourth time in two weeks, Twilight,” Night Light added. “I’m sure all of your books are there.”
Twilight’s ears drooped. It was the fourth time in two weeks that they had found her making sure that she had packed all of her supplies, not the fourth time she had done so.
“Do you want me to look?” her mother asked.
Wordlessly, Twilight nodded.
Twilight Velvet levitated the saddlebags over and peered inside. “Everything is in here, sweetie.”
Twilight closed her eyes and let out a sigh. If her mother was sure…
“So can you please go back to bed? It’s well past your bedtime,” Night Light said.
Twilight’s cheeks burned. She had been being stupid this whole time. Of course her books were there. She had checked so many times. Why couldn’t she just trust herself? She mumbled, “I’m sorry.”
Night Light sighed. “You don’t have to apologize, and I’m sorry if I made you feel bad. It’s just important for you to get enough sleep, okay?”
Twilight nodded slowly and extracted herself from her mother’s grip. She gave her father a hug goodnight and made her way back to bed.
After exchanging their final, whispered love you’s and good night’s, her parents turned off the lights and closed the door, leaving Twilight to fall into a fitful sleep.
The next day was, for the most part, uneventful right until the end of her private lesson with Celestia. It was, by any measure, a good day. All of her classes were engaging, and she only felt the need to check her saddlebags four times between classes to make sure her books were still there.
Right after Celestia had assigned her the reading for their next session, however, the princess brought up something Twilight had not expected. “Twilight, your parents told me that you seem to be having a fair amount of anxiety regarding whether or not you’ve actually packed your bags for school,” Celestia said.
Twilight’s mouth opened slightly, and she hung her head in shame. Now Princess Celestia would know that she was a stupid little pony who couldn’t even remember what she had put in her saddlebags. Panic began to mix with her shame as the thoughts continued. Would the princess decide that she didn’t deserve to be her pupil because of this? Was she about to be expelled or sent back to magic kindergarten?
“Twilight, please look at me.”
Celestia’s voice was calm and comforting, certainly not like the voice of a pony who was about to punish her, so Twilight managed to hesitantly bring her gaze up to her teacher’s face.
The princess regarded her student with a soft smile, and Twilight felt like she did when curled up with a good book on a rainy day as she looked into her mentor’s eyes: warm and safe and at peace with the world. “You have nothing to fear, my faithful student. You are not the first pony I have ever taught who has dealt with issues of anxiety, and I doubt you will be the last. Nothing I am about to say is in any way intended to punish you. I simply want to help you become the pony I know you can be, and I believe that you need some additional assistance here.
“To that end, I have recommended to your parents that you attend therapy with a pony I know well and trust completely. Please promise me that you will engage with these sessions as dutifully as you do my lessons, because this is indeed part of your education.”
“I… I promise.”
Celestia wrapped a wing around the unicorn and pulled her into a hug. “Thank you, Twilight. I know that this may seem scary now, but I trust that in time you will come to see its purpose.”
Twilight analyzed the room with a slight frown, sitting on a couch between her parents as they talked with the therapist, Soothing Blossom. The walls were painted a pale blue, and a large window overlooking a small garden let in lots of daylight. The garden itself was well maintained and full of bright flowers, with the floral theme continued in the pictures that hung on the walls. In the corner of the room was a box full of toys, and other foalish decorations dotted the room. It was, Twilight concluded, intended to be a calming environment.
It wasn’t working very well.
Finally, the green Earth pony mare and her parents finished. “Twilight, does what your parents just told me cover the situation?” she asked.
Twilight simply nodded.
“Well, have you heard about obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD, before?”
“I’ve read the Equestrian Psychological Society’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual,” the filly muttered, her eyes fixed on the floor.
Soothing Blossom blinked. “That’s rather impressive for a filly your age. I hope you won’t mind if we still go over some of the details anyway? Your parents might appreciate it as well.”
Twilight shrugged and her parents nodded their assent, so the mare continued. “Twilight, imagine for a moment that there’s a pony who’s terrified of dogs. If that pony encounters one when walking down the street, what do you think they might think?”
“That the dog will attack them, or something like that.”
“Exactly. So what might that pony do?”
“Probably run away.”
“Correct again. Now, when the pony does that, they’ll feel better at first. They got away from the dog unharmed, after all. But that pony might also think that the only reason that they weren’t attacked was because they escaped. So the next time they see a dog, they’ll be even more afraid, and the pattern will repeat. Pretty soon, they’ll probably stop leaving their house at times when they’re likely to encounter ponies walking their dogs, or avoid places where dogs are common. Eventually, they might stop leaving their house at all.
“The way I would treat such a pony would be to introduce them to dogs slowly. First, I might show them a picture of a dog, and they’d have to sit with it and their anxiety. But the thing about anxiety is that it eventually comes down on its own if a pony gets used to something. So even if that pony is absolutely terrified at first, eventually it will become routine. And then I might have them see a real dog at a distance, maybe by having them stand at the window in here with a dog out in the courtyard.
“And we’d continue these treatments, which we call exposures, until eventually we have that pony sit with a dog right next to them. So the first thing we need to do is come up with a list of possible exposures for you, and how anxious you think they’d make you feel. We’ll tackle them by starting with the ones that will only give you a little bit of anxiety at first ad make our way up. Before that, though, do you have any questions?”
Twilight looked up with a frown, her brow furrowed. “What happens if the dog does bite the pony?”
Soothing Blossom sighed and leaned forward, looking Twilight right in the eye. “Sometimes, that happens. Sometimes dogs even seriously hurt ponies. But we can’t control everything, and we have to accept that. The alternative is to become so trapped by fear that we lock ourselves away and don’t even live our lives. So you’ll have to sit with your anxiety and think, ‘Maybe, maybe not’ about your fears, not try to assure yourself that nothing bad will actually happen.
“That means –” she turned to Twilight Velvet and Night Light “– that if Twilight comes to you asking to make sure that all of her books are in her saddlebags or if you think she’ll get expelled or anything like that if she forgets them, you have to tell her you don’t know.”
Seeing their faces, she continued, “I know that’s the hardest part for family members, usually. We want to help our loved ones, and we don’t want to see them in distress. But in the long run, this is how we help them. Does Twilight have any other siblings, relatives, family friends, foalsitters, or the like who she might turn to when she’s panicking?”
“She has an older brother and a foalsitter who sometimes spends the night or takes her to school,” Twilight Velvet answered. “She also has a younger brother, but, well, he’d do anything she asked.”
Soothing Blossom nodded. “Make sure the older two also understand this, then. The younger one is tricky, though, so that will probably mostly be on Twilight.”
All eyes turned to her, and her father said, “Promise you won’t use Spike as a way to get around your therapy.”
“I promise,” she said, looking at her hooves.
“Now then, let’s make that list,” Soothing Blossom said.
Twilight could appreciate a good list. She loved them, in fact. But this was not a good list. It was in her opinion something she had never known was possible: it was a bad list. It began with things that were nerve-inducing (putting her writing supplies in a separate bag she could only retrieve in the mornings and couldn’t look inside until she got to school) and ended with something absolutely terrifying that there was no way, not once in a million years, she would ever willing do, something that made her hyperventilate just thinking about: intentionally leave a book she needed for a private lesson with Celestia at home.
And then there were the other items on the list that dealt directly with the fear of failure that had been identified as inextricable from her worries. Things like doing little things wrong like misspelling a word here or not adding a comma there. Other things on that list included asking simple questions that she felt anypony should already know the answer to, or asking to help out others and then doing the tasks they assigned incorrectly. Most of these she was allowed to do in settings outside of school, but entries higher on the list specified that she do them in class.
“Please, don’t hesitate to ask me if you need anything,” Soothing Blossom said as the session came to a close. “And if you haven’t already, I’d recommend making an appointment with a psychiatrist to look into medical options to supplement Twilight’s therapy.”
Inwardly, Twilight groaned as her mother assured the therapist that they had scheduled one for later that week.
The first few nights difficult, but Twilight knew they were starting off easy; the books, not the writing supplies, were the more important concern. Still, if the intent was to provoke her anxiety, it was working. She had more difficulty than normal falling asleep, even considering her nightly rituals of checking. Though she knew she was supposed to do her best not to, Twilight still found herself looking at her saddlebags most nights. And whenever she did, her relief at the presence of the books was tempered by a little jolt of anxiety at the absence of her writing supplies.
Still, somehow, she found that Soothing Blossom had been right. She began to grow accustomed to it, and that extra anxiety went down little by little each night until there was practically no additional stress. From there, however, things only started to get more difficult.
The next step was to add one of the books for a class other than her lessons with Princess Celestia to the supplies she couldn’t have in her room. The first night she had that exposure, she found herself staring up at her ceiling, heart pounding and a knot twisting in her stomach. Twilight had no idea what time it was, but she was certain she should have been asleep hours ago.
She looked over at her saddlebags, trying to fight the urge to make certain that her principles of thaumaturgy book, at least, was still in there.
Twilight looked back at the ceiling. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe she would fail, maybe she wouldn’t.
She tried to immerse herself in the uncertainty, but it wasn’t working. Her anxiety remained stubbornly high.
She put one hoof on the ground, and then another.
Twilight knew she should stop, that she shouldn’t check her bags.
She got out of bed and moved over to the light switch.
She swallowed, and glanced over at Spike. She doubted he would wake up; he was a deep sleeper anyway, and he seemed to have adapted to her rituals. She looked back at the light switch.
She turned it on.
Looking in the direction of her saddlebags, she caught sight of the card Spike had made her after they had explained everything to him sitting on her dresser. He hadn’t quite understood it, but there, in his large, childish letters, she read, “Get Well Sewn!”
She sighed and walked over to her bags.
Twilight hesitated and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and opened them.
She turned around and started to make her way back to the light switch.
She stopped again, and looked behind her. Her saddlebags seemed to call out to her. Her ears drooped and she let out a sigh as she again turned around and opened her saddlebags. The book was there.
Twilight was instantly flooded with relief, but also disappointment. She had failed; there was no getting around that fact. She turned off the lights and climbed back into bed, mentally kicking herself for her weakness.
Her eyes again drifted to her saddlebags.
Was she positive she had seen it?
Maybe, maybe not.
Twilight swallowed and tore her eyes away. She rolled over and closed them, willing herself to go to sleep. She looked back at her saddlebags, and found herself once more sticking a leg out from under her covers, her fear tinged with frustration.
Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Maybe, maybe not.
She imagined failing out of school because she was unprepared for class.
Maybe, maybe not.
Maybe, maybe not.
She pulled her leg back under the covers.
“Twily, you know you aren’t supposed to check your saddlebags on the way to school,” Shining Armor said as he walked with Twilight, noticing that her eyes again and again drifted toward her bags.
Her ears drooped. “It’s hard,” she whispered.
Shining stopped walking. “I know it is. I can’t say that I understand it, exactly, but I’ve seen how much effort you’ve put into this. But you want to know something else? You’re definitely one of the bravest ponies I know.”
A faint blush rose to Twilight’s cheeks, and she looked away. “N-no, I’m not brave.”
“Hey, look at me, Twily. I’m serious. Bravery is all about facing your fears, right? And that’s what you’ve been doing every day for the past two months. Every day you’ve had to do things all of your instincts have been screaming at you not to.” He held up a hoof to preempt her retort. “And, sure, you’ve messed up a few times. I get it. But you’ve never given up, and that’s brave.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Would I lie to you? Besides, I’m almost a Royal Guard, so I know courage when I see it. And I’m proud of you.” Shining smiled at her. “No matter what happens, I’m proud of you. And I know that Mom and Dad are, too.” He hugged her.
Twilight hugged her brother back tightly. “I love you.” Even if she didn’t really think he was right, his encouragement still made her feel a little better.
It actually meant quite a lot to her that he said that even though she had purposefully given him milk instead of orange juice at breakfast as an exposure. He, of course, was allowed to just think she was an idiot who couldn’t listen.
“Love you, too, Twily. Now let’s get you to school.”
That day, Twilight only checked her saddlebags five times between classes.
Twilight threw herself on her bed and groaned in frustration. Hot, angry tears stained her cheeks. Things had been going so well, but then she had to go and mess it all up! How stupid could she be?
For weeks now she had barely checked her bags at all, and yesterday she had even asked what the quadratic formula was in front of the whole class, something they had all learned years ago! But today she just had to keep making sure that she had geology book with her, didn’t she?
And then she, Twilight Sparkle, had been late for class!
She groaned again and buried her face in pillow.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Why couldn’t she just trust herself?
At that, she let out a snort. She wasn’t supposed to trust herself, not really. Wasn’t that the whole point? Instead, she was supposed to accept that she could have forgotten something or that she could fail or whatever.
She couldn’t even get that right, could she?
She rolled over and stared and the ceiling and wiped away her tears. What had Soothing Blossom said? That it was okay to have bad days, that everypony did?
She snorted again.
Maybe everypony did, but she was Twilight Sparkle. She wasn’t supposed to make mistakes like that. If she did, if she was just like everypony else, did she deserve to be Princess Celestia’s personal student?
What if she said Twilight could no longer be her student when she found out she had been late?
Twilight’s eyes widened and her pulse began to race.
Maybe, maybe not.
Maybe, maybe not.
Maybe, maybe not.
Twilight lost track of time as her fears and attempts at accepting their possibility chased each other around and around in her head.
Eventually, however, her anxiety began to decline until she had calmed down enough to roll off her bed and make her way over to her desk. She grabbed a book at random and buried herself in the words. Reading about the lives of ancient mages slowly helped her anxiety fall to the point where she could begin to do her homework.
She pulled out a piece of parchment and spread it before her on her desk. She stared at it for a moment, pondering how she wanted to start the essay.
Then, an idea struck her. She knew how she could salvage the day!
She levitated her quill over the page and took a deep breath.
And then, with one savage motion, she misspelled her own name.
She immediately had to fight herself to keep from correcting it, of course, but in the end she was victorious. As she wrote, her breathing slowly returned to normal and the incessant clawing in the back of her mind quieted.
And so, the next day, she turned in an essay written by one “Twlight Sparkle”.
“You’ve made excellent progress, Twilight,” Soothing Blossom said with a smile. “But there is still one thing that I really think it would be a good idea for you to do.”
Twilight was silent. This was not the first time they’d had this conversation.
The mare sighed. “You know that I can’t, and more importantly won’t, force you to do anything that you don’t agree to do. But if you don’t do this, then I don’t think you’ll have fully faced your fears. We need to really invite the possibility of what we fear, remember?”
Twilight’s mouth went dry. “But this is something that could end really badly.”
“You know that’s the point, Twilight. I’ve had ponies with social anxiety be really quite critical of other ponies as part of their treatment before, for example. But those ponies were just afraid as the possible outcome of that as you are of this. Same with the patients who have needed to eat without washing their hooves, or anything else for that matter. You’ve experienced it firsthoof by now, haven’t you? Things that terrified you at first have started to become manageable, right?”
Twilight reluctantly nodded.
Soothing Blossom gave her an appraising look. “So would you be willing to leave your thaumaturgy book at home when you have a lesson with the princess? I really think that that’s the final step here.”
Twilight wanted to say that there was no way she would ever do such a thing. She almost wanted to shout it, in fact. But the words stuck in her throat. She looked down at her hooves before leaping off the coach and starting to pace back and forth. The familiar sensation of drowning overtook her, and she felt as if she were struggling to stay afloat, a futile effort to overcome the inevitable.
Soothing Blossom allowed her to continue, her expression unreadable.
The filly felt her pulse racing and her breaths came faster and faster. Princess Celestia had asked her to try to engage with her treatment as fully as she would any of her classes at school. Would she be holding something back if she refused to do this? Would she be letting the princess down?
She wasn’t supposed to think something like that. She was supposed to be doing this for herself.
Thoughts of how Celestia would react still swirled around her mind.
Twilight considered her options and decided she was trapped. Leaving the book at home might be letting the princess down, but not doing so also might. The only thing that would make any difference was what it would mean for her.
She stopped pacing and turned to face Soothing Blossom. She took a deep breath. “I-I’ll do it.”
That night, she barely slept at all.
The next morning, Cadance took her to school. By any measure, it was a fine day. The skies were clear and the temperature was perfect. Other ponies were going about their business on the streets of Canterlot, most seeming to be happy to be out and about on such a beautiful morning.
Twilight, however, was a mess. She had dark circles under her eyes and her mane and tail were unkempt. Her heart beat furiously and she felt like she was struggling to breathe. “Um, if I didn’t have a book with me, do you think Princess Celestia would stop having me as her student?” she asked, trying to swallow the lump in her throat.
“You know I can’t answer that question, Twilight.”
She felt tears starting to form.
Cadance bit her lip as she looked at the filly walking beside her. “Okay, let’s take a minute to breathe before we get to school.” The alicorn led the filly toward the side of the road, raised a leg, angled her hoof toward herself, and took a deep breath. Slowly, she let it out as she extended her leg in front of her body. “Come on, Twilight. Breathe.”
The filly closed her eyes and imitated the alicorn.
The two of them practiced breathing techniques for a good five minutes before Cadance asked, “Do you think you can make it to school now?”
Twilight nodded hesitantly.
Cadance smiled at her. “Good. After school today, let’s do something fun if you’re feeling up to it. We could go to Pony Joe’s.”
Twilight weakly smiled back.
The rest of the day passed in a blur. Twilight was barely able to focus on any of her morning classes. During lunch, she hardly even nibbled on her sandwich, instead trying to embrace uncertainty.
She really wasn’t sure it worked very well.
Finally, it as time for her to meet with Celestia. Normally, Twilight rushed to these private lessons as quickly as possible, but she found herself dragging her hooves, her anxiety mounting with each step, and barely arrived on time. What difference did it make? She was going to be expelled either way.
Celestia greeted her student warmly, and Twilight barely managed to mumble something in response. “Please get out your copy of Principles of Thaumaturgy,” the princess said.
“I don’t have it with me,” Twilight responded before promptly bursting into tears.
“Shh, it’s okay.” Celestia wrapped a wing around the filly and pulled her into a tight hug. Gently, she rocked Twilight back and forth while humming softly.
Eventually, Twilight’s tears stopped. She sniffed. “You mean you aren’t going to expel me or send me back to magic kindergarten or anything?” she asked hesitantly.
Celestia smiled serenely at her student. “No, I don’t think there’s any need for anything like that.” She floated a copy of the textbook over to Twilight from a nearby bookshelf. “Do you need another moment, or are you ready to start?”
Twilight dried her eyes. “I’m ready.”
Twilight glanced over at her saddlebags and licked her lips. She felt her pulse begin to rise. Had she remembered to pack all of her books?
Maybe, maybe not.
Maybe, maybe not.
Maybe, maybe not.
Maybe, maybe not.
Maybe she could check just once…?
Author's Note
Some thoughts on this story and acknowledgments can be found here.
The gist of the acknowledgements is that this story owes an incalculable debt to my own experiences with OCD and the people who helped me through the worst of it, and thanks to a former therapist of mine for giving me the example with the dog.
