Your chest all of a sudden gains a few hundred pounds and you can feel the crushing weight explode through your ribcage. That organ pumping blood through your veins and arteries is pounding at a faster pace.
You’re having a heart attack.
No, you’re dying.
The amount of oxygen in the air significantly decreases and you can’t think straight. It’s like you’re gasping for air, but no matter how much energy you exert on your lungs you just can’t seem to breathe. Semidarkness starts to consume you and you’re trying so hard to stay in control, but you can’t. The ground beneath you starts moving so rapidly that it feels like an earthquake is erupting and you’re about to be swallowed by the earth. Every limb in your body turns to jello, and you feel the nerves in your body twitch. Your legs refuse to reconcile with your brain, and that tiny speck of light, illuminating your way all of a sudden just dims. It’s that strange feeling, that makes you paranoid. You know you’re not having a heart attack, but your brain tells you otherwise. Your entire body is soaked in sweat and you can feel it trickle down your spine.
The banging of your heart in your chest increases by a threefold and you’re scared because you’re afraid everyone will hear the thudding in your chest. You can’t make eye contact, so you lower your head and hope no one would notice.
The ache in every cell of your body is threatening to increase so you dig your nails deep into your flesh, hoping the mental damage that’s causing physical pain would somehow decrease, but it doesn’t help.
Nothing helps.
You want to cry for help because you don’t understand why you feel this way and you hate yourself for being the way you are.
The odd feeling of displacement.
The palpitations.
The loss of self-control.
Anger.
Rage.
Excessive Fear.
The terror of doing anything in the fear that something you can’t control will happen.
Every emotion takes turns to rip you apart from the inside.
It’s so exhausting and draining, and the only thing you want to do is lie down and sleep. Maybe ignore everything and hope that it will go away on its own.
“It’s okay,” you silently chant the words, hoping they could somehow embed into your brain. But the words seem meaningless and no matter how hard you try you can’t seem to act upon them. So, you clench your jaw so tightly, that you can hear the crack, but it doesn’t make a difference because the only thing that matters is an escape, because you know nothing is okay. But the problem is that you’re not trapped anywhere. The jail you’re trying to escape is in your mind.
This was just the panic attack. The overwhelming feeling that comes afterward is just as bad. It makes you feel weak and you scold yourself for overreacting. The threat wasn’t as big as the panic attack was. Guilt, self-hatred, doubt, every negative emotion just lingers in your mind.
“Maybe it won’t happen again,” you persuade yourself.
But what if it does, that tiny part of your mind screams.
This isn’t the worst part; the worst part is being afraid to do anything in life because you’re afraid that your mind will betray you again. It’s that feeling nagging you in the back of your mind, mocking you, telling you that it’ll happen again. And it does. Every freaking single time.
Your grades suffer.
Your relationships suffer.
Your job, friends, everything becomes chaotic.
But you’re afraid to seek help. Afraid of what people will say. Afraid of having to explain yourself to people who won’t understand. But you can’t give in, because the day you do, you’ll lose yourself and you can’t let that happen.
Not now.
Not ever.
