Panic attacks are like a faulty light switch. They start like an unwarned flip of a switch, but turning it off is tricky. Sometimes, you do what you’re told, and it goes away. Other times, you do everything right, yet it just doesn’t budge. You have to go through the painful, exhausting, terrifying motions and just pray to get through it. Every time though, it starts with a flip.

You can feel it starting in the back of your throat. Your breath gets caught and your chest tightens. Fighting for breath, tears stream down your face. Your head starts to pound as you gasp for air. You shake your hands and try all of those counting tricks: 100, 97, 94, 91… Nothing helps. Your whole body begins to tremble. You tell yourself to calm down, but that only makes it worse. You begin tearing at your legs as if you are trying to crawl out of your own body.

And then it stops.

Your vision clears, and you see the scratches along your legs. The tear droplets on the floor flatten into puddles. Your whole world felt as if it was crumbling around you, yet give it five minutes and you could make it seem like nothing has happened. Give it mere seconds and you could laugh at someone’s joke.

You’ve gotten good at hiding it. No one wants the pitying looks or the popular mean girl to come over to you and say “You’re so brave.”

Instead you lock away that part of yourself. You know that having someone there to distract you during a panic attack can work wonders, but you’ve learned to get through it on your own. Why burden another person with your problems? You just know it’s easier this way.