It’s 3 a.m. and I can’t sleep. My heart is skipping beats, and as an unsettling sensation rushes through my entire body, I feel like I can’t breathe. I begin to breathe faster and faster. I am gasping for air, and feel the life leaving my body. I burst out into tears, and run to the bathroom.
I fall down to my knees and scream for help. Is someone there—is there anyone? What’s happening to me? Am I breathing? I feel like I am dying. I lay on the bathroom floor for hours and cry myself to sleep. I wake up on the cold hard ground, realizing what had happened. Another panic attack.
I have been having panic attacks ever since I was a little girl. Of course, I had no clue what it was at that point. But it was so bad at the time, that I would have an attack every single night. I remember checking my pulse to make sure my heart was still beating.
My parents didn’t know what to do with me. I would run into their room every night in a hot sweat, swearing that I wasn’t able to breath. Most nights I would lie awake until 4 or 5 in the morning, just counting the cars on the highway until the sun rose. It was extremely exhausting, but my parents swore I would grow out of it, that it was just a little phase. They were right in many ways. As I grew up, I had less and less attacks. At last, I finally found peace when I was halfway through middle school. I finally felt normal. My panic attacks had gone away.
It wasn’t until I went away to college at the age of 18 that my panic attacks would find their way back to me. But this time around, my panic attacks were out for revenge—because now, my panic attacks were happening during the day and during my classes, not just at night before I fell asleep. They would happen during exams, during dinner, during hangouts with my friends, during meetings with advisors, these panic attacks had no mercy. It came to the point where these panic attacks were absolutely debilitating.
I tried to explain to my professors; I tried to make them understand what was happening to me and why I was missing classes. But none of them believed me. I remember emailing a professor, telling him I wouldn’t be able to attend class because I was having severe anxiety problems. He emailed me back right away, and told me that I needed to get over myself. That I need to grow up and act like an adult. He then ended the email by saying that my “anxiety problems” were probably fake, and that he wasn’t going to count this as an excused absence.
That was the last time I tried being honest with a professor about my mental illnesses. I was embarrassed and I felt like no one understood me. I felt like I had no one to go to, no one to talk to. So for a while, I let my panic attacks define me, and consume me. I would plan my days around them. I hated myself because of this. I desperately wanted to feel normal—I was so sick of feeling like I was losing my mind. I was so sick of rushing out of classes halfway through, and of having to stay in at night because I couldn’t walk in the dark alone, I was so sick of feeling like I was trapped. So I made a decision that I thought was right.
I decided to come clean to everyone about my panic disorder because I am done with hiding. I am telling the world about my mental illness because I am so done with pretending like I don’t have problems just to satisfy society. The truth is, we all have problems. We are all fucked up. And I refuse to apologize for having a mental illness. I am not sorry if it made anyone I told uncomfortable. I was no longer going to sit around and be silence.I will not be told to “grow up” or to “get over it.” Anxiety and panic disorder is traumatic, and it's real. It’s an actual illness that is affecting the lives of over 40 million people in the United States alone, including myself. I am still troubled with panic attacks, but I no longer let my disorder define me.To anyone who is affected by anxiety and panic disorder, do not be silenced. Your voice deserves to be heard.
