The Day Sanity Went South.

"What's happening to me?"
The question was pounding in my head, beating against the walls of my brain. If I had been able to talk, I would have said it aloud, screamed it, pleaded it, lashed out at this strange new reality with it.
"What's happening to me?"
But I couldn't speak. I couldn't breathe. The room was spinning. Was there a room at all? I couldn't tell. Stars exploded in front of my eyes, and it felt like the bottom had dropped out from under me.
I was sobbing. I could feel the tears on my cheeks, like acid rain, etching a path down my pale, twelve-year-old cheeks. But I wasn't making any sound, save the pathetic whistle of my lungs desperately trying to suck in air and the frightening drumbeat of my heart.
Was I dying?
Was I dead?
What was happening to me?

Panic attacks are no longer out of the ordinary. No longer a cause for fear or uncertainty. Now, at almost fifteen, the only thing these daily occurrences inspire in me is exhaustion. And a dismal acceptance of the fact that the synapses in my brain will never allow me to be this thing we call "normal."

That first panic attack, on the bathroom floor so many moons ago, was the worst. I didn't know what "obsessive compulsive" meant. I didn't know the realities of having a phobia. And I didn't want to know those things. There was only one question I wanted an answer to.

What's happening to me?