What does a panic attack feel like?

1. Your pulse quickens. Your heart begins to race, pounding in your chest, in the well of your stomach, in your fingertips. Blaring through your skull. Deafening. You tell yourself it’s fine. You can handle this. It’s just your heart beating a bit faster. You can still hear the rustle of the AC, the click-click-clicking of the broken fan in the corner of your room. The faint buzz of your new fairy lights. The honking of cars passing by outside your window. Nothing’s wrong. You’re wrong.

2. Your vision gets cloudy. You can’t see clearly and it’s confusing because you were fine just one second ago and now you’re rooted to the ground, scared to move because you feel like you’re going blind. Flashes of black and white shroud your eyesight, but you can still see the bright blue of your headboard. There’s a bottle of water on your bedside table, condensation pooling at its foot. A poster on your wall. Ballet shoes in a box by the door. The world is spinning, and yet at a standstill. What the hell is going on?

3. You can’t breathe. I mean, you can breathe because if you couldn’t you would probably be dead by now, but you. can’t. breathe. There’s a pile of stones on your chest, crushing your lungs, some primitive torture designed to force the fiercest of your fears out of you. You’re drenched in sweat, and yet chills run down your spine. Hair clings to the back of your neck. Crimson half-moons line your palms, your forearms, your throat, trying to ground you, bring you back to reality. It doesn’t work. 

4. You fall to the floor, leaning against whatever is closest as you grasp at yourself, hugging your knees, rocking yourself as you tremble, a mother comforting her crying child back to sleep. You wonder where your mother is. You can smell her floral perfume, but it’s faint, fleeting. The stark stench of your own sweat hangs in the air, overpowering it. You want to call for her but all you can do is croak for help, your voice robbed from you.

5. And then it stops. You don’t know how or why but your senses are coming back to you. Five things you can hear, four things you can see, three things you can touch, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste. Blood. It’s metallic. Probably from biting your tongue, but at least you can process your surroundings again. You feel like laughing at yourself for being so dramatic. It was just a silly little panic attack. Nothing too serious. How could it be? It’s not like it leaves you feeling just a little bit closer to death’s cold embrace.