Articulating panic

Wading through panic disorder without words

Content warning: anxiety, panic attacks, mentions of physical distress 

Breathe. In and out, but I can only seem to inhale. My body rises in anticipation to expel anxiety-ridden air, but it is never given the opportunity. The only rise and fall we’re allowed is my forehead banging itself on a wooden dining hall table, my fists scrunched against my bed frame, my knuckles cracking one another until they’re out of noise. Sometimes, I don’t know how to breathe. My breathing works both in tandem with, and viciously against, my anxiety, a dichotomous wrestling match that hasn’t taken a pause in six years. I’m told to stop, to be happier, directly after you’ve successfully convinced me I’m someone with poor judgement and character. In the single-user bathroom of a passport renewal office, I clutch my phone as I dial my best friend, answering only with shallow breaths and rocky tone. She does not need words to know my state.  

Cry. A gentle descriptor, one that does not contain the multitudes of wailing involved when I’m tangled in an unintelligible sparring match of Mandarin versus English with my family. When I am wailing without pause, when the only bodily movements I can make are gasping or clawing at something to grab onto, I cannot tell you why. It is sometimes out of sadness; it is mostly out of a need for expression. For something to ruin my skin, for my eyes to become bloodshot, for my head to shake. You leave my room exasperated, tell me I’m overreacting, and call me ridiculous. I cry into my pillowcase, my blue eyeliner leaving a streak on white cloth, waiting for dryness. 

Pull. My hair is stronger than I am. In sixth grade, my friend would tug my ponytail as far back as she could and comment gleefully to anyone in earshot on the playground, “See, it doesn’t hurt her!” I learned to hide my pain early. The dull ache of my elastic fighting against my scalp seems forgiving nowadays, when I yank on chunks of hair I was never allowed to dye as I struggle to breathe, cry, and speak at the same time. I’m chastised for damaging my hair, for sacrificing brain cells, for not listening when you yell. Our conversations end up in knots, replicating my twisted fingers in the hair that has never left my head during an attack. She does not waver.  

Shudder. Periodically, I try to stop biting my nails. I usually end up ripping my cuticles instead, and vice versa. When I breathe, cry, and pull my psyche apart, it manifests on my forearms; I run thin lines down my skin with scarce nails to visualize the distress I cannot translate. I wrap myself up in layers of duvets on a shining July afternoon, curling myself to occupy as little space as possible, even in my own bed. You bound me with criticism and call to order the marathon of worries flitting around my mind, stretching to the corners of my toes and the bottom of my trundle bed. The faded pink marks from my nails morph into an angry red with the steam during a shower, and I am reminded that I desperately need a cleanse. I shake because I am afraid to say these words aloud, to speak things that would negate lies ingrained in my body, and would likely result in successive prolonged moments of fear. My fingers swallow the unverbalized pains I keep hidden in my nail beds.  

(Rest). I carry a water bottle with me to mitigate panic. Only within the last year and a half have I learned how to seek solace in others. I was taught breathing techniques, given mood trackers on paper, and had the basics of my disability explained to me when I previously thought I needed panic to survive. Panic was a frequent companion; every time I enter my childhood home in Canada, I brace myself for its return, one that renders me to float without feeling—forcing me to inhabit only distress. Spirals are to be expected, whether they happen after a string of mishaps that led to crying on the linoleum floor of a back stairway in December without a jacket, or needing to clutch onto an almost-stranger’s warm cardigan so I don’t end up scraping my head against the brick wall in an unfamiliar province. You care little, if at all, because you can ignore my panic. Coping and curing are not equivalents, nor do I require the latter to continue with my days. Panic has not left me, and I hesitate to wonder if it will ever leave my body.  

I’ve always apologized for panic. I’ve excused taking up others’ time and craving their comforting words, for needing reassurance during and after an attack through a phone conversation where the receiver cannot provide much more than their understanding. Panic is like my pulse: I know it’s there because I’m alive, but it tricks me into thinking I can be less than alive. Panic is not (or no longer) an unmanageable demon, but I no longer want to keep apologizing for the bouts of mania and twisting anxiety that my disorder proliferates. Trying to put panic into words is not for the benefit for the ones who have harsh mouths and demand my regrets; it is an attempt at collective understanding and seeking out neurodiversity.