“you are loved. you are safe. you are cared for,” i say as i toy with the shell charm on my necklace. i wish i got my necklace because it symbolized good fortune. but truthfully, i thought it was cute. i wish i was ok. i wish i weren’t having another panic attack.

i had my first at an outdoor mall when i was 17. i made a seat from the gap between the mannequin and the stand it rested on. my left arm was aching. the room was spinning and somehow the sales racks inched closer and closer until they swallowed me whole. my cries appeared as a normal conversation to my boyfriend. “are you coming,” he asked. “yeah. yeah. my feet hurt is all.” he’d grown accustomed to loving and caring for me despite the pendulum my mood rested upon. i just wanted to be normal. for once. for him. for myself.

i’m 28 and naked and talking to my fear. like a hostage negotiator, i ask it to let me go. “no rush. whenever you’re ready,” i coax. i immerse myself beneath the shower head hoping the cold water would force it out. what do you need? what can i give you to have myself to myself? how long do i have to share my mind and body with this overwhelming sense of dread?

suspended. that’s the best word to describe how panicking works for me. it is the longest drop from the top of a rollercoaster. i feel everything and nothing. a pin drop is too loud. my heart bruises my ribcage. the minutes course by like a lake’s water. i know that i’m going to die as i watch myself from above. and i’m amazed when i don’t.

i’m having an attack at work while a man talks at me. did i redeem his points for a free latte? al-mund mil-kuh la-tay. he manages to find another syllable for milk while i feel like my head will explode because every thought i could ever have pounds at my forehead. i want him to stop fussing and help me before everything but blood adorns the counter between us. his friend pays with a card and i hope that when the transaction ends that it’ll be the end of me, too. i can’t go on. but before i know it i tell a co-worker. she is writing a list of grounding techniques that i already know but i appreciate her seeing me and trying to reel me back. all i want is to come back.

my body has just started to feel like home: somewhere that is safe, that i can take care of and love. panic attacks are roaches that are out in the light and the dark. they’re uninvited guests. depression and i are pals. we hang. they leave and sometimes, they don’t tell me when they’ll be back. i have a reason for why depression is in my life. i can’t journal away panic attacks or move them away. i can’t even talk myself through it. i don’t know how to make friends with it. i mean, how could a friend hurt me so?

during attacks i reasoned that i have to accept what i could live with afterward such as appearing agitated, not mopping my shop’s floor, and my co-worker sincerely asking how i was doing the next day. like the best moments in my life, the very worst of them – and certainly panic attacks are among the latter – will end, too. i don’t have the energy to be mean to myself anymore, especially about how my brain works. even if i don’t get it. and maybe that’s how i’ve survived panic attacks; or at least i’d like to think so.