limited symptom attack

It's spring. The trees which held a multitude of autumn colors a little more than six months ago now hold an array of lightly, pleasantly perfumed blossoms adorning their branches, the petals so delicate that they gently break free at the slightest breeze and drift lazily on the current. We've had late May eighty-degree sunshine in the middle of April, and gray, overcast April showers at the beginning of May. It is a beautiful season, to be sure. I am happy to be living in this state, where we experience all four seasons (in all their glory, whether or not we desire such glory).

I told one of my best friends, Olivia, that we weren't allowed to officially freak out about our impending graduation in June until May started. My brother seems to have found an apartment we both like, but I don't know which payments need to be made at signing, and I'm afraid I won't have enough. And most of all, even though I would be really content to float on the breeze like a blossom's lost petal or a stray spring leaf, happy to just live my life as it comes, I still worry if the strength and gravity of the choice I've made in college will land as heavily on my future potential employers as it has on me. And oh, there is definitely gravity.

After a silent, slightly emotional, and heavily embarrassing conversation on the topic of entering the real world with no steady direction in which to go with my father in the corner of my favorite local Italian restaurant, I went home feeling calm. At first.

My sleep schedule has been permanently altered, at least, semi-permanently. My body does not wish to wake up until noon on its own, if not nine, and neither it nor my mind want to shut down until sometime between the hours of four and six in the morning. Wednesday morning found my skeleton not willing to walk on just two trembling legs and it cried out in a giant ache to tell me so (I felt better after resting for a few more hours).

Last night, as I finally entered the world of half-asleep and began drifting further, my now-tiny fist of a stomach clenched more tightly and sent a wave of fear and anxiety rippling throughout my entire being. I woke up to a fierce alarm in my brain; I tossed and turned at a speed insomniacs couldn't match; I began hyperventilating; and all my anxiety somehow culminated in the thought that I was going to lose someone that I loved, someone in that circle of eight, to disease, and I began crying uncontrollably. After ten whole minutes of absolute anxiety and sadness, I was able to calm myself down. My brain, still humming, still refused to let me sleep until around seven, I think, and I woke up an hour before class (thanks to my forgetting to set my alarm).

That was the worst feeling I have ever experienced. Maybe I am just letting this anxiety get out of control, and maybe I want it to, so I don't have to hold it in anymore, but I am trying so hard to stay calm right now. Especially this week: it's tech week, and this is the last thing I need to be happening while I'm working on this show.

It obviously wasn't a full-blown panic attack, thank the heavens. But it was a scary state to be in. It was like sticking your hand in a low voltage socket and not being able to pull away because your muscles keep seizing and preventing you from doing anything to save yourself.

No. No. Nononononononono.

I hate this. I hate being this fragile. This kind of stuff happens and if it happens around people, especially the people that you work with, people start thinking that you're extremely breakable. They start watching what they say around you, for fear that the wrong word or phrase will set off the exploding girl. Why do you think I hold it all in, Tom? Because I'm afraid of showing people how vulnerable I am?

OF COURSE.

What happened to me being strong for once in my life, hm? What happened to that?

Of course I care what people think about me. I want them to think I'm strong. Of course I care what and how much they see of me--I want them to see a lion, a warrior, the smooth and weathered face of a cliff that has withstood thousands of years of eroding wind. I don't want to be Laura; I don't want to be one of her precious glass figurines. The only time those things leave their shelves is when they're being polished.

I want to present an image that I find suitable enough, in my mind, to let people see. I can be open, yes, but I can also stand taller than my own height.

Goddammit, I have to work at that.

Fuck. I am normally not that anxious of a person, but this...just...I hated it. I don't want to be the person that dies from worrying.

I don't ever want to go there again.