My faithful bête noire,
I am well aware that you lack etiquette and good manners. You come uninvited and you creep inside my already peculiar mind.
You wrap me in your suffocating and unorthodox embrace, as you nonchalantly open all doors that are hidden deep inside my core. Doors that are sealed for my own sanity, but you don't care about that, do you?
To tell you that I am used to this by now it's an understatement. I could never be used to the unsettling feeling of discomposure you bring upon me. The fright and tremble of my entire body, the tingling, and itch of my now slippery palms. How my pupils dilate and turn pitch black and how my vision is now dulled and blurred.
My throat is sealed and words cannot be formed as hundreds of needles keep poking through my peeled heart. And it hurts so much.
Tell me, how I'm I supposed to move this fleshly vessel when my legs feel padlocked? When the air around me feels like the scorching July heat as I desperately plead my clouded mind for an inch of control?
All I want to do is run and if I could, I would.
I would run away from your cloud of dread and laugh in your face. I would tell everybody of your cowardliness and how you fill my head with lies because you are miserable. How you drag me to the pits of hell just to entertain yourself. How you made my parents question my sanity when I would run and scream to their faces "Help me, I am dying".
I would hold your hands and we would run together. I would show you that it's futile to ruin my day, week, month, year, life. And that I am more than my fear. My fear tried to cheat me out of my happy life, tried to ruin what I built until now and I managed to outrun her. I would tell you to take my hand and be my friend and not my enemy as I am you and you are me.
But instead, you always choose to run after me.
I have had panic attacks since I can remember. As I grew older, I learned to manage them in a way that it doesn't interfere with my life. It still happens to me from time to time but only when I am under a lot of stress.
