Body {Prose Vol. 1}✔

70th Poem: Anxiety Attack

because you survived.

A/N

So, I believe I have had an anxiety attack twice in my life, once last year and once this year, only a day ago (Thursday November 3, 2016).

It's a really scary feeling. Most people feel as if they are losing control or dying. When it happened last year, I thought it was a panic attack and I wondered how I was able to will myself to breathe and push through it until it stopped.

I was wrong. I was having an anxiety attack. There is a difference. Anxiety attacks are (usually) short lived, while panic attacks can last for a really long time.

Plus, it is way harder to self-help yourself out of a panic attack. 

I had my first anxiety attack last year, freshmen year (of high school), when I visited the D.C. Latino Caucus for my PreLaw class. The tour guide lady told us that we'd all (my law class), would be split up ad would be shadowing a delegate one on one.

If you guys don't know, I am really shy and I do not like being in huge groups, nor do I like being in a small group of one person that I DO NOT KNOW.

So, right then and there, in that hallway leading to the room we were to be assigned a delegate, I began sweating profusely, I became dizzy and swayed a little, my breaths became harder and shorter, and my heart as though it was going to pop out of my chest at any given moment.

I was so scared! I had to stare at the ground to try and center myself, to try to bring myself back on earth. I had a...brochure of sorts in my hand, but it died because I held it so tight that it was bent all over the place. 

My second anxiety attack was yesterday when I was at school. We had Leadership Day, which was basically just successful women coming in and talking to my school. No men because I go to an all girls school.

So one lady was asking us if we had any questions or whatever and eventually we got to the topic of stressors and things that discouraged us/stressed us out about going to college or school.

The other girls said that parents put too much wait on their children's shoulders, and that society basically pounds the thought that college is the answer, you must go to have a successful life into our heads, but we idolize people who barely even finished high school and are still successful. 

Then the convo turned to examples of how us girls feel stressed out being at our school.

When my turn came to speak, I talked about how managing swimming and school stresses me out, how being in honors classes makes me feel inclined to try harder and makes me feel dumb, how going to my school in general makes me feel dumb because everyone is so smart, how they told us that it is good to join clubs because colleges want to see that you can maintain good grades, be in a club, and do a sport. But it's so stressful you know?

I swim, I do schoolwork, I don't go home after school, I just stay at school until 5:30 every day and my rides come and take me to swim practice, I am an ambassador of my school and therefore must represent my school properly at all times (which is pretty much a given anyway that rule should apply to every student), I take honors courses, I get home at basically 9pm every day and have to somehow complete all of my homework to get a reasonable amount of sleep because I wake up at 5am after sleeping at (hopefully) 11pm.

On top of that, they said we should join clubs??? How the heck can I do that? My school's swimming is Tuesdays and Thursdays, so that eliminates most clubs, plus the only time I have to do homework is right after school, which is the same time that clubs meet so if I join a club I won't be able to get any work done, meaning I can't maintain good grades, which is why when I have my school's swimming meets I have to stay up later to do my hw because the meets are right after school and I try to get on here so that I can calm down and have some me time but society honestly takes most of that away and turns us all into freaking robots, doing work just to get higher level people money and the money goes to nothing special. It obvi doesn't go anywhere that it is actually needed, like building centers for homeless or giving food to the hungry. 

Some of that I added in just now but most of it I said yesterday. She cut me off before I couldn't talk about the last paragraph, but those thoughts were swirling around in my head like deadly sharks, waiting for the right moment to attack my brain. 

I felt my face grow hot and my eyes teared up a bit and I had to try the 'inhale, exhale' thing to calm down and my hands began to sweat and the world began to spin...

It was scary. And nobody even noticed. Nobody knew but me. 

And that scares me even more. What if it happens again, but next time it is a heart attack, or a panic attack?

Stress is real in society, especially for students. We go to school to learn? No, we go to school so colleges can put students in debt for basically life and showcase us like freaking idols and make us huge stress balls.

We lose sleep, lose nutrients our bodies need, and we essentially become unhealthy. 

Then these attacks happen and someone possibly dies. Yet, society hasn't decided to change shit.

~~

External link is an article about panic attack vs. anxiety attack. It just points out the differences. 

Have any of you ever had a panic attack or an anxiety attack? Do you take meds for it?

Please, please find a way to release some stress. Talk it out with me, watch a funny video, do something.

I know how it feels. I know when people tell you to take a break you freak out and yell that you can't and that taking a break would be dumb because if you took a break you wouldn't finish your hw or whatever, I get it. 

I literally do that every time my mother tells me to take a break from my work when it stresses me out. 

She also told me to meditate. Maybe that can help you.

I suck at endings so.. bye and please stay safe and consider the things I have said.