"Go to the gender neutral toilet."
"What?"
"You should go to the gender neutral toilet if it happens again."
"Why would I?"
"So I can help you the next time it happens."
The first time it happened, I was scared of myself. I completely lost control over myself. I had no idea what to do.
It was on a Friday morning, the first physical school day after three months of lockdown. I wasn't nervous, no, I was excited. Online school just didn't work for me. All I did was listen to music and write stories. I just couldn't set myself to do my school work. And we didn't have online tests, so why would I study and do schoolwork?
But I was back, I felt motivated to work as hard as possible to keep my grades up. That Friday morning I woke up early, picked out a cute outfit and left the house early. I didn't see any of my classmates when I arrived at school, probably because I was too early. I put my stuff in my locker and went upstairs. As soon as I walked into the hallway, I got anxious. I became overwhelmed with thoughts that made me insecure. As I was slowly walking to the classroom, I felt some sort of pressure on my chest, as if my body told me to get out of there. I looked at my hands and saw that they were shaking.
I decided to turn around and go the bathroom. There weren't any people, so I turned on the tap and let the water flow over my wrists, hoping it would calm me down. But then some girls came in and looked at me. I felt ashamed, so I went in a cubile. I locked the door, dropped my bag and leaned against the wall. My hands were still shaking and I was breathing heavily. I noticed I started rubbing and scratching my fingers, but I couldn't stop it. I felt like passing out, I had lost control over myself.
My fingers started to bleed. Tears were coming out of my eyes, cooling my burning cheeks. I felt like some sort of shadow was pressing me down and tearing me apart from the inside. It was way stronger than me.
Minutes passed and I kept on scratching. My fingers were covered in blood and I couldn't breath normally. Everytime I tried to stop it, the shadow put more and more pressure on me. I wanted to give up. I didn't care anymore.
At that moment the bell rang. I don't know how, but it made me concious of what I was doing. I looked up. The shadow was gone and my hands stopped shaking.
I heard the girls behind the door walking away and finally, I calmed down. I slowly breathed in and out a few times. I unlocked the door, washed the blood off my hands and looked in the mirror. Pale face, tears in my eyes and red cheeks. Great. I checked the time and went to the classroom. Before I went in, I put a smile on my face as if nothing happened.Fortunately, that didn't happen again that day. I only told my mother and sister about it. I didn't want to be the 'dramaqueen' of the class who wanted everyone's attention. Also, how could I tell my people about it without sounding like an idiot?
There's one person except my mother and sister I told about the panic attacks.
After that Friday, I made it through the week without any panic attacks. I did put bandaids on my fingers, because I didn't want people to see the wounds. Everytime someone asked me what happened to my fingers, which happened a lot because I had put bandaids on every finger, I said I had blisters because I grabbed a heated pan the night before. It made them stop asking more questions.
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Things & Thoughts
Short StoryA collection of short stories I write every now and then. They're based on frustrations, reality, random thoughts, things I've read or seen, whatever. Note: Most of these stories have nothing to do with eachother. It's a collection, not a long stor...