January 31. It was the week that everything for the school science fair was due. I was so stressed that I wouldn't get anything in on time and I started crying at around 11:30. I couldn't stop crying so my friend and I walked to the room we normally sat in. I laid behind the first row of desks and tried to stop. I sent texts that said "Get [my school counsellor] if I don't stop by halfway through lunch" and "Get [my best friend]." My best friend came within five minutes of me sending that text to our other friend. I was not getting better as halfway through lunch approached, in fact I was getting worse.
Before my big panic attack, I had been feeling dissociations to my body. I guess it's a depression thing, or an anxiety thing -I don't know which. Basically, I wouldn't consciously feel my legs, arms, or fingers and it sucked because I couldn't move while dissociating. It happened a few times before my big panic attack.
At the time, I couldn't feel my body and all I could feel was my heart beating and my thoughts moving. I never understood that, and I can never explain it because it sound crazy but that's the best I can understand. I remember a lot of my friends were in the room, one of them had her hand on my knee. My eyes were shut and tears were flowing out of me like a faucet had been turned on. My best friend was sitting down with my had in her lap. My school counsellor came and he tried to calm me down. I remember his hand was on my shoulder at one point and that sort of helped me gain my feeling back but I couldn't stop crying. He called the nurse in after sitting with me for a few minutes. The nurse came in and she blew on my face; I heard this thing that if a baby is crying and you blow in their face the baby will stop so maybe that is what she was trying to do. Now after that I don't remember what really happened. I never stopped crying so the nurse called a wheelchair, my school counsellor and her had to lift me off the ground to put me in it. I was wheeled to the office and I stopped crying soon stopped. I cried for almost two hours that day.
When I ask people what happened in that room, I was told it was one of the scariest moments in their life. I understand that; you know when someone is crying and it's awkward because you don't know if you should go up or not. It's like that but a lot worse because the person crying is like full on sobbing and hyperventilating. It was no longer an emotional issue, it was a medical alert issue. My friend who had her hand on my knee said she was really worried. My best friend, whose lap my head was on in the beginning, said she didn't know what to do and that she was afraid.
I remember thinking when I first started to cry, that if I kept crying I would begin to feel better but then I started to panic. I was worried that my science fair paperwork wouldn't be in on time.
