Fallout (Crank 3)

suffocation recedes.

The all-encompassing

terror falls far,

far away.

I am, in fact, okay.

For the moment.

I HAVEN’T HAD

A panic attack in quite a while.

&n

bsp; I had my first one when I started

middle school. I really thought

I was going to die that day.

My arms and legs went all tingly.

Then my heart beat so insanely

hard, I thought it would explode,

rip my chest wide open.

No one understood what was

happening, not even the school

nurse, who called paramedics.

It took a savvy ER tech to explain

that my heart didn’t have a problem.

My messed-up brain did. Okay,

he didn’t say it was messed up.

I figured out that part myself.

Since then, there have been

other attacks. Other days when

I felt like I didn’t dare leave

my room. I’ve done my homework.

I know anxiety causes them, just

like it causes my OCD. You can find