Panic in the chemistry lab

I was so excited to start college. My first year was mostly uneventful. I was a good student, I majored in something new each semester (I actually did this for a couple years, to be honest), and I loved the learning environment. I could envision myself doing that for years and years.

Unfortunately, the personal turmoil I was experiencing when I started my sophomore year at a local state college, led to one of my first really intense, identifiable panic attack. One that resulted in me automatically dropping all of my classes, and declaring myself (the high school valedictorian, mind you) a college failure. I remember sitting in a chair in my chemistry lab, and my mind just started spinning. A thousand unintelligible thoughts swirled around, my hands started to sweat, my heart began racing, and I felt like someone was choking me. I had no idea what was going on, I just knew that I had to get out of there.

That evening, my fiancé at the time found me sitting on our tiny apartment couch in a ball, with a blanket swaddled around my entire body. I was just staring at the walls in the dark. A complete mess. I felt like I had no direction, and on top of everything else, I felt like I was legitimately going crazy. I wish mental health awareness was something that we talked about back then, in the early 2000s. It just wasn’t something you would casually bring up, and going to therapy wasn’t for “normal” people. It was a different time. We were all supposed to be capable and able to fix our flaws as quietly as possible.

When I think back to earlier times of stress as a kid or teenager, I think panic and anxiety were always a part of my reality. I just didn’t know how to name them back then. This panic attack caused so much pain, not just to me, but the disappointment and worry from my parents and friends was just overwhelming. I think at that point, I really became unabashedly co-dependent on my fiancé. Regardless of how badly he treated me, how many times he cheated, I would always be there. Because he helped me in that moment of complete despair. He was kind to me. He was reassuring. And no matter what has happened between us in the past two decades, I will always be thankful for the compassion that he showed in my weaker moments, my days where the struggle with my own mental health crippled me.