Description Of An Anxiety Attack In Public — During The Pandemic

The eye widens. Hash brown pupils casting a beam of broad light on the scenery. The mind is midway to dissociate completely from the body and lose track of reality. You are on the edge. Barely, but you are still within the limits of the danger zone. You can’t fall. If that happens, you won’t be safe anymore.

Scanning.

First, the physical things. The mind adapts slowly. Feet. Ground. Feel the concrete under your steps. Cars. Next to you. Light. Red and green. Trees. A woman. A pair of eyes. Catch them, hold onto them. They disappear. A man. Cigarette. Cold. You hold your phone between your fingers. Artificial. You rise your palms and stretch your fingers. You look at the body part. Focusing. Natural.

You repeat the words again. Artificial. Natural. You associate the words with their meanings. Stay here. You are out there walking. You can’t lose it now. Body. Your body. Slim, beautiful. Hair. Your hair. Long, silk, tender. Walk forth.

You step into the shop. Your mind, occupied by the abundance of colours and objects. People. A man, with a long beard and silver eyes. You step closer. He is a stranger. He won’t protect you. Move along. Your breath quickens. It becomes rapid, shallow. Your eye widens again. By arriving at the cashier you focus on her pink hair. Neon colour. Like the cyberpunks. The end of the world. Apocalypse. Your eyes fill with tears, unable to blink, just stare straight ahead. Words come out of your mouth.

‘Your hair is beautiful.’ — you say nicely to the cashier. An attempt of a natural smile was made. After all, her hair is nice. ‘Th… thank you.’ — she replies. You continue no further. You see only the pink-haired girl. What’s around her swirls into an opaque mass. In embrace of patches, dim colours, and muffled noises. Your mind simply narrows down to one object. Anything additional, it is incapable to perceive and digest.

The walk home will be hard. Dangerous. If you lose it, you can get hit by a car. You focus only on the lights. Green. Step forth.

Debussy.

The violin cries and screams in your ears. So, this is the music of the oblivion.  Your nemesis is carried by a sea of rising and falling tones. Your being flows along the dark streets with the Blue Danube Waltz.

Your memories of trauma float to the surface. The breath fastens with the music, you feel your heart disabled. Disfunction. The subconscious initiated contact again. It sends images. The ambulance car. Your re-occurring nightmares over and over again. Your harrowing loneliness. Your irrelevant existence. You aren’t important anymore.  The pills. You feel them again. You experience the moment before death once more. And more. And again. It will never stop.  The violin shrieks in your ears aloud.

Suddenly, you raise your head high. You are walking. A manifestation of a biological miracle itself. You have survived the unspeakable. You stop to take notes.

‘I walk this earth deprived of my personality, ripped to pieces, destroyed of my human form yet, alive, breathing, scanning all that surrounds me.’ — you write.

‘There was no option to escape, no left or right I had to stand bare out in the crossfire and die, hoping that I might return to life.’ — you continue.

You have survived the purest form of human cruelty: the treachery of a pure heart.

Scanning. Emotions.

Fear. Fear of death. Anger. A tram slides at high speed next to you. Startled. Your eyes wide. The drums are beating the sounds of a cosmic extermination. A burst of existence and nonexistence manifests in you. You are dead, yet alive.

Somewhere deep down between a few shallow rapid breaths you hope that your destroyer will see this, and he will remember the destruction he has created.
You fool, you still hope the impossible.

You can’t lose it now, or the cars will hit you. Walk. Walk over. May the Blue Danube Waltz carry you forth.

You made it through. Tears flowing down your cheeks. Your chest bursts of pain and weight.

Collective consciousness. You feel it. It’s real. Psychologists say it can be experienced only after trauma. You are not alone. You feel it.

You had to die. So that you can live and flare-up in your upcoming rebirth once again.