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Alex had always had an…interesting relationship with panic. Most people know themselves and how they respond to things by the time they reach a certain age; Alex was still waiting to grow up in that sense. He could never tell how he’d react to new things: sometimes he was fine, sometimes he was itchy, and sometimes he’d be reduced to a crying mess in the farthest corner he could find. Fun times.
But, the one thing he could say was that his friends somehow managed to know how he’d reacted far before he did. They were always there with a comforting hug, a hand to hold, or a glass of water for when he got overwhelmed. And, best of all, they never blamed him for it. No matter how many events Alex thought he ruined his friends would leave in an instant-claiming they thought it was lame anyhow.
He always felt guilty afterwards, when his anxiety took over, because he never wanted to be the one to ruin things. He hated the pitying looks of people between gasping breaths, he despised how people would tell him to “lighten up”. He couldn’t help the way he was, he couldn’t stop the creeping feeling crawling up his spine. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t just be normal for one fucking night!
Alex liked to think he had an okay sense of self worth. Scratch that; he liked to tell people he had an okay sense of self worth. But he knew, deep down, that the anxiety pit in the center of his stomach fed from the way he felt about himself. It was a constant cycle, self hate turned to anxiety turned back to self hate for being anxious and so on. He knew it, his friends knew it, he’ll his parents fucking knew it. He just wished it could somehow change. What he wanted-more than anything-was the ability to wake up one day and try something new and wonderful-without the excess worry. He wanted freedom, he wanted calm, he wanted a quiet solitude.
But anytime he thought he could do it, the panic came back. Slowly at first, a sneaking feeling between conversations. Then he felt it before shows-far more than any of his friends. Until finally he could barely get up in the morning and his friends were forced to drag him out of bed. He hated those days, he hated bothering his friends. But more than anything, he hated himself.