If panic attacks trigger you then don't read this

My mum: Why didn't you wash your hair this morning?

Me: Maybe because I'm still recovering from the biggest panic attack I ever had last night that you could have prevented in a second by just moving a small bowl of apple from the floor onto the table right next to it, but you refused, even though I was screaming and crying from the scenarios I couldn't stop seeing in my head, and then I blindly grabbed my phone and ignored my brother saying "What's wrong with her?" in confusion and my dad asking if I'd hurt myself and you telling my brother I was just being silly and raced up the stairs, still crying and hyperventilating and not able to breathe, and shut my bedroom door.

And while I ran the only words I could form was a repeated mutter of "Cleo" and "Help", begging the universe for me to turn on my TV and see one of her videos there. So I fumbled for the remote and sunk onto my bed and turned it on and hit YouTube and it was loading so slow and the neighbours had started setting off fireworks.

And no videos of Cleo's were there and I didn't have the time to search for them but one at the edge of the screen caught my eye. The thumbnail stood out as Joe's, and I hit it, and his voice filled the room, and I turned it up loud to try and block out the fireworks that made me jump out of my skin and hyperventilate all over again.

At that point as I just listened to him and tried to slow my gasps for air, I couldn't speak at all, and I was scared of that too. I couldn't get any words to form. I pushed it all out of my mind, and just listened and watched.

And so I wOnDeR wHy the first word I could stutter out after however long it was (fifteen-twenty minutes?) was "Joe".

How come a man miles away who doesn't know who I am can make me feel safer and calmer than YOU, my own mother, can.

But I can't tell you all this, because you would yell at me, and being yelled at terrifies me and you might take away my one solace. The only voices I don't mind being loud are a select few of the hermits and some online friends.

You always dismiss my anxiety and panic attacks, like when I showed you my poem 'Maybe' as a silent ask for help and all you did was ask "You don't really feel like this, do you?" in a voice daring me to say anything other than "No, of course not!" and you said "Alright but as long as you know that it's just fiction."

So yeah, sure, washing my hair is definitely the thing that's most important here.