I'm not sure when exactly it all started. I got bullied in secondary school a lot, and I think that gradually made me sadder, especially since I felt like it was my fault. I mean, I was annoying and I spoke up in class and I hit back. Maybe they had a reason.

But that was just it. I was sad. I had great friends and it didn't bother me. Not in the first years at least. But then my best friend moved away - all the way to a different continent. I lost touch to my other childhood best friend, the only one remaining from primary school. We get sorted into new classes every few years, and after 6th grade exactly that happened. That just added to it.

And then it was fine, for a while. We had this stupid seminar with the class and they stopped. But I still didn't feel happier.

I remember once I thought to myself: "where did that happy kid go? I was such an energetic, interesting child, and now I can't even do my homework most of the time."

It wasn't until 9th grade that the panic attacks started. Summer 2019 was bad for me, most of 2019 actually. I was on a summer holiday with my family, in Spain, and I didn't feel like watching a movie so I went up and read on my phone instead. We didn't have a lot of wifi and our daily amount was already done, so that was the only thing to do. I listened to an older playlist with my comfort songs, I wasn't feeling well.

And then my phone shut off. My parents thought I was staying up too late and decided to just completely cut off all apps, even Spotify. So I had no way to contact my friends. Newer ones, but I loved them with all my hearts, still do. And I just broke down. There, in that room, without a way to contact anyone, or listen to music to help me out. It happened before, in similar ways at least, but I always had my best friend. He once even read me a story for an hour so I could calm down.

But I didn't then. I wrote a song that night. I hate that song with all I am because it stands for my moment of weakness.

I had a few more that month. See, what I've learned is that those kinds of attacks don't come alone. They come in groups. Of three, of four, of five... and they don't stop coming.

I was doing fine, for a while. I thought at least. I had a girlfriend for the first time in my life, and although it wasn't serious, it did hit me when we broke up. I always had that fantasy with first love, and that kind of destroyed it. And I wasn't just suddenly happy.

But I was fine.

For most 2020 so far, I was doing amazingly. I had no panic attacks, I smiled a lot more and I did some of my best work as an artist, both with music and designing.

And then something happened. It was stupid, really. The pressure of corona was getting to me, and my parents didn't listen when I told them there were too many people around. I told my dad, he didn't understand, and all while I was getting louder another dad with his small daughter looked at me, and I never felt more... naked.

And my mum was on the phone. She was sick of our fighting, especially after she had to listen to my dad and my sister, who was driving for one of the first times.

My brother didn't care much, and my sister was just annoyed. So I walked away from the path, onto a meadow, to the edge of the forest. I started crying, and my music wasn't helping either. I called my best friend, he didn't pick up. Neither did my other best friend of her sister or another friend that helped me a lot in the past. He's kind of become my therapist, actually.

Finally, my other best friend picked up. She talked about stupid stuff - an essay we needed to write, a game we were playing together, sushi - but it helped. A lot. Then I told her what had happened and we talked for almost an hour.

That was the first time.

The second one was also rather stupid I'd say. A random person on a random server saying the word r*tard. and saying it's alright to say f*ggot as well. A stupid discussion about it.

And then I basically broke down. This time, none of my friends picked up. After all, it was late at night. Somehow, I calmed myself.

I saw that person again a few days after, also on the server. I left, and some of my friends on the server noticed, my leave was quite abrupt. But it was better than getting triggered again. I stayed away from the server for a while.

That was a few days ago. I talked with my friend-therapist about it, he helped me come to the decision to stay away for a bit. He also told me that I like starting discussions and that I should stop doing that, for a while at least, since it seemingly triggered me a lot.

Do you know what I hate the most about all of this?

How ridiculous you feel. Trying to come up with reasons for how you're feeling. Trying to stop everything. I never hurt myself, by the way. I never came close. Also not to suicide. I have too many dreams for that. But sometimes, I just want it to stop. I want it to be over. I want to have made a decision about my future and pursued it, I want to have made my dreams come true. And I want to stop feeling ridiculous about the way I'm feeling.

But in life, you can't skip a step.

And no, it's not okay that I'm feeling this way, it's not okay that I have to go through all this.

It shouldn't be normal to be depressed. It also shouldn't have the stigma it has, it's serious, but it also shouldn't be so expected.

I don't know where I'm going with this. But I do want to let you know that it gets better. To me, it only got worse, but one relapse isn't that bad. I know my triggers now. And I know that I can be fine, even if it's only for a bit.

This virus is getting to all our heads, and it's making us feel ways that we normally wouldn't. As that's okay. It's okay that you're feeling overwhelmed, I do too.

Normally I'd say you can talk to me, but I don't think that would be the best thing for me right now. Thank you for reading. I appreciate it.