But inside I have a knot in my stomach. My mind is racing with a million different thoughts. Most of them are about how to get to a safe place. I can’t breathe, and the panic is slowly building. I have to get out. I have to get out now.
Calm down, the voice of reason inside my head tells me. You’re okay, you’re just trying to have a panic attack. Now, breathe.
Now how do I explain that to someone who doesn’t have severe anxiety? How do I explain to my boss that I need to take a sick day because I physically couldn’t come into work today?
I’ve tried. I’ve tried to tell the truth when this happens. Then I get the “talk.” I need to be more reliable, consistent, dependable. They can’t depend on me because I can’t predict that my anxiety won’t show up.
So I lie. I text that I woke up with a cold. A stomach virus. Something physical that they can understand. And when I go into work tomorrow, I’ll explain that it must have been a 24 hour bug.