I was taught this fifteen years ago, and somehow I have carried it everywhere since. When panic comes, look outward. Name what is real. Give the mind something it cannot argue with.
A roof is a roof. A tree is a tree. The sky is blue.
Start there.
Inhale slowly. Exhale longer.
Again.
Panic is strange because even when you know exactly what it is, your body does not care.
My mind says, I know this feeling.
My body takes longer to trust me.
So I pull over.
I park beneath a tree, lean the seat back, and wait. Because that is what you do. You wait for your body to catch up with what your mind already knows.
You are okay. You are okay. You are okay.
And then panic does this other strange thing to me.
It takes me backward. Not to one particular day, but to that old maternal terror of loving something I cannot control.
That fear.
The one that says, fix it, fix it, fix it, even when there is nothing you can fix in that exact second.
It makes me younger somehow.
Not in years. In fear.
So I do not follow it there.
Bricks. Roof. Trees. Sky.
Come back.
There is a bird in the tree above me. I watch it flap its wings, chirp, move from one branch to another. Its entire purpose, for that moment, is exactly that.
And I envy it.
Not because it is free.
Because it is only where it is.
No yesterday. No next thing. No inventory of everything that could go wrong.
Just branch. Wing. Sound. Gone.
Birds are fleeting that way.
Maybe that is why I notice them when I am afraid. They arrive without explanation and leave before I can ask anything of them.
And for a second, I follow that instead.
My breathing gets better. I can feel myself coming back into my body.
And then I cry.
Not because I am more afraid.
Because I am not.
Because sometimes after all that fear, there is nowhere for it to go except out.
So I let it.
I write this down quickly because later I know what I will do. I will be fine. I will get up. I will drive. I will go do whatever comes next.
And I will say, I had a panic attack, as though those four words could possibly explain what it felt like while I was inside it.
So I write it now.
Before I make it smaller. Before I forget the fear. Before I forget the relief.
I sit motionless until the world stops feeling louder than my own breathing
I loosen my hands from the steering wheel
I remind myself that fear is not prophecy
That the nervous system can turn uncertainty into catastrophe if given enough silence
Outside someone returns a shopping cart Someone adjusts sunglasses beneath a blue sky Someone continues living without realizing another human being nearby is quietly trying to come back to themselves
I watch ordinary life carefully when this happens
The woman loading groceries The wind moving through trees The automatic doors opening and closing
Small evidence that reality remains intact
Sometimes I lower the windows just to feel air move
Sometimes I put my hand against my chest as if calming an injured animal
Sometimes I say my own name softly inside my head to remind myself I am still here
And eventually the world returns gradually
Not all at once
First the parking lot Then the sunlight Then my body
Then the understanding that I am not losing my mind
Only carrying too much of it at the same time
Sometimes the tears arrive so quietly I notice only the taste
Salt gathering at the corner of my mouth like the body attempting to return itself to the sea
The instinct to disappear To heal unseen
I think I am like cats in that way
I hide to cure myself
Inside parked vehicles Empty driveways Silent kitchens after midnight
Anywhere the world cannot watch me trying to gather myself back together
Sometimes I taste my own tears and think how strange it is that grief is made of salt too
as though the body already understands that survival occasionally requires licking your own wounds in solitude
Until eventually the breathing slows
The thoughts loosen
The ordinary world resumes its shape
And I return quietly to it carrying myself carefully like something once injured
still learning that not every silence means danger
Mari Sánchez Cayuso 
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