I had my first panic attack
Honestly, it was such an odd experience. I have heard of it happening to others but I never thought it would happen to me. Overall I am doing well mentally and physically. I have a few phobias, but they're not too bad.
It all started when a few friends and I went downtown to the rollercoaster park. I love rollercoasters, nothing wrong there. We got on a few, it started getting dark and we decided to head to the last roller coaster for the night that was near the exit. Well it was Oct 1st and the park was having a haunting after 8pm. It was 7:30 so I thought we would have plenty of time to get near the entrance without the haunting beginning. We had already gotten back tracked because the last roller coaster we got on was shut down for 30 minutes for maintenance so we had to stand and wait while the sun started to set.
By 7:30 it was dark and the park started to fill with smoke. Ok, I started to get nervous when I heard eery music playing all over the park. We were not the only ones there, there were so many people all around, but I hated the way the atmosphere had become. I told my brother we should head to the exit and get out of there. My chest was already tightening just walking through the smoke. My brain was fuzzy and I just reallllllyyyyyyyy wanted to get out of there. Well in that moment, my friends and their acquaintances saw a haunted path and decided to go in, even though we had all said we wouldn't be taking part of the haunting and that we would be leaving after getting on the last ride. I watched as they all went in leaving me in the path with smoke and with so many people all around. I saw as one of the boys turned to look at me and smirked, daring me to go in. But I froze, I couldn't move. Then my brother and his friend came up beside me and asked "Why are they going in? I thought we said we weren't going anywhere haunted." I shrugged but I felt the air become thinner and my chest tighten a bit more.
The employees started showing up all around us dressed up as bloody clowns or as evil fairies or mad doctors. It was sickening to me. I know people really like halloween but for me, I look forward to November because I hate the day of the dead. It freaks me out. It makes me nervous. On Oct.31st I shut myself in the house and don't go out. Even seeing little kids dressed up freaks me out sometimes. I can barely go into stores because the decorations are too much for me to handle. I avoid at all costs those aisles.
Anyways, so there we are all 3 standing there on the sidewalk, my brothers friend starts calling his friends and telling them hey I think you went into the haunted place, you should come back we wanna leave. They say they hadn't even realized and they wanna check out the line for another rollercoaster. Then they start giggling and telling us to come after them. There's nothing bad. Well my brother says, come on, we will just drop off this kid with his sister and then head back to the car. I refused, nope nope nope, I really don't wanna go in there. Please, lets just take this kid ( he's 16 but we call him a kid because he's a little short for his age) with us and leave and we can catch up with our friends later. Kid calls his older sister and tells her to come back and finally after about 4 different calls they say okay and come back. It was about 8:10 by the time they were back with us.
Well it was too late anyways because the haunting had started. Kid and my brother tell me it's okay, they won't scare me, we will be fine. I'm walking looking at the ground, I'm already freaked out but I'm trying to control myself because the last thing I wanna do is have a public freak out. Too late, a bloody clown comes up from behind me and scares the heck out of me with a "bloody knife" I'm sure it was fake, at that point I jump two feet and start sniffling and running. My brother grabs me before I can run too far and hugs me not letting me look at the other clowns around us.
We start speed walking towards the exit, while my friends are having the time of their lives getting scared. then I look up and I realized people are dressed up all around me, I kinda froze when I realized that all throughout the sidewalk we had to walk on there were about 10 clowns/fairies/mad drs spaced out scaring people. I couldn't walk, if it wouldn't had been for my brother holding me my knees would've gave out, I started crying more, my chest tightened, I couldn't breath, I started repeating to myself "Get a grip, I'm fine." Then my friends turned to look at me and some of their faces went wide.
One of my friends said: "are you okay?" and I nodded saying yeah I'm fine but my face was pale and I couldn't breath it felt like drowning, "I'm fine," I"m fine I'm fine! My voice cracked and at this point everyone was staring. She gave me a big hug and said breath, breath with me, but that just made it worse, and I told her Please get away from me you're making it worse!" My hands were shaking and my chest was the tightest I've ever felt. My heart was racing and I started bawling.
My brother picked me up and started walking towards the exit while I said no please no because we had to go through the sidewalk filled with evil people. I think they realized what was happening because they just let us walk through, while I cried and repeated no no no.
Once we were halfway though the next sidewalk, my brother had already set me down and we were speed walking because I felt a little bit better, that sidewalk started to fill with smoke and I immediately ran like ran before more smoke filled the place up. I hated it. I hated the eery music, the costumes, the feeling in my chest. I couldn't breath and it wasn't until I was out the gate that I slowed down and breathed a bit. My brother came up behind me and hugged me trying to get me to calm down a little. I had a friend follow me, she looked annoyed at me, she rolled her eyes when mine met hers, not believing what had just happened. I didn't even hear what she had to say because I was angry/embarrassed/sad? I don't even know anymore.
We went home and when I arrived home my parents asked how was it? I told them everything, and you know what hurt the most? They said "It's all your fault. You became hysterical and ruined everything. We told you not to go but you went anyways, I'm not going to soothe you because this is your fault." They took away my electronics and told me to not go out anymore. So I can only have my phone during the day and when someone calls me or whatever. Same with the computer. Only for school and work.
I guess I would've liked someone to calm me the way my brother did. He couldn't say anything because when my parents told me this my brother was asleep in the other room. I had another panic attack that night when I thought about what happened. I really hope it doesn't happen again because my parents are already super disappointed with me. I dunno, I'm really hoping this doesn't become a big deal but I already know all of these kids told their parents about how they're the victims. It's like I only learn from my mistakes. I hate the way I am. I wish I was better and wiser. I'm not though and that sucks. I wanna control my emotions but its hard.
At the end of the day, my parents were right, its all my fault for going, for the friends I chose to go with, for not being able to control my panic, for letting my emotions get the best of me. It's all my fault.
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
annaxmalina
izzy806
