Well. Here we go.
I hesitated for a long time before writing this diary.
Not because I didn’t have things to say—when you live with anxiety, your imagination is basically running a 24/7 marathon—but because I kept wondering:
Who would actually want to read the thoughts of a brain spiraling out on a random Tuesday night at 11:47 p.m. over a suspicious tingling in the left toe?
(Spoiler: me. And maybe you too?)
Then I realized something.
By telling my anxious stories with a dash of humor, a good dose of self-mockery, and always a sprinkle of hope, I’m not just talking about me. I’m holding up a mirror.
The mirror of someone who laughs in meetings but secretly Googles symptoms under the table. The mirror of a body that looks calm on the outside but is on full red alert inside. The mirror of someone who, maybe, will recognize themselves in these lines.
So here it is.
This diary is my logbook.
A series of episodes about the everyday life of an (ex?) anxious woman. Memories, thoughts, spectacular crashes into mental spirals… and also the climb back up. Because you do get out. Slowly, awkwardly, sometimes even funnily. But you do get out.
The calm before the wave
And like every good story, this one had to start somewhere: here’s mine.
It was just after I got back from a dream trip to Asia (rice, temples, sunsets, and unlimited coconut curry). I told myself: This is it. I’m zen for life.
Spoiler #2: not exactly.
My first panic attack – and why I thought I was going crazy
My first real panic attack hit me in my late twenties.
I wasn’t expecting it at all. It was an ordinary day, nothing dramatic. And yet my body decided it was the perfect time to sound the alarm.
Everything happened so fast. My heart raced out of nowhere, as if I was running a marathon: except I was sitting down. My throat tightened, my breath turned shallow. Sweaty palms, dizziness, a strange heat rising in my chest. And that feeling… like a wave building, building, threatening to sweep everything away.
I didn’t have the words to name what was happening. At the time, I didn’t know these were classic panic attack symptoms.
I thought: I’m going to die. Right here. Right now. My body is giving up. My heart is exploding. I’m losing control.
But I wasn’t dying. I survived that inner storm. And only later, in the days that followed, did another thought creep in: just as terrifying:
What if this is only the beginning? What if I’m going crazy?
The vicious circle of fear
That idea stuck. Like a bad song you can’t turn off.
And so I started observing myself like a panicked scientist:
Am I thinking too much?
Am I detaching from reality?
Why do I feel so weird?
Am I going to lose it in the middle of the street?
That’s how anxiety began feeding… on itself and how my panic attack turned into a fear of the next panic attack.
With hindsight
Today, with some distance (and a lot of work), I can tell you this: I wasn’t going crazy. I was simply discovering, clumsily, awkwardly, but in my own way, what a panic attack is.
My brain had flipped the emergency siren for a danger that didn’t exist. It wasn’t the end of the world—just a very loud false alarm.
But at the time, I thought it was rare. That it was “all in my head.” That I was the only one feeling it this intensely, this badly, this confusingly.
You are not alone
So if you’ve ever thought:
- Something’s wrong with me
- I’m not normal
- I’m losing it.
Know this: you are not alone.
Unfortunately many people experience their first panic attack thinking they are losing control or losing their mind.
But here’s the truth: no, you’re not going crazy. You’re just walking through an inner storm. And even if it feels unmanageable in the moment, you can learn to walk, or even dance, through the rain.
