Panic.

I think you can have a mild form of a panic attack where it slowly builds up on you as opposed to rapidly and your heart beats pretty fast for an hour. That's been happening to me right now. I've had that feeling about half an hour after the newness of coming back home. Settling in, I just feel I need to write this because whenever I have tried to tell someone about things I go through, I get "depressing," or "let's move on" and when someone does listen and welcome or encourage me, I'm not in a place where I can just open up like this. I have to be going through it at the time. Not because I can't bare to open up, but because I can't honestly open up, because it has to be something I am going through at the time.



I woke up good to go. I had an alright sleep. I've been eating well today.



The main part of my panic is other people. I will continue to be shocked and a little too happy when someone is nice to me. "Someone is nice to me" sounds childish but literally that is what it is. I don't crave nice but because I'm a fairly nice person, always have been from childhood, I actually do enjoy the company of people and once I was a bubbly little girl, so I like to be treated the way I treat others. Sometimes I can be rude to others too. I ignore people, not too long ago I would ignore someone if they said "excuse me." I started this when I was 14, after being bullied daily at school.



I still have trouble looking at people and I never had that problem before I was daily bullied. I was always picked on for something, the colour of my skin, being me, my hair, a few extra pounds and being a short girl, it was all something that combined made anyone laugh when someone complimented me and name calling and animal noises were the sounds I heard from my age group.



Of course this is already starting to sound like a pity party. But how else can you tell the truth? Insert a few jokes to make it pallitable? I'm into honesty big time. I WANT honesty.



Of course I don't want honesty by the way of aggression or superficiality.



If any one says anything about someone's appearance they will be accused of being jealous but sometimes because I know what it's like to be picked on, targetted for being different, I don't enjoy the things and people who are in fashion they way others do. I will always root for the underdog. Especially if it's a woman who's picked on for her appearance. I was told that I'm not worth being alive, when I told my grandma this only recently she looked shocked. What upsets me is not being told I'm not worth a life by superficial people, iit's the fact that my grandma said I wish that happened to me and not you. Who wants to be told that and who wants their daughter or grandaughter or son to be told that?



When I went out today, the air was a little warm and it reminded me of India. I think I was always picked on from as young as 4, I know at schools in England, I was the bullied kid, but I look at photos of me about three in India, I look the happiest I have ever been. Really I don't get happier than that. Because back then, I didn't know cruelty. Now, I can be happy but I know cruelty and sometimes I experience it. No I am not raped. Or beaten. Or starving. Or neglected. But I have been on a bus ride where a young man has stared at me for the duration and when I stared back, he had the most evil look on his face. I'm used to that look. I hate her. I would probably want to hurt her. I tell someone this, they will say you are paranoid. You're a pretty girl, a woman, men won't think that about you. When I'm out and I've given vibes that I'm not a pretty woman. And this isn't about pretty. I just do not like aggression. It comes from women too. I can smile, I can raise my body, lift my head, but I will always get one comment at least and from someone from my age group more so. I know whom they idolise, what and who they find pretty so I don't care to even bother with their own high standards and, I know that a tall thin woman can be equally as bitchy as a larger woman, arseholes come in different shapes and sizes.



The panic I feel comes from not being able to be safe. I feel like I want a day where I can just hide in. Because then I'm safe. No one will hurt me.



I want to let out some pain by writing this.



I don't feel trapped. I don't feel like I am projecting to the world what they have tried to make me. Because they have not suceeded, though they have suceeded- and that's combined with my letting them and being sensitive- in making me feel sad and angry, perhaps I'm angry most of the time, but it's not them which has shaped my career, my writing (fiction), my passions, because they have always been there. I have a strong sense of indviduality despite wanting to not stand out, I have some part of me that wants to be known, I'm here in this world that kind of thing, contributing to this world, but I don't enjoy attention or standing out in the crowd, and that's not because of the fear part, it's because I would much rather be in the corner and observe. This isn't some ego thing, oh I have all these different sides to me, but if you do have these different sides to you, it throws people off, they don't know what to make of you. Perhaps I intimidate them. HA! But you see, I don't want to do that, I just want to be the caring woman, the woman I am inside. Instead, I feel not like a monstor, God no that's too dramatic, but like a loser. Not worth living. And to be laughed at.



I've always believed in my worth, which makes no sense to others, they say but surely you have low self esteem and you're shy because of having being bullied. I was always shy but I could be bubbly and laugh the loudest at the same time.



I feel a bit calmer now. The heavy feeling I get on most mornings may or may not be there to whatever extent tomorrow. I can be happy, I can also be moody, I know I can rely on myself, I know that I can also breakdown, I know some people will be there for me, perhaps one or two may catch me.