I could feel my heart beat out of my chest, the palpable feeling of it drawing my breath short. I gasped for air, each desperate huff hurting my chest. My nails drew red marks into skin and bone as I clenched the core of my body. My free hand reached desperately toward my phone, calling the damning three numbers like an old friend.

The response was immediate and the aftermath was the same. Charted away I was, though not even the sirens could sound out the blood thrumming against my eardrums. The doctors said the same as usual at my arrival, sighed the same as usual at my arrival. It was nothing but an allusion of the mind. The vitals were fine; _I _was fine. I simply needed leisure, I needed to:

“Take it easy,” the doctor advised. “You are fine. This is simply a side effect of stress. Just take deep breaths next time, it’s all in your head.”

Sick in only the brain they supposed I was, and perhaps it was true. Perhaps this fault was my own. Could I be the detriment of myself? Could I be the sickness? Questions such as this bursted in my mind, even when the next time came—and the next—and the next.

The doctors seemed sick of my face and even the therapist I’d been assigned seemed sick of my words. Yet despite the sickness around me, I still remained “well,” tainted only by myself.

Soon, what used to be few and far between heart palpatations and sweaty palms became an all too frequent terminal illness corrupting my brain, impossible to ignore nor hide. Yet, despite it all, my sickness was all in my brain. Invisible all to else, even myself, so much so that I doubted its existence despite its effects.

Nevertheless, my and every other ignorance didn’t prevent the invisible epidemic from ruining my life. As my mind inflicted real and irreversible hurt and heart attacks, I pondered what could’ve occurred if someone had insisted I truly wasn’t fine.