I saw this guy sitting on the bench next to the store. I didn’t think anything of it until I was coming back from the store inside where I had purchased a bottle of strawberry Fanta and a bag of sour gummy worms. Usually, I would just let an individual drift on the outer shores of my peripherary vision, totally ignoring the person unless they went out of their way to approach me. Usually, I shoot a smile in their general direction, though.

Today, I did. I smiled at the guy and wish I really, really hadn’t.

Sitting on the bench was a skinhead. It could have been that I jumped to a conclusion, maybe he had a swastika tatooed on his neck just for giggles, maybe it was an ironic sort of gesture. Maybe he was actually aware of the sanskrit meaning of the symbol. I don’t know. I didn’t really know what to think. I panicked, naturally. And then I started to worry. Was there anything about me that would have tipped him off about my religion? Did I look I mean, I have a tiny Star of David necklace but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t showing.

And then I started having a full-blown panic attack as I was pulling off. Not one of those, ‘Ha ha! I’m having a panic attack’. No, as someone that suffers from a staggering Panic Disorder, I had to pull over on the side of the road and let it pass. It really felt like I was going to die. It didn’t last very long, something like two minutes and half, give or take a few seconds.

I used to think my triggers were just travelling and having to put on short, three-minute scenes at Districts in front of complete strangers. (One year, I finished my monologues and had a complete meltdown outside the room, it was short but it was phsyically frightening and emotionally draining). And I was just so angry at myself because I knew it was irrational and stupid and I had no reason to be panicking like that. It just makes me sad because I have been doing so good with the medication I’m on and thinking rationally and all this self-talk shit and the therapy and I hadn’t had an episode like that in public in a good number of months and now I’m just annoyed with myself.

I don’t know.

Mr. Skinhead, if you somehow stumble across this, I hope you don’t give any other young Jewessess (how the fuck do I pluralize ‘Jewess’?) panic attacks.