In 3 days 4 people I know have lost someone close to them, two moms, a brother, and a cousin. All very young and all very suddenly, all but one was completely unexpected accidents.

I feel ill. I feel devastated for each of them.

I skipped class on Friday. Partly to skip and partly because I had a medical emergency at my practicum on Wednesday, that, if I had not had medication on me, I would have passed out for certain.

My heart was racing...and would not lower. I went up the stairs, like i have for the past 6 weeks. When i got to the top i felt more winded than usual. By the time i got to the office ara, my heart was pounding harder and harder and harder and then started pounding harder and faster. For several minutes it seemed i tried calming and breathing techniques, it only made it go faster. I started feeling overheated. The room started to spin and began to fade a little. I grabbed my meds and stuck it under my tongue. I couldn't breath right by then...but I was holding my neck to feel my pulse, and my poor supervisor by then noticed I wasn't ok. She didn't know what to do. I waited for the feeling if calmness, which did come after a few minutes.

Since then I have felt remnants of that incident. That I had experienced before during full scale panic attacks when I was being yelled at or forced to do somethjng, but never before in an otherwise unprovoked setting where nothing but stairs were happening. It was terrifying.

My heart keeps randomly doing weird things now. Fluttering or slowing then speeding and slowing again. It may be that I am more hyperaware of it now, but I am afraid to be alone now. Again.

So I skipped class and went to a conference my boyfriend was presenting at. He needed help until midnight finishing things, but we had to be up by 6 to get there in time. It was aggravating.

But I am glad I skipped class. I am losing my enthusiasm in full since we haven't been prepared for anything we are doing. The second class topic was animal abuse, which I wanted to avoid enduring too.

For much of the day, I felt out of place. But people randomly came to me and remembered me and hugged me and thanked me for being there. That part I really needed.

I feel no support from my newest cohort.

I don't even want to be there anymore...

~e