Self-Portrait of a Panic Attack

No one could articulate my anxiety. That language had to come from within me.

Illustration by Carmen Johns

I’m told that in the first grade I cried every day, usually late morning, my sobs so uncontrollable that the student teacher who acted as an aid to our class would have to take me outside until I could calm down. No one knew why I was crying, not even me. I’d started kindergarten…