I’m only 14 and since school’s out I have no one to talk to about this so I’m sorry if the answer is obvious. I just have no one to ask.

As I was washing my hair, I was thinking about how I want to donate it before college and thinking about how short I should cut it. Currently it’s down to my upper thigh. I closed my eyes to wash out the shampoo like I always do. I’m aware of the water hitting my body, but my mind is somewhere else.

My breath is getting shallower.

My heart is beating faster.

All of a sudden, I’m brought back to my worst memory from before I turned 10. I’m 4 years old again. I’m about to get a haircut. I see my mom looking through the catalog of hairstyles, but I can’t tell what she chose. I’m sitting in the chair. I hear a snip right next to my ear. I see 11 inches of hair fall to the floor. I start crying. The next thing I know, they’re turning around the chair so I can see how I look. When I look in the mirror, all I see is ugliness. My hair was the only thing I liked about myself and now it was all laying on the floor. I put on my hat to cover it up and cry all the way home.

Now I’m not seeing it from 4-year-old me’s perspective, but as though 14-year-old me was standing next to 4-year-old me and my mom. I’m at home now. My dad asked me how I looked. I screamed “I look like a boy. I’m so ugly.” My mom tried to take off my hat but I didn’t let her. She tried again. She made a deal with me. If I take off my hat and let her wash my hair, I wouldn’t have to show my dad. I wasn’t stupid, so I said no. But that was enough of a distraction for her to take it off. I remember looking in the mirror and not recognizing the person looking back at me. Even though I didn’t recognize that person, I knew that she was the ugliest girl in the world.

I suddenly remember that I’m in the shower. I realize that I’m shaking. And I’m crying too. I get out of the shower and dry my face. I take deep breaths, dry my eyes, and try to collect myself. I’m about to put moisturizer on my face.

My breath gets shallower.

My heart beats faster.

“Oh no not again,” I thought.

My eyes are open this time. I see myself in the mirror. And then I don’t.

I am standing above 13 year-old me in Mrs. Shaw’s classroom. Mrs. Shaw is showing our videos that we made with a partner about a specific type of engineering. We were taking a break because it was block schedule. My video was going to be shown right after the break. I had done all of the work because my partner had always gone to help another group instead of working on our own video. As a result, I thought it was really bad. No one else except for Mrs. Shaw, one of my best friends Abby, and maybe one or two other people were in the classroom. Everyone else was in the hallway messing around. I had a growing sense of dread as I watched the other videos. They were peer graded and mine was clearly way worse than everyone else's. I put my head down into my jacket. Abby asks me what's wrong. I tell her that my video sucks and I'm going to fail. I start crying. Abby tells me that I'll be fine. I say that I won't be. Abby says that she's sure that Mrs. Shaw would surely take into account that my partner didn't do anything. I go to the bathroom to collect myself and dry my tears before the rest of the class comes.

And then it stops. I look in the mirror and see a tear rolling down my right cheekbone. I realize that my hair has dried a lot. I check the time. I'm 30 minutes late.

I spent 30 minutes reliving my worst memories from before I became depressed and anxious 7 months ago. I know some people will think "those are her worst memories? She's had such an easy life." I know most people have experienced a lot worse than that, but for me, these are my worst childhood memories. It wasn't easy for me to lose the only thing I liked about myself. It wasn't easy for me to realize that for the first time, I won't get an A. These were the two times before I became depressed that I felt helpless; like everything was going wrong and there was no way to make it right.

So can someone please explain what happened during those 30 minutes? Was I experiencing an anxiety attack? A panic attack? Something else?