Hysteria

The attack, when it comes, is not a collapse. It is a clarity .

The world pulls back like a curtain. Your skin becomes a single, raw nerve. You can feel the spin of the planet. You can hear the blood moving in your own temples—a roaring, oceanic tide. You are not broken. You are too open . Too alive. The sob that finally breaks free is not grief. It is a release valve for a pressure that has been building since girlhood. Hysteria

Then it drops into the chest, where it nests between the ribs. It has no name yet. The doctors would call it wandering womb , an old ghost of a diagnosis, as if the body’s own longing could be a kind of demon. But you know better. It is simply the truth that would not fit into the silence. The attack, when it comes, is not a collapse

Afterward, there is the shame. The cold washcloth on the neck. The apology you do not owe anyone. You will be told you are too much . But in the quiet echo of the room, after the shaking stops, you know a secret: Hysteria is not a flaw. It is the language of a body that finally refused to lie. Your skin becomes a single, raw nerve

By midday, your hands are doing it. The tremor. A cup of coffee rattles against its saucer. A pen skates off the page. You press your palms flat against the cool wood of the desk, but the wood only learns to tremble with you. This is what they fear in you—not the scream, but the frequency . The way a woman’s panic can tune the very air to a different key.