Panic Attacks and America's Pastime

Or the one time I sought out comfort and it arrived in the form of college baseball.

I had my first panic attack in years.

Somehow, the thing that helped me breathe again, the thing that cut through all the noise, was baseball. Not therapy. Not journaling. Not sleep or hydration or even a hug.

Just an open field, a chair back that burned my skin, and a girl I trust sat right beside me.

I’ve never been the kind of person to seek out comfort. I tend to bottle up the hard feelings and sleep them off, pretending the next morning might feel different. But feelings don’t evaporate. They settle. They take root in the way I carry my body, the way I see myself; they chip away at how I value myself as a person and a friend.

Most of my time at Tulane felt like survival. I was going through the motions, dragging myself from one obligation to the next, convincing myself that all of this effort would be worth it in the end. I had to stay. Transferring would mean failure. Maybe this was just how college was supposed to feel?

Eventually, I found friends who made it easier to stay, people who gave me a reason to keep showing up. But I also poured all of myself—sometimes too much of myself—into trying to keep everything and everyone afloat. I was constantly putting out fires. And, as it turns out, when you’re always putting out fires, you forget that you’re made of kindling too. So I burnt out.

Spring of senior year arrived, and with it, something steadier: Tulane baseball and Emily.

Emily and I made time for each other even when we had none to spare. We spent money we didn’t have on little comforts that made the week bearable. I gave myself one (sometimes two, sometimes three) days a week where I could count on at least a few hours of peace.

No planning, no prepping, no pressure. Just existing beside someone who had never asked for more than I could give.

Back to the problem at hand… the panic attack.

I won’t go into all the things that led up to it—some moments don’t need to be dissected—but it started around noon.

I had just gotten back from brunch with visiting family. Something about that interaction (familiar, fraught, emotionally slippery) unlocked a spiral I couldn’t stop.

For nearly two hours, I was in the thick of it. Dizzy. Spotty vision. Couldn’t feel the ground beneath my feet.

A second commencement ceremony was later that night. I was getting picked up by a friend and his mom at 3:45. I kept reapplying my makeup but it was a pointless ritual. I was going to cry or sweat it off anyway.

Meanwhile, the baseball game was on.

The radio broadcast opened with a very sweet interview featuring two senior players that Emily and I were… let’s say, acutely aware of. Then, the team’s Instagram posted a video montage of the graduating seniors.

I texted her: “I’m literally considering going to GFATS (the stadium) as we speak”. Trying not to alarm her. Trying to be casual about unraveling. I had things to do, and so did she—hair to tame, mascara to reapply, a ceremony to smile through—but I felt pulled, tugged by some quiet instinct toward the first base line and the student section. I didn’t have time, but something in me said: go anyway.

Then she called me.

And we went.

A security guard took one look at me—sweaty sundress, humidity-frizzy hair, cry-stained makeup—and asked if I was okay. And I told the easy, simple truth.

“I am now that I’m here.”

Emily met me inside and handed me a water bottle. “Do you want to talk about it,” she asked, knowing exactly what mental state would drive me to call for an emergency baseball game, “or do you want to watch the game?”

We watched.

We arrived somewhere in the bottom of the second inning. We were down 6-1—honestly, not surprising for that series.

I was still quietly sobbing, head low, sunglasses down, hands gripping the armrest of the burning chairback.

Emily tried to ground me. She asked me to find our favorite players in the dugout. She pressed the cold water bottle to the back of my neck. She pointed out a funny-sounding last name on the other team. It wasn’t quite working. Something was still out of whack.

And then—bottom of the third—our favorite player stepped up to the plate.

He’s a fellow senior. He doesn’t know we exist. But we are, without question (if you’re not counting his entire family and maybe a girlfriend?), his biggest fans. Not because of stats or swagger. We just love the way he plays the game. And he’s been there as long as we have. That means something.

And after six games without a hit, he smacked a double.

It wasn’t magic. My panic obviously was not caused by his recent inability to connect with the ball. Nor was it cured because he finally hit said ball. But something about it—the timing, the familiarity, the excitement of it all—let something loosen in me. It was just enough good news at the right moment to finally let me take a breath.

The rest of the lineup was full of seniors and talented mainstays. One by one, more familiar names got on base.

I started cheering, yelling, feeling! Not because I wasn’t feeling the dread anymore, but because I had something else to focus on. Something besides thinking my heart was going to beat out of my chest. Or that I was going to spend my very last night with my friends altogether in a few hours. Or that I was going to have to go back home where the questions always outnumber the answers. Or that nagging ache that I’d outgrown everything I’d once clung to and now had no idea where I belonged.

For an inning, I was just a girl at a baseball game.

The only time that mattered was the pitch clock.

The only noise was the walkup songs and field chatter and crowd cheers and the clean, sharp crack of the bat.

We ended that inning tied 6-6. Emily and I stood. We walked to the railing behind home plate, just for one last look.

The other team hit a grounder out to left field—right to our favorite player. No chance to make an out. But it felt like something. A wink from the universe, maybe. A closing note. A punctuation mark.

And we left.

We weren’t there for more than an inning and a half. I had to walk back home alone while Emily went to shower. I had to reapply and touch up my makeup again.

But I left feeling lighter than I had in days.

And I knew—quietly, certainly—that that was the end of something. Not in a sad way. Not entirely, at least. Just… final.

I didn’t listen to the rest of the game. I didn’t check the score.

It was the most perfect third inning I could have asked for.

I didn’t even know I needed to ask for it. In fact, in a world that asked me to hold everything, baseball didn’t ask anything of me. It gave me a seat and a moment and it let me be.

All of this is to say: the world is still batshit crazy and shitty beyond belief. Panic attacks still happen. I still have no real grasp on what my future looks like. And I’m scared every day—of going home, of growing up, of the version of me that shows up when things get hard.

But.

There’s also joy.

Not the big, cinematic joy.

Most certainly not the kind that solves anything.

But the small, stubborn kind.

The kind that sneaks in through a walk-up song or a double after a dry spell.

The kind that lives in sun-scalded bleachers and a friend who knows to ask “do you want to talk about it, or just watch that game?”

I don’t know what’s coming. But I know I’ve felt joy, even in the middle of a spiral. Even when I thought I’d lost my ability to feel anything good at all.

That inning didn’t change my life.

But it gave me a break. It gave me the tiniest crack of light. And, somehow, the inspiration to write after months of silence.

And sometimes, that’s the win.

Thank you, Green Wave Baseball, for four solid years. For back-to-back AAC championships, lots of free merchandise, the coolest national anthem experience I’ve ever had—and a space to sit still with my best friend.

Roll wave.