When I start having a panic attack, I never see it coming. One hour I'll be fine, and the next I'll be a shrunken, shaking heap. The reason I'm breaking down wouldn't make much sense to anyone else— I can hardly rationalize it to myself. If anything, that makes the anxiety worse and much more unbearable: knowing that I sound crazy to everyone else, including myself. And I can't predict it, control it or stop it.

Often times I tell myself that I'm fine and that there's no issue. That's because when I'm not in a meltdown, I feel like a 100% fully functional human being. Often I'll go a couple months without incident, making it so easy to believe that everything is okay. This inner conflict can tear a person up inside. Sometimes it does.

How can you believe you're normal when one minute you're okay and the next you're not, and you can't explain why? It's difficult. When I was first involuntarily reduced to a puddle, the word I used to describe myself was "broken." Mental health issues, no matter how slight or serious, can have a major impact on a person's self-esteem.

With the stigma around mental health, it's difficult to put these feelings out in the open. You're afraid of being judged. You're afraid that once you point out how broken you are, everyone else will see it too and view you differently. Weaker, somehow. In some way, unknowable and distant. So for a while, I tried not to tell my friends about what was going on, until one day I opened up to someone really close to me. I told him about how broken I was, that I understood if he wanted to leave. His response would change my life:

"You're like a stained glass window. All the broken pieces make you more beautiful."

Not a denial of the fact I was broken because all of us are a little broken inside. Not an unsubstantiated promise that things would get better. An acceptance, an unconditional love and the proclamation of beauty in a person who would describe herself as average on a good day.

They say that each individual is unique like a snowflake or a fingerprint. But I think we're all stained glass windows made up of the pieces of ourselves. Sometimes we focus on one or two pieces for so long that we forget to step back and see how they make up the whole picture. Sometimes we forget that the window looks a lot better when we let the light shine through.

So yes, it is possible to have pieces and still be a whole person. It's hard to believe sometimes, especially in the middle of a crisis. I'm grateful that someone was able to remind me of that. I haven't forgotten since.