Less is More

by EpicGamer10075

Panic

Twilight wasn’t panicking.

Not yet, anyway, but her mind and all the stress were sure to—

She shook her head almost violently to try and get rid of those thoughts.

It must’ve been only ten minutes before she was supposed to head to class for the test, but her breath kept coming fast and heavily, her hooves unable to keep themselves still as she trotted almost frantically around her bedroom in Canterlot Castle, the stress forcing a tension across her insides and making her feel like she was about to throw up.

She had already went into the bathroom twice in preparation to do just that, but she never actually had anything come up; she didn’t actually need to vomit, the stress was just forcing her to think that she did… right?

Another heaving, shaky breath came out of Twilight’s throat and she started to feel dizzy, but her antsy hooves kept her from laying down. Instead, the only solace she could find was muttering to herself, “Come on, Twilight, this is ridiculous! You’ve already had tests before and you know this isn’t going to be any different! Why are you so f-fricking stressed?!”

Despite her words, her body felt no less assured, and bile still felt like it might come up her throat at any minute.

In the back of her mind, she could recall what her babysitter, Cadance, had told her in the past about dealing with this anxiety, but…

Twilight suddenly stopped in place and put a hoof on her breast, closed her eyes and just tried to breathe. She took a deep inhale, held it for a second, then let it out in a shaky exhale. Then she did it again, a little slower, and then once more. She tried to keep her conscious thoughts down, but every time seemed just the littlest bit off in her motions, her mental voice popped up again and went on for a bit before Twilight mentally shouted back at it to be quiet.

After a short while of trying to do that, she opened her eyes and felt slightly better, with the bile having receded for the time being and her breaths less obnoxiously loud in her mind.

Cadance had spoken at length about this ‘mystical’ technique to calm one’s panic, but Twilight already knew stuff like that didn’t work. The only times her panic ever truly faded was when her mind went completely elsewhere, utterly focused on some task like studying or reading books, with no mental real-estate to spare for any nagging reminders of her broader existence or the stress that came with it.

She wanted to believe Cadance was right, that Twilight was simply doing something wrong, but she knew from experience and dozens of anecdotes that such an ideal solution to her anxiety simply didn’t exist.

She loved Cadance, she really did, but the older, more extroverted mare simply didn’t understand this kind of stress, and any words she said on the matter were biased from not having to deal with it.

Sighing in exhaustion, Twilight looked up at the clock on the wall and noticed she only had two minutes remaining before she needed to go. Gulping what little stress she could down, and knowing that all of it would fade during the test, she headed off to class.

Author's Note:

I’ve read a few times before how that technique Cadance taught Twilight about dealing with stress is capable of completely nullifying panic, but I know from personal experience that that isn’t true.

I’ve also found it odd that Cadance would be the one teaching it, as she doesn’t seem to have a lick of either introversion (and thus personal experience) or psychotherapy training (and thus external knowledge), so any idea she’d have on deal with stress is liable to be biased.

I can’t that I myself have an experience exactly like this story, and I know that others have different types of panic, but I think it’s worth putting something out there about how this can work, and when would be better than right after a quiz I was stressing about?
(In actuality I’ve had ideas about making these stories for a few days, but the stress there definitely did give me inspiration for this chapter!)