I think I fucked up my brain. During my certification dive, I had my first-ever panic attack on my third dive. I was pretty sure I was going to die back rhen. However, I surfaced safely, following all safety stops. I didn’t feel anything immediately after that. But the next day, I started experiencing shortness of breath. I brushed it off as stress from diving, I thought.
It's been days since I got my certificate, but I still have symptoms of shortness of breath and feel extremely weak. I'm pretty sure that panic attack flipped a switch in my DNA and triggered an anxiety disorder in me. I swear I was a normal person before the dive; now I keep having anxiety attacks. I always thought anxiety was just an excuse made by Redditors.
But now, I'm just really tired. I can't breathe properly anymore, and my hands always feel numb. I missed a lot of my uni classes. I get anxiety for no fucking reason at all. It's an incurable neuronal disease. I wish I had never gone scuba diving.