“I—think I may have said more than I meant? Cara, you and I are having a medical emergency. There’s a difference between—normal—and medical emergency.”

She slumps a bit. "I - I guess it is the case that I only had these panic attacks because my backlash is, um, scary, even if my backlash doesn't make me panic. S-so maybe that's okay?"

“Having a medical emergency is stressful! Even if it hadn’t been directly backlash-related.”

Clingy Cara making a confused face. "but I wasn't having... oh, did you mean the panic attack?" 

“I think so!”

...but that doesn't count? Ugh, she can't say that.

She frowns, and takes a few deep breaths. The first one comes out a little shaky.  "Um. Thanks for being patient with me." 

Snuggle pet pet. “Honestly I’ve been more confused than anything else since the problem stopped being how far I had shoved my foot into my own mouth.”

Weak nuzzle. "That makes sense. I'm... I can try to explain some of it once I calm down a bit more, if you want? I don't think it's very interesting but parts of it are easy to summarize." 

Slow, deep breaths. She's in control. She's safe. She's being held. Focus on their heartbeats... 

“Okay. I’m still sorry about that, also.”

Awwwww... (breath in, and out)

She squeezes Lucy. How to put this...

"Mistakes happen, even when people are at their best, and you're having a medical emergency that sure seems like it makes it harder for you to be as careful as you'd like to be." Small pets. "You're okay. I'm not mad at you." 

Small, grateful smile. Squeeze.

Cara keeps petting Lucy as she finishes doing her breathing exercises and works on gathering her thoughts.

She glances at Haru, and then back at Lucy.

Right now Lucy is mostly focused on Snuggle. 

Snuggles are good. So is the quiet. And the guiding. She has room to breathe (in, and out).

Okay. She should... maybe offer them a bit of advice on how to handle her if she's panicking, since half of what they tried was really helpful and the other half made her spiral.

And, hmmm. Her backlash might actually be useful here?

She takes a deep breath. "Thanks for being patient. Feeling a lot more normal now." Sigh. 

"I'm hoping you won't need them anytime soon, but if you'd like some tips on how to help if something like this happens again, I have some thoughts?" 

"That sounds amazing."

Awwww. She pets Lucy's hair. 

"The snuggles and guiding help a lot. Physical contact is grounding. Thank you both for that." 

She takes a deep breath. "Um - for context - when I'm panicking like that, I get terrified about taking up any space at all, in ways I" mostly "don't endorse when I've calmed down. It's really counterproductive. And, uh, my backlash seems to make it harder for me to notice I'm panicking before it gets bad, the same way I won't notice that I'm only a little hungry or thirsty." 

She pauses, both to gauge reactions and check for responses and because she is working up the courage to make a potentially controversial suggestion. 

“So…would it help to tell you you’re small? I could see it going either way.”

"I'm imagining assigning you some kind of notional budget but it's hard to denominate snuggles and belayings of commands and such."

-she giggles and boops Lucy on the face. "I think it would just confuse me. I think of myself as average size!"

She sighs. "I don't mean literally taking up physical space, when I say that, it's... I'm afraid of being too much of a bother. It... came up a lot, when I was younger, so it's a direction the panic takes me, sometimes."

To Haru - "I think because it's coming from the panic, a budget would help some, but probably less than what I was going to suggest, which is, um."

She takes in a deep breath. Words. She is using them. "I think... if either of you are comfortable doing it, I think it would help me a lot if you just. Ordered me to take a few slow deep breaths. Even if I'm backlashed. Maybe especially if I'm backlashed, honestly, skipping the part of the panic attack where I have to focus on breath control until I can think again would be amazing."

"...yeah that seems fine, if you want to register an advance directive to this effect."

Oh! "Consider it so registered. ...Though maybe we could circle back after the first time it happens to debrief? Just in case it ends up being bad somehow?" 

"I'll make a note of it." He pulls out a notebook from his pocket and literally notes this.

wait that is so cute what

“Okay. …I find myself wanting to experimentally order you to take a few deep breaths, right now, but I should probably not do that.”

Cara shivers.

...It's not a bad idea, though. "It... is an experiment probably worth running? And it's not like I'm Maximally Calm Cara at the moment."