Tight chest, slightly light headed and tingling in the limbs - been having a panic attack for about 20 hours since I got off my second training shift as a gate guard for an HOA. The coworker is the kind of person that just says the n-word, haven't encountered that in a while, and a fair proportion of his chit-chat is how bad he wants to kill things, wild boar, skunks, people. . . .The "boss" of the gate is pretty open about "Now we won't be doing bad things like paying you for overtime around here". 

Like, the people in this town I had to move to after the rents skyrocketed and I lost my home and thus my job. . . they're completely intolerable. I can't live like this, I can't go anywhere else. I spent my entire life's savings to move in with my mother and build an apartment in her barn. My heart literally hurts. 

I'm terrified of doing my first solo shift on Saturday, for whatever holiday weekend this is, I forget. And yet I just want it to get here and be done already, cause all I'm able to do until it happens is stress about it worse than being in it will be. 

Tell you what tho - as far as this town is concerned, I'm certainly not gay now. Seems too dangerous in these parts, and I'm not a stupid, fearless teenager anymore, coming out defiantly in middle-school and getting my butt kicked by classmates and hounded by teachers. The days of being openly gay, safely, in America are over.