54

There are 54 words in the English language

There are 54 words that can hurt me...and soon enough, kill me. If I hear them, say them, read them, or write/type them, I am attacked by something unseen. This only started four years ago when I was a sophomore in college. I was sitting in my intro to stats class at the University of Michigan, bored as hell, when my professor used a word I can't type right now…or *ever*, for that matter. He said \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ and my throat suddenly tightened in the packed lecture hall like something was strangling me. After five painful seconds, it released its grip, and I gasped for air and screamed in horror. 200 pairs of eyes stared at me curiously with a healthy serving of Schadenfreude as I ran out of the room with panicked tears.

Later that night, my roommate and best friend, Emma, came back to our dorm room having seen the embarrassing events unfold earlier that day. She comforted me, asking if everything was ok. I explained that for some reason, it felt like something was strangling me in class. She proceeded to lecture me on sleep paralysis and how she once heard that it could happen to people even when they're awake. I looked at her skeptically, and dryly told her that her theory was not based on a proper sample size. She then called me a nerd and told me it was more likely just an anxiety attack. She suggested I go talk to someone about it. She added that I should start meditating in the mornings. Who knew a college sophomore had so much insight!?

I thanked her for the advice and got into bed, but sleep did not come. Instead, my mind ran through the events of that day in the lecture hall. The moment the professor said \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ stuck out to me. I quietly whispered Emma's name across the room after a couple hours of thought loops. She groaned and rustled around in her bed, and then looked up at me, frustrated by the late night intrusion.

"What?!"

"I've been thinking about what happened today. For some reason, when Professor King said \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_-"

\-**BAM!**

Something unseen pinned me against the mattress and covered my mouth as I screamed through the powerful invisible hand for what felt like an eternity. This second time around, the attack lasted far longer and it gained in strength. I did not want to experience a third attack – I was almost positive I wouldn't survive it. Fortunately, \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ was a somewhat obscure word, which is why it probably stuck out in my memory in the first place.

Meanwhile, Emma watched me fight for my life in horror and ran across the room in an attempt to calm me down. "You have *extreme* sleep paralysis! *Extreme* sleep paralysis!" She kept yelling in my face over and over again, as if that would somehow solve the issue. She then took out some B12 gummies from her vitamin drawer and fed me at least 4 of them, claiming they would prevent another episode. She also insisted she would bring me to a campus psychologist in the morning who could recommend some sleep therapists in the area, and perhaps a neurologist. I told her she wasn't a doctor and she didn't know what she was talking about, but if Emma did possess one thing, it was persistence, and I found myself sitting across from a campus psychologist the following morning.

The psychologist stared at me with a warm smile and asked me to tell her about what was going on. I tried to explain what was happening, and I could already see her trying to box these symptoms into a neat and tidy category she had dealt with before. I knew this conversation was going to be useless, so I stopped talking. She took the silence as an opportunity to start talking about her background and then said this sounded like generalized anxiety disorder.

She was about five minutes into this tangent, when my mind instinctively caught the start of her sentence and sounded the alarm. My eyes narrowed, my heart pounded, and my muscles tensed. My instincts knew before my mind that there was a strong chance that \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ would be used in her sentence. I had already developed an impressive defense system to the word, constantly on the lookout for it, like our ancestors were for predators. Just as she was about to say \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ I screamed, "STOP!" and ran out of the room with my hands over my ears. She called to me from within her office, but I continued to run down the hallway in a panicked daze.

On my way back to my dorm, I ran into two friends, who didn't notice my wet eyes and troubled gaze. They're both from Boston and speak incredibly fast. As they dove into a story about their night out the previous night, my defenses went into overdrive, trying to track their rapid-fire sentences as they both spoke over each other. It was too much. I told them I needed to go and rudely ran back to my dorm room, avoiding any form of conversation on the way.

I spent the next four days locked in my dorm room in a panic, yelling at Emma not to speak and forcing her to turn off any music, television, or movies. I couldn't read any of my textbooks for fear of seeing \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. After day four, my parents were called, and I was taken out of school for the semester.

Since then, no one has listened to me. Most think I'm crazy, but I know I'm not. I've been attacked by 53 more words since that day in the lecture hall, and I have them memorized. The worst was an attack that happened in a crowded subway. There were three conversations happening simultaneously around me, and within a five second span, two of the words were said. One of the unseen creatures rammed into me from the side, while the other tried to strangle me.

Only two of these words have attacked me three times. I've lived through these third attacks, but just barely, and I know the fourth will get me. Its power will be immense. Six of these words have attacked me twice, and the rest have attacked me only once. Unfortunately, two of the 54 words are incredibly common. The rest are somewhat obscure. I have been trying to understand why these 54 words were chosen, but I cannot figure it out, nor can I write them here for you to try and figure out yourself.

I'm now stuck in a shoebox apartment outside of NYC. When I go outside, I need to wear noise-cancelling headphones. I cannot speak with anyone unless they agree to be silent. I cannot read books. I cannot watch anything. I cannot look up at advertisements. Really, I can only write, as that is when I am completely in \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ of what words are being used. I can't even read your responses, because your words might kill me, but there is a way we can work on that together. If you only use words that I wrote in this post, you know that they are safe. If you make the effort to do that, just write "SAFE" at the top of your post, so I know I can read it.

Does anyone else have this? What do I do? Please reach out to me with ideas or solutions. I've wanted to investigate if anyone else has dealt with this issue, but I unfortunately cannot read without the risk of being killed.

More to come.