AIO or did my shift leader handle a panic attack wrong?
(Sorry about the aio title i originally was going to post there but I couldn't for some reason) (tl;dr at the bottom)
I (18ftm) have been working at my first job for about 2 months now and everything has gone pretty well so far until today.
We had just got done with a rush and we were also doing training for a new person today, so it was extra overwhelming and I asked to go on break and was about to go when my shift leader (30ish? F) said something about an accident I had made on another day, loud enough for our other coworkers to here, including the new person. It made my anxiety go up a bit, which was already bad from trying to help train our new worker in the middle of a rush (I should probably add that I suspect I have autism, although I'm not diagnosed). During my break I could feel my anxiety wasn't going down and felt like I was shutting down, but I made myself keep working when I got off break because I've never really asked to go home early and didn't think I would need it; I figured it would pass and I'd just be a bit extra tired when I got off, but it didn't pass. It formed into a panic attack and I couldn't calm down no matter what. I tried stimming, breathing exercises, pacing, even hiding in the bathroom for a few minutes but nothing was working. I eventually got to the point where I was crying and stimming by scratching my hands, but was still trying to complete tasks whenever I could. At one point somebody came to the drive thru and nobody else was answering (they were busy and two of them didn't have headsets so understandable) but I also wasn't able to because of my panic attack and I also was struggling to speak enough to communicate i had a panic attack, but eventually i managed to say it when they asked why i wasn't handling the drive thru. After I told them, i wasn't addressed again and they had somebody else handle the drive thru, so i went back to handling random tasks between trying to calm down. Apparently though I wasn't doing my main task and somebody else had started doing it without saying anything, and my shift leader asked why they were doing it instead of me. I was confused on what to do because my brain shut down during the panic attack and I couldn't communicate to ask what needed to be done, and my main task was also something we handle right around closing and we still had about an hour and a half until then so I wasn't sure if they wanted me to start on that early or just continue doing random tasks, because nobody had been communicating with anybody at this point. So I tried to tell my shift leader that I couldn't function and was trying to communicate that and had tried to communicate what was wrong earlier but I couldn't. She then told me that if I wasn't going to work that I needed to go home. I asked if she was sure and she said yes, so I went home.
I've asked a few people if what happened was wrong and they all said it was, but I'm honestly not sure what I should do about it. I sent a text to my boss explaining why I had clocked out early and that I had a panic attack, but I didn't give all the details. So I genuinely don't know what I should do going forward, would telling my boss everything be overreacting or would I be in the right? The shift leader also has a family so I'd feel bad if she got fired or anything, but I don't know if this is something I should be quiet about
Tl;dr: I was left alone during a panic attack at work and then was told to go home without communication
Posted Nov 5, 2025, 1:52 AM UTC