Tag Archives: panic attacks

Not yet. But, soon.

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For months I have been struggling, I’ve written about that struggle here a little, and I’ve internalized it a lot. I’ve suffocated panic attacks, and also let them destroy me in the dark hours in the middle of the night, leaving me exhausted but finally able to sleep. I’ve sobbed through books and songs that are not sad, I’ve been desperate for understanding. I managed to allow myself a little bit of hope. My struggles are not on a single track, it seems an entire web of hurt and pain and fear has been slowly closing in on me, slowly squashing the happy and sunny parts of my life, replacing it with dead shadows. I want to be clear that this is not entirely political, but the combination of politics, the hurts of humanity, my own relationships and my own demons. It is a very complicated web that I am tangled in, and it seems the struggle has only made the tangle messier.

For me, that web all came crashing down last Tuesday, watching in horror, sobbing in anger and fear, as state after state turned red. There are a lot of shitty things in the world, and also a lot of goodness. But on Tuesday night The Shit won. When you’re already walking on a tight rope, trying to balance and measure every step, it doesn’t take much to make you fall. I wore black the next day, in mourning. I have retreated some more, probably to a scary degree, actually. I am grieving the loss of so many things, and I cannot be comforted.

My entire life I’ve taught my heart to throw up walls, to grow spikes, to protect itself. For the majority of my adult life I’ve tried to remind myself not to build the wall and cultivate the spikes. I’m a warrior who is at war with herself. Years ago I received a piece of advice I think of often, but sometimes am incapable of the required follow through: Insulate yourself from the hurts of the world so that you may move forward shielded by your own, conscious strength. I’m still not 100% sure what that means, how do you insulate something without burying it in impenetrable layers? How do you move forward without turning into a prickly monster?

This is a puzzle I continually solve and then forget the answer. So I have to start at the beginning, again and again. It is exhausting. My unexpected, very emotional spiral immediately following the 2016 election is another setback for me, I’ve taken some time to be angry, and sad, and depressed. I’m not quite to the acceptance stage yet, I’m resolved to never refer to him as “President” but I’m also not (seriously) planning to move to New Zealand or Sweden or The Bahamas. But I am closer to moving forward. There is work to do, and I will sign up for all of it.

I’m not ready yet to sound my battle cry, I’m still picking up the pieces. But, soon.

Soon.

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Everything is on fire

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I like to think that, most of the time, I can handle the immediate responsibilities of a crisis without a) losing my shit; b) having a meltdown; or c) running away. Car accident? I know what to do, I’m calm and collected, even while in pain. 13-year-old drops a moving chainsaw on his thigh? Yep, I’ve got that covered too (with obvious appropriate steps taken to get said kid to a doctor ASAP). A work colleague suddenly cannot meet a deadline? I can prioritize and put in extra hours to reduce the possible emergency to an inconvenience. And if, heaven forbid, there is some kind of natural disaster and people need water or shelter or whatever I can deal with the immediate steps to make that happen. I am able to absorb shock and stop it, instead of allow those shock waves to be amplified by my own freak outs and then reverberate along and freaking other people out too.

However, the thing that I have a really hard time with is feeling like things are okay, things are progressing and moving forward, only to discover that my legs have been chopped out from under me. To feel like you’ve been climbing up this staircase, careful and trusting, and then realize that the staircase is melting; someone has accidentally (or on purpose) set it on fire. At that point, you only have a few options: jump ship and hope the fall doesn’t kill you; or you take a breath, grit your teeth, and run down through the smoke and flames, knowing that once you’re on solid ground you’ll probably never be quite the same. I know the file won’t kill me, but the burns are going to leave a sizable mark.

I’m on fire. Everything is on fire. I can’t see through the smoke and my chest aches and I can’t breathe. I literally wake up at night coughing and gasping for air, covered in sweat, trying to stave off the eruption of a full blown panic attack. I’m trying to get clear of all the smoke and fear, but my legs don’t work they way they are supposed to and I feel like I’m running but not moving anywhere. I curl up, cradle my head in my arms, and wait.

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Living with a pet volcano named Anxiety

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Do you want to know what is the worst part of anxiety? It’s not the crippling sense of indecision, or cowering in the face of basic tasks, or cycling through all the horrible things everyone around you is thinking about you…nope, it’s feeling like any minute the other shoe will drop and what is currently leaving you a sobbing mess on the floor will suddenly become even worse. The fear of living: THAT is the worst part of anxiety.

Do I have anxiety? Yes. Do I have panic attacks? Also, yes. I take the meds and do the mental exercises and all the things I’m supposed to to minimize the effect of both anxiety and fear on my life. But I still have panic attacks, sudden bursts of heart-stopping fear that seem to come from nowhere, and also the long burning and deeply held suspicion that the worst to come is just around the corner. (Sometimes, fairly infrequently, I will have a panic attack and I know exactly what triggered the episode. Those kind of seem like blessings, really. Being able to name and identify the fear is a HUGE step in combatting it.)

I often feel trapped and claustrophobic in my own skin. I feel like this scary Thing is getting closer, circling around me like a monster hunting it’s prey. And sometimes I don’t know how to open a window, or turn on the light, and banish that fear to the back of my mind. I wish I knew how to do that. And I wish that when everything is The Worst I was able to remember the steps to bring back the light.

The last little while my panic and anxiety has been building, and some of it is coming from places I can identify, but in compounding itself the mountain of fear has become something so enormous I can hardly see it, I skirt around this Thing, careful not to poke it or irritate it, because I know if it wakes up it could destroy me. And I need it to NOT wake up right now. The damn giant needs to stay sleeping, gurgling and boiling just under it’s surface, but generally quiet, for just a little while longer. I am doing everything I know how to do to keep that scary mountain asleep, but I know that sometime soon it will explode like a volcano. I know it. I can’t control that part, I can MAYBE control when the explosion happens to a degree, but not if it explodes. The scary monster volcano mountain will always be there, it will always grow, and it will always–eventually–erupt into a fireball of ash and smoke and carnage. Anxiety volcanoes are never truly dead, just temporarily dormant.

Sigh. Living with anxiety is exhausting.

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