This morning I hauled my butt out of bed and went to Power
Yoga at the Y. I am extremely out of shape and about as flexible as a wooden
board, but my newly-hired personal trainer said she always attends this class
and would help me out. So I thought, why not?
After an hour of impossible stretching and bending, including
many modified poses due to my knees’ refusal to straighten and my hips’
screams, I felt physically satisfied, but I was crying in my car. A few of the
women there knew my mom, and had just found out about her death. They had
questions and wanted to share their condolences. I was completely unprepared. I
had expected to come to class, talk with my personal trainer, torture myself
for an hour, then go home and make lunch. I wasn’t ready for the questions. I wasn’t
prepared for the condolences.
So, I cried in my car for a little while and successfully talked
myself out of a panic attack.
Since my mom passed away one month, two days, twelve hours,
thirteen minutes and 22 seconds ago, I have had approximately 9 panic or
anxiety attacks. It doesn't take much to set me off - a memory, a conversation with someone about my mom, sometimes just thinking of something I wish I could tell my mom about will do it. Before that, I’d had about 7 in the past two years.
I have had a lot of problems with anxiety and panic in my
life. A lot of it started because I was teased in school for being overweight.
Tears come quickly and easily to me, so I would hold my breath and hold them in
until I could get to the bathroom, or until it was time to go home. The only
thing worse than being picked on when you’re a little fat girl is being picked
on and then letting them see you cry. Assholes.
One day, in the second grade, we were having an indoor
recess because of a storm. There were three classrooms-worth of second-graders in
one classroom to watch a movie. No one wanted to sit by me, and I ended up
having nowhere to sit at all. One of the other teachers (not mine) said that if I didn’t
sit down by the count of ten, I’d lose recess the next day. I crawled under a
table. They turned the lights off, and under my table, it was very
dark. All I could see were the backs of my classmates who would have nothing to
do with me, sitting on the floor, watching a movie while it stormed outside.
I panicked.
I started to hyperventilate and sweat. I was crying and
choking on my snot and tears. I was dizzy and my legs wouldn’t work. My teacher
dragged me out from under the table by my arms and carried me to the nurse. She
was barely five feet tall and probably didn’t weigh much more than I did! My
mom came to get me and took me straight to the doctor, who informed us that I’d
had probably had an anxiety attack.
My mom didn’t make me go back to school that day. We went to
McDonald’s and I got a Happy Meal and then we went home and I played with my
Barbies. She asked me why I thought I got so upset, and I said I thought it was
because I didn’t have any friends and that no one liked me because I was bigger
than them. I remember she cried and I felt bad for making her cry.
The truth is, I did have some friends. But I didn’t have a
lot of friends until a few years after this incident. I had a couple of good, close
friends, but not enough who weren’t afraid of the girls who made it their
mission to humiliate me every day.
Ever since then, I’ve been prone to having “freak-outs.”
Usually at night. I’ve been in therapy for many years off and on, and I have
medication that helps. But sometimes, I let things build up too much because I
still don’t want to let them see me cry.
Another major “freak-out” happened during my last semester
of college. I was taking a lot of challenging classes, trying to decide what to
do after college (which, three years later, I still haven’t decided), planning
my wedding, and my mom’s cancer had just returned with a vengeance. I was a
mess. I was driving to school where I was supposed to give a ten minute presentation
about something I don’t remember, and I was talking to my mom on my cell phone
about how much of a mess I was. That’s when I saw the flashing lights in my
rear view mirror. How fast was I going? Let’s just say I avoided having to go
to court by only two miles per hour. I hung up on my mom and waited for the
officer to get out of his car and come to my window. I hadn’t put my new
insurance card in my wallet or car yet, so I texted my roommate that I’d been
pulled over and asked if she hadn’t left for class yet, if she would mind
grabbing my new cards and bringing them to me. As I waited, I became
increasingly agitated. I was going to be
late for my presentation. Everything sucked. I had no money to pay a stupid speeding
ticket. Didn’t he have anything better to do than make an
ordinarily-law-abiding citizen sweat it in her car?
I panicked.
By the time he got to my window, I couldn’t talk. I was
hyperventilating, and couldn’t tell him what was wrong. I could only nod or
shake my head. He asked me to get out of the car, and my knees immediately
buckled. He told me wait in my car.
Less than five minutes later, I heard sirens. Lots of them.
Looking in my rear view mirror, I saw a fire engine approaching.
What? Why?
Right behind the fire engine was an ambulance. Behind the
ambulance was another police car with two police officers in it.
Oh my God.
They pulled over right behind the cop, and suddenly, my car
was engulfed in a crowd of men. There were four firemen, two EMTs, and three
police officers surrounding me, asking me questions, taking my blood pressure,
and offering me a bottle of water.
I panicked again.
At this moment, my roommate showed up among the chaos, with
a look of panic on her face. I
grabbed her hand and forced myself to breathe. After several moments, I managed
to get the words out to tell her that I’d had a panic attack and the police
officer had called the ambulance and fire engine. She was amazed. I was embarrassed
and still panicking. She sat with me while I refused medical attention and
refused to go to the hospital. I didn’t need a $300 emergency room visit just
to have an irritated doctor tell me I needed to take some deep breaths.
Eventually, all nine men dispersed, leaving my roommate and
me alone. I had missed my presentation.
Oh, and the original police officer still wrote me a speeding ticket.
My anxiety or panic attacks have become a lot easier to
predict and deal with in the past two weeks, thanks to therapy, medication,
writing, a regular sleep schedule, and distance from the night my mom died. I’m trying to keep as many things in
balance as I can, especially while I’m not working. I hope I can get back to
less than ten attacks every couple of years, but I also know that getting
irritated, annoyed, or upset about having them just makes them happen more often, and
with greater intensity. Sometimes you really do just have to take some deep
breaths and make peace with the things you can’t control, because trying to
control them is only a waste of very valuable energy.
