One, two, three, four, five ….
Count twenty-six breathes, slowly. Count all twenty-six ABC’s, slowly. Flex your body and release, slowly. Relax your body, clear your mind, and whatever you do .. don’t open your eyes.
The beginning of what seems like an eternity of pounding heartbeats, cold sweats, and intense nausea. Something as simple as hearing yelling from across the house, to something as serious as watching a shoot-out unfold in front of you. A multitude of triggers that become this jail cell that has no escape. Your mind is a whirlpool of thoughts. It’s a tornado of a million devils, dancing within your head. Time is completely frozen and it seems as if it will never start again.
You try to stand, shaking, you know what’s happening. The legs that are supposed to hold you up, collapse. You feel glued to the ground, almost paralyzed. Seizure-like shaking takes over and is impossible to control. You try to speak, but the words come out in tiny fragments like a broken sentence, “Help .. Please .. Can’t .. Breathe”. You’re pale and cold, ice cold. The warmth of the sun or a hand-woven blanket won’t even stop the bitter shivers. “Is she diabetic?”, “Does she need an inhaler?”, “Is she an epileptic?”, but it’s not true, none of it is. The tears trickle down my eyes, in constant fear that I will not be able to regain control of my own body. The terror of what will happen, for I can’t even grip onto the hand of the person holding mine. Their words are muffled, “You’ll be okay. Help is coming”. I can’t hear a sound, I can’t see a thing, I feel like I am dying. Everything is black.
Everything’s a blur. Not even remembering how you got back to your own house, laying in your own bed. It seems as you slept for days, when you awake only 3 hours later. No energy to pull yourself out of bed, no energy to pick up your phone to reply to all of the “Are you okay?” text messages, and no energy to even take a drink of water. It’s like you died for a while. You’re not you. You feel different, like you’ve been altered. You haven’t though, you’re still in the same body. Still the same voice, the same smile, the same eyes, the same shape, and the same you. A little different though. Somehow, in someway, you did change.
It’s a curse. It’s a demon. It’s something evil that grows within and intends to destroy. But it is still you and will always be you. Doctors might not even tell you it’s real. Doctors might try to avoid it.”You’re just stressing”, they’ll say. They will tell you to take a day off and relax, you will be fine after. I didn’t know the chemical Imbalances in my brain were off. I mean, the doctors weren’t going to diagnose a baby. Sixteen years later and I found a treatment plan. Eighteen years later and counting, I found help. I found peace.
Panic Disorder is real. It’s who I am and I am surviving.
