PANIC!

It starts quickly and can easily escalate at an alarming speed. It is the pull of air out of my lungs, the feeling of being suffocated, of not able to breathe on my own. My eyes get blurry, my thoughts become scattered, I suffer a complete loss of clarity about the situation. My heart beats rapidly, wildly, and unrestrained. My palms get sweaty, and the fear is constantly there, the fear that I will not survive, I will not be free, I will not recover.

I am a person who suffers from panic attacks. I had one last Wednesday in the back of my parent's minivan. I was sitting in the third row, rather cramped quarters on a good day, but after an seemingly endless ride, with only a long narrow tree lined highway ahead of us, I began to feel the pressure building. It started in my feet, as it usually does, and soon I was shifting and trying to re-situate myself to get more leg room. I felt trapped. Then it was as if the roof (it is a low roof, but I am short, so I wasn't really in danger of being hit on the head by the roof) seemed to be closing in on the top of my head. I found myself unable to breathe properly, feeling closed in on all sides and about to be suffocated while everyone else in the van seemed to be having a wonderful ride. It is a terrifying experience. No logic can talk me down when an instance like this occurs. All I could do was will myself to keep breathing and take it breath by breath until I was able to get out of the van.

I have known that I was accustomed to having these attacks. I can't control them so I try and control the situations I am in that I know trigger them. Sometimes this keeps me from doing things, and sometimes, like last week, when I knew I was in danger of having an attack by sitting on that last row, I try to fool myself into thinking I can conquer them.

Today, after a morning of housework, I treated myself to a lunch in front of the television and interestingly enough, I came upon a program entitled Panic! about panic attacks, what causes them and people were profiled who, like me, suffer from them. It was an amazing hour for me.

It started me thinking about situations in my life and I came to realize that I have had panic attacks all my life. I can't remember the first one, although there are some very vivid ones that spring to my mind.

Now...here is how crazy this is for me...I just spent a few minutes trying to type out several situations from my past that I know were clearly panic attacks and I started experiencing some shortness of breath and began to feel panicky! I had to stop writing them out...now, that was weird!

Anyway, I write this to say that I suffer from this, and if I do, then I am sure there are others who do as well. If you or someone you know does, I would love to have a conversation with you about how the panic attacks are handled in your world. Any tips or hints or helps would be greatly appreciated. Thinking back on the last year or two of my life today has revealed to me that my panic attacks are happening at a much more frequent rate. I could use some encouragement on the subject...anyone?

Living Happily in the Moment!
Bev