Panic

I had a panic attack the other day. 

I’m not exaggerating or engaging in hyperbolic rhetoric.  I seriously had a panic attack the other day. 

For those of you who have never experienced a panic attack or who have never witnessed someone experiencing a panic attack, let me try to explain what this feels like.  More specifically, maybe, let me explain what it feels like for me.  Do you know that feeling you get when you’re driving a very hilly road at a somewhat unsafe speed and you crest the hill and your body seems to gain altitude faster than your heart?  Or that feeling you get when you’re in an elevator that is designed for people other than tourists so it actually moves quickly and not at a snail’s pace so, again, your body loses altitude faster than your heart?  Imagine just that sensation for a prolonged period of time. 

But of course a panic attack is more than just a physical sensation.  Imagine every real or perceived criticism your mind can generate, every real or perceived fear or judgment you’ve ever been subjected to, every real or perceived pressure you’ve experienced occurring to you all at once.  Imagine every rational and irrational worry bursting through the door of your subconscious and demanding your immediate and complete attention.  Imagine losing control of your reasonable mind to entertain panic over things you really have absolutely no control over.  It’s a profound sense of powerlessness that literally leaves a person gasping for breath and desperately trying to escape one’s own skin. 

That’s what a panic attack is for me.

There aren’t a lot of accurate depictions of a panic attack on television or movies.  Face it, of the mental illnesses writers can afflict their characters with, anxiety is B level material.  I think there’s one exception to this rule, though.  There is a comedy/drama produced by the Australian Broadcast Company called “Please Like Me” that tackles a number of contemporary issues head on including mental health.  One of the actors, Keegan Joyce, does a phenomenal job portraying Arnold, a character who struggles with anxiety and panic attacks.  Here’s a clip onyoutube of the first time we see Arnold having a panic attack (it starts at about 2:50).  Here’s another clip of how the show’s main character, Josh, works to calm Arnold while Arnold has another panic attack (just be advised that not everyone responds this quickly to de-escalation or even responds to this approach).  Oh, and be aware—there’s language in these clips.

Panic and the anxiety that creates it can be absolutely crippling not just because of the panic attack itself but worrying about having a panic attack brings life to a crawl if not a full on stop.  There are periods in which I won’t leave the house on my own because I stress about having a panic attack in the middle of a store somewhere.  It’s a valid fear, by the way.  I’ve had to drop my shopping and race to my car a few times in the past.  Each time it gets worse because that irrational part of your brain begins to whisper things like “Everyone’s watching you, you know.  They see you come in.  They know you’re that crazy guy who picks up a cart full of food and then leaves it in the middle of the bakery.”

For me there is no rhyme or reason to my panic attacks.  Sometimes, after the attack is over and I have an opportunity to conduct a post mortem on the corpse of the panic attack, I can’t even determine the cause of the event.  For example, I had an attack about a month and a half ago just before bed.  I tried very hard to bring someone along on this journey, to explain what was going on inside when it was happening, but I don’t think it made much sense to her and I don’t think it did me any good.  In the end it was very much like Arnold in that first clip:  Don’t touch me and just leave me alone.

What I do know is that the triggers for my anxiety and my panic attacks are all external.  Something on the outside of my body pokes something on the inside of my body, drawing attention to an issue or a fear.  And then it pokes it again.  And again.  Soon that spot is enflamed and the issue or fear is blown completely out of proportion. 

There is a really cool word in psychology.  The word is “catastrophizing.”  As in, “When I have a panic attack, I automatically catastrophize everything.”  In other words, the irrational part of my brain takes over and carries the topic or situation to the most ridiculous extreme outcome, the most catastrophic culmination.  This is like Arnold in that second clip; there are no options because absolutely everything is messed up and set against you. 

I think my panic attacks are about the only time when external stimuli completely hijack my sense of being.  These evil invisible demons who follow me around and whisper devastating thoughts into my subconscious inevitably seize control of my brain and my body.  They induce the physical reaction I described before, where my insides aren’t quite at the same altitude as my body.  My breathing becomes shallow.  My thoughts turn dire and intense.  I literally look for a way to physically escape the setting I’m in because I think that if I could just change my surroundings I could protect myself from the mounting anxiety.  It never works, of course.  You can never escape from the things inside.

National Public Radio did a piece a few weeks ago on combatting anxiety by externalizing the self-talk that people use on themselves to drag themselves down.  It was a piece originally run on the podcast “ReplyAll” in which a guy talks about how he created a spambot to email him comments to trigger his anxiety.  He set it up as a website; people could go to the website and enter in all their fears and anxieties.  When I got to this point in the story I actually rolled my eyes and expected to hear how the bot would email positive affirmations in an attempt to mitigate the effects of the guy’s anxiety.  That part didn’t come.  Here are some examples of some actual comments that the bot sent:

--I don't agree with all the people who say you are weak-kneed and monstrous. 

--Most of your friends are doing okay, which makes me wonder why you are so a burden on others. 

--I respect that you just live your life and don't care if people think you are exhausting to know and not interesting. 

--People on Facebook look at your picture and think: strangely repulsive and whiny. 

--Ask yourself, do you always want to be deficient and likely to die soon. 

--People pretend to be nice to you but they're thinking: weird-faced. 

(Taken from an article you can find here:  http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/01/guy-outsourced-his-anxiety-to-a-spambot.html )

The whole idea was apparently to externalize this self-talk so that it would be easier for a person who struggles with anxiety to disregard it.  Instead of these comments appearing unbidden in your brain, they would show up in your email box.  Theoretically the change in orientation would decrease the impact of the self-talk.  It apparently didn’t work too well.  The guy who created the bot took it down because it made him too anxious.

Here's a link to the original piece from the "ReplyAll" podcast.

Here’s the deal.  At least for me. 

I have dealt with anxiety for most of my life.  Because of my education and experience, I know the psychology behind it and the standard approaches to treatment.  I know the breathing exercises and how to try to anchor myself in the moment in order to regain control of my racing brain with all of its doomsday observations.  I have a prescription for Ativan that I take as needed.  Knowing all of this and having these resources really doesn’t make a difference in the end, though.  My anxiety hasn’t gotten better through therapeutic interventions or through educating myself.  Part of this is because of the state of my life.  As you already know, dear reader, not very many people know exactly who I am and the anxiety that weighs on me because of this is extremely heavy some days.  But I really don’t think I can escape my anxiety any more than I can escape my eye color.  Sure, I can cover it up and pretend it’s not there or that it’s something else but that doesn’t mean it’s gone.  I think, for me, anxiety and panic attacks are just part of my make-up.  It’s not going to go away.

But….

Just because it’s not going to go away doesn’t mean I am going to let it control my life any more than it does. 

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  You read that statement and you remembered what I said at the beginning, about being afraid to go out in public sometimes and having to leave public spaces at other times.  No doubt you’re curious how I can live, subjected to the control my anxiety has over me, and then proclaim that I’m not going to let it control me any more than it does.  Here’s what I mean.  I can choose to be a victim of my anxiety, become its prisoner, and let it confine and restrain me.  Or…I can acknowledge it as a part of who I am and incorporate it into my story.  If it controls me, it drives who I am and what my story is.  If I seize control of how I understand my anxiety and what it means to live with it and endure it and how it affects me, then in the end I control it.

It’s why I’m writing this post right now.  By sharing the story of my struggles with anxiety and how panic attacks affect me and, more to the point, accepting that there is no magic mental surgery to extract “the anxiety center” so that I can be “normal” gives me the ultimate control of how I define my anxiety.  If I leave it a mystery, refuse to acknowledge it, distance myself from it, or put control of it into the hands of a spambot, then my anxiety controls me.  Writing about my anxiety in this way not only empowers me but it turns this thing I suffer from and all the horrible things I experience because of it into something more endurable because, through my story, hopefully other people will learn more about themselves, whether they struggle with anxiety and panic attacks or not. 

In the end it’s all about how we will use our experiences in a way that help us define ourselves and give us power over our own stories.  By naming, owning, and accepting the not-so-savory parts of our personality we truly get to know ourselves and become more balanced as individuals. 

Nobody has it all together.  Nobody is happy 100% of the time.  Everyone has a struggle.  It just takes time to accept this and learn from it.  Let me be clear:  It’s not about learning to be “okay” with every horrible experience you’ve had or every way your body or mind betrays you.  It’s about not letting those betrayals define you and seize control of your story.  It’s your story.  It’s my story.  It doesn’t belong to anxiety.  It doesn’t belong to depression.  It doesn’t belong to eating disorders or image disorders or physical impairments or horrible voices from within or without.  When we give up that control we will always lose sight of who we are, how special we are, and the good that we can do.