My Big Fat Panic Attack - pt 1

I have a sort-of history with depression, and by that, I mean that it was something I could keep under wraps enough to pretend that it wasn’t happening.

Every few months, my accumulated stress would coalesce into a big snowball made of Suck, at which point, I would develop a case of the Freak Outs (I believe that’s the scientific term).

Then, I would confine myself to bed for an hour or a day, usually doing nothing more than staring at the ceiling or, if I was really ambitious, reading a book. Eventually, I would start to feel well enough to emerge from my hiding place, renewed.

I was okay.

Everything. Was. Okay.

Except of course, it really wasn’t.

Because, you see, I wasn’t really facing my issues--I was fixing them. There’s a big difference. In my case, I was paying myself enough attention to feel slightly better, nudging myself into functionality. I was fixing myself the way a mechanic fixes squeaky brakes on a car.

What I should have been doing was facing the facts: I was depressed. Really and truly. And, like it or not, I couldn’t keep crashing into bed every few months and pretending that was okay.

I had a problem, godammit. And I should have faced up to it.

But... Hey, come on. Who had time for that? My Freak Outs were inconvenient, sure, but they rarely lasted more than a day. And once I got my wayward psyche under control, my regular life would resume with a minimum of blip-age.

Great system, right?

Riiight.

Never mind that a lot of little things were adding up in the background, piling up to form not the usual Snowball of Suck, but something much more potent.

This time, my worries and doubts and tiny stresses were clotting into something worse: a ton of bricks that were very shortly going to crash into me.

Next time: Warning signs! Chest-cavey-in-y feelings! Tune in later! Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

Update: Check out Part 2!