My Big Fat Panic Attack

by Rose David

Part One

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 breaks 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.

Part Two

All right. So, there I was. Stressors piling up, forming a ton of bricks that was shortly going to dive-bomb me. And there I was, pretending that everything was

JUST FINE, OKAY? GAWD!

Never mind that I was drinking more than usual, which (for me) means drinking at all. I wasn’t getting drunk-drunk, understand. Only people who have a problem get drunk-drunk. BUZZED was what I wanted.

If I played this right, it was just enough to take the edge off and distract me from whatever pesky emotions I was feeling.

You’d think this would lull me into a nice little evening stupor, but I was also having trouble sleeping. I’ve always had sleep issues in one way or another, but they get especially bad when I’m feeling depressed or stressed.

Bad like, can’t get to bed without some form of chemical help... sort of bad. Which was how it had been for at least four months.

Oh, yes. Alcohol and sleeping pills. Two great tastes that could totally mess you up--together!

I even read the stuff on the sleeping-pill label that tells you not to combine with alcohol, but I was so desperate to relax that I just kind of went with it.

That alone is a warning sign. I wasn’t trying to hurt myself deliberately, but being willing to potentially put yourself in harm’s way should be a giant warning sign.

A giant warning sign that I quickly twerked past, of course.

My panic attack finally hit me one night after I had gone to see the second HOBBIT movie with some friends. I’d had a kick-ass time--spaghetti, conversation, then DRAGONS for God’s sake.

And then, suddenly, it happened.

I was crying and freaking out and worrying about tomorrow and every single thing, ever. My heart was punching the inside of my chest, threatening to burst out. My veins felt like they were laced with electrical wire. All I wanted was for everything to just stop.

Oh, yes.

I was in the midst of my very first panic attack.

Next time: Getting Worse! Getting Better! And How I learned to stop worrying and turn off my phone!

Part Three

INT. ROSE’S LIVING ROOM, NIGHT.

Our heroine is curled up on her sofa and freaking the fuck out, clutching her chest like she’s having a heart attack.

But, of course, I wasn’t. Though in some ways, a heart attack might have been a little bit easier for me to understand.

The night that my panic attack finally hit me was... Not awesome.

There was a lot of crying and scary thoughts. Lots of wishing that I would feel better and, when that wouldn’t work, simply wishing that I couldn’t feel anything. No such luck, though.

Eventually, miraculously, I somehow did get to sleep. Crying is pretty exhausting, if you’re really putting your back into it.

I hoped I would feel better in the morning.

I didn’t.

When I thought about going into work to do an 8-hour shift at Corporate Coffee, I felt like my chest was caving in.

I tried to imagine getting dressed, driving over, and clocking in--but my brain kept getting stuck on a fantasy about steering my car into a traffic median so I wouldn’t have to go to work.

Here’s a useful tip: if you start thinking bonkers shit like this, do not try to tough it out. Do not do anything. Just freaking stop for a second, okay? I wish someone had bothered telling me this.

That day, I didn’t go to work--and I felt like a total asshole about it.

I felt so guilty and so sure that my boss would yell at me that I never even called to say I wasn’t coming. This is extremely unlike me. I’m the sort of person who’d never call off in the first place, let alone just not show up.

But then what could I really say?

Yeah... Not gonna happen.

I knew I should tell my boss what was going on, but it was like I had just asked myself to pick up a car and throw it over my head. I was too weak. I simply couldn’t muster the energy to actually TALK.

I knew my co-workers were going to wonder where I was. And probably be super mad at me for messing up everything. Soon, the phone calls and texts would begin rolling in. Even if I put my phone on silent, I would still know they were there, the screen flickering at me, accusing me every time I got a new message from an irate supervisor.

I couldn’t do it. “It” meaning...

Everything. Anything.

Simply existing was tiring enough.

So, that day, I did something I had never done before: I turned off my phone and blocked out the world.

At the time, this felt like such a bullshit move. I told myself that I should have been stronger than this. That I should never run away from anything, ever. I was a quitter and a coward, which were just about the worst things anyone could be.

Even so, I turned off my phone.

For some people, this might be a harbinger of doom. But for me, it was the first thing that I had done in a really long time to actually take care of myself.

I let myself be tired and weak. I didn’t force myself to be brave, or at least, pretend to be brave. For the first time, I gave myself permission not to DEAL with things all the time.

I just let myself survive, instead.

So yeah. There’s more to the story, of course. After I poked my head back into the world, plenty of awkward conversations awaited me at Corporate Coffee.

Running away may not have been the most sensible solution, but it was what I needed to do for myself.

For now, I’m taking things day by day, trying to take care of myself. Sometimes, I worry that I’ll freak out again. The possibility of this scares me. A lot, on some days.

But then I try to remember that I can live through it again. Maybe I’ll come back even stronger, like a once-broken bone.

Because, sometimes, you fall down. And that’s okay. Sometimes, you have to be strong enough to let yourself be frail.