panic attack

Yesterday I had maybe the gnarliest panic attack I’ve ever had.  Wow, it was an altered state.  So powerful, like–I don’t need to use drugs, ever.  I went to another dimension: terror world.  I lost part of myself. Thought I was dying. Afterward, I was amazed that I survived.

I’ve had a panic attack now and again.  I don’t have an anxiety diagnosis for nothing.  Anxiety and schizoaffective disorder can be good friends, walking hand in hand, to complexify everything.

Eastern Sierras

There was a time around 20 years ago that panic ruled my life.  I was having multiple panic attacks a day, and I couldn’t continue that way.  Something had to give.

My life was all wrong.  I couldn’t have articulated that at the time.  I was isolated in a small town with my ex, who couldn’t get a job.  We had no local friends, and I was uncomfortable with the neighbors.  I was afraid of mountain lions.  We were living on credit cards, government commodities, my meager checks from the community college and reservation that I taught part time at, and my parents’ kindness.

I learned that small town life is bad for me.  No amount of gorgeous nature of the Eastern Sierras could make up for the creepy overly-perceived feeling I felt.  The white people freaked me out.  All that anger toward outsiders–their anger was painful for me.

I learned for sure: I need cities, anonymity, Indian food.  Urban anger is ok–I get that ambient rage.  Good reasons for it.  Rural anger terrifies me.  Xenophobic white people with guns are my nightmare.

But more so, I need community.  Going it alone sounds appealing to an introvert, but I was wrong–horrible idea.  Zero stars: would never again move to a small mining town where I know no people, to live in poverty and isolation, and expect to be ok.

what a panic attack is

My life is way better now, but when a lot of things go wrong at the same time, I get overwhelmed.  A panic attack is when my mind is panicking for too long, so my body has had enough and says, “that’s it,” then freaks out also.  A spiritual crisis begins.

This one yesterday only lasted about 20 or 30 minutes.  I’ve had way longer ones.  But it was so intense.

Classic panic attack things are breathing too fast, fast heart rate, intense fear, losing some mental abilities.  Some people scream–some people feel tightness in their chest, or feel dizzy.

As for me, I told Ming, “I’m losing it.  I need to deescalate myself.  Can you come visit me in three minutes?”  I went to bed and lay there in the half-dark, which usually helps.  But rather than feeling better, I felt worse.

bed

I kept saying some sentences over and over again.  “You’re ok, Laura-Marie.  You’re ok,” I said to myself, holding myself.  Then when Ming was around, I told him, “I’m feeling overwhelmed,” about 40 times straight.  My language was derailed.  I could still form sentences, but I’d get stuck in a loop.

The terror was amazing.  It was a 10 out of 10 of terror, almost exquisite in its completeness.  Yes, nothing else mattered.  Was I dying?  Was I already dead?  Reality shifted, and I was living in a world of white light.  But it wasn’t loving white light–it was terror light.  Nothing mattered but fear.

I was so afraid, but the reasons I was afraid stopped mattering.  Fear was everything, an intense glow of pain.  It turned into a spiritual crisis: the world is a bad place, so I can’t trust Anything.  I can’t even trust my own body.  Materiality–physicality itself is wrong.  There’s no safe place to be–not in my body or outside my body.  Safety does not exist.  Only terror.

breathing

I was breathing weird, gaspy and strange.  I turned on my side.  Then I asked Ming to touch my back.

He asked me, “What’s going on?  What are you feeling?”  I was cry-gasp-trying to explain, but sometimes not talking.  He’d offer some idea of a solution, not understanding that solutions didn’t matter.  Nothing mattered anymore.  I was bathed in terror–I was stuck.  It was inside and outside of me.

“I can’t take it,” I said.  “I can’t take any of this.”  I listed for Ming a few things that have been upsetting me lately.  A man I love announcing his own death, social confusion, unmet commitments, health issues, dwindling resources, how stupidly I’d done something for another person that I really needed for myself.

“I’m losing my mind,” I told Ming.  I felt myself doing the thing where I claw at my upper arms.  It’s a very mild self-harm where I’m just trying to ground myself.  Trying to stay in the world.

thoughts again

In normal life, I can feel any emotion but trust a deep bedrock of well-being beneath it.  Always there, I think of the unconditional safety as faith, Mother God, caliche.  But during this panic attack, I lost awareness of safety.  It’s always there, a layer of life.  But in the panic attack, I lost everything.

I was crying and started to pray in my head.  “Please, Mother God.  Help me.”  I’d taken a magnesium glycinate, which is calming, and maybe it started to kick in.  I started being able to have thoughts again.  The terror-light faded a little.   “Can I have a tissue?” I asked Ming.

He gave me a tissue, and I blew my nose.  I was still scared and crying.  But I was a person again, in a bed, with Ming standing beside the bed and his hand on my back.  I breathed.  Cautiously I came back to this world.  I paid attention to my body and scanned it for pain.  Some weird tingly sensations were fading.

ok

“Can I ask you for something?”

“Yes,” Ming said.

“Will you touch the different parts of my body and tell me they’re ok?  Like touch my head, and say my head is ok.  And my shoulders and all of me like that.  Would you do that for me?”

“Yes,” Ming said.  “Your head is ok,” he said.

“You have to touch it when you say it,” I said.

He touched my head.  “Your head is ok,” he said.

I was crying off and on as we did this exercise, and I tried to believe him, working together to decide my body was ok.

“Your hair is ok,” he said, touching my hair.

“My hair’s not ok!  It’s dead!” I said.  Then I giggled.  It felt strange to laugh.

“Your mouth is ok,” Ming said, touching my mouth.

He went through my whole body.  Then he went back to my back, which he’d forgotten.

“What about my elbows?” I asked.

“Your elbow is ok,” he said, touching my right elbow.

I giggled about that too.

“What about my butt?”

“Your butt is ok,” he said.

comforting

Wow, that exercise where Ming helped me redefine my body as ok was freakin’ comforting.  I really suggest that, if you need help coming back from another dimension.  Good idea, Laura-Marie.

The next day, Ming was driving us somewhere.  “I’ve been thinking about that panic attack I had yesterday.  It was really really bad.  It was one of the worst panic attacks I’ve ever had,” I said.

“What was so bad about it?” he asked.

I tried to explain how I went into another dimension.  “But in a way it really helped,” I told him.  “Afterward, I could finally relax.”

“Yeah, maybe you needed it,” he said.

“I think I did,” I said.  “But I wish there was a way to have an intentional panic attack, in a managed way, so it could happen at a good time, rather than inconvenient time.”  I imagined orchestrating a panic attack skillfully.  Like a weekly intentional panic attack.

“Makes sense, to let off steam,” he said.

“Feels way more complicated than letting off steam,” I said.  “But I think I know what you’re getting at.”

“How is it more complicated than letting off steam?” he asked.

“Well, it was a spiritual experience,” I said.  “People who do some kinds of drugs, that’s what they’re looking for.  Hopefully happier, though.”

Maybe that’s why people ride roller coasters or jump out of airplanes.  Or go into a fake haunted house at Halloween.  The fear is semi-controlled, so you could feel it in a way that’s framed as fun, and with other people around.

thank you

Thank you to Ming for helping me when I was panicking, and supporting me in the long process of feeling my feelings.  You’re very good at helping me.  It’s amazing, how you show up.  Thank you for being patient with me–I’ll always be grateful to you.

Thank you to Mother God for blessing me with feelings.  It’s am honor to feel.  And thank you to my mom on the other side, proud of me for being who I am.

Panic attacks are part of life.  I usually think their message is “slow down, do less, say no, prioritize your well-being, rest.”  But mostly my anxiety is grief that never got expressed.  So for me, a panic attack’s message is also to cry more and take the time to face my sadness.  Don’t numb myself or turn away.  Do that hard work of feeling.

I have more health issues lately–changes in my body and with medication.  It’s almost like I have a new body, periodically, in what it needs.  So I have to stay alert to my needs, and not get stuck in how my body was five years ago or even a few months ago.  Time is a trip, and so is aging.

Love to all who feel, and to the truth of suffering.