That title is a bit misleading.
I know how I got here. Initially I let anxiety get the best of me. Then I let panic get the best of me. Then I let agoraphobia get the best of me.
I still make excuses. “One day” I tell myself. It let’s me pound my chest. The facade. I trick myself. “Tomorrow I’ll start”, I’ll say like an overweight dreamer that really doesn’t want to go on that diet.
But I am the one. I’m the one that let it change my life so dramatically that the effort it’ll take to dig out of the hole so cavernous is reason to just. give. up. So I ask myself tonight, who do I want to be starting now. Fuck. I can’t change the past. I think it’s easy to feel sorry for yourself when things go bad. Time to make a plan and stick to it.
Join me?
Avoidance Junkie
Got off the bus today. Twice. Nothing more than simply being afraid of my panic. Sucks.
So when this happens the key is to go back and do the same thing 3x. Hell, 10x. So I guess I gotta …
Recovery from agoraphobia – or any phobia for that matter – takes hard work. You’ll never recover if you’re not willing to go through the panic.
Of course I’m talking to myself here. This is easier said than done. I have to do it. I have to do it. I have to do it.
Maybe I’ll use this blog to give myself a challenge. Hmmm. Thoughts on a first challenge anyone?
Had my first big panic attack event in a long while this morning. I can wax poetic about it. About how tragic the feeling. The desperation. The utter discomfort. But i’ll just relegate myself to the standard I’ve set in previous entries.
“It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.” – Epictitus
I realized this morning that I can be an expert on all aspects of panic and anxiety – yet still be the ultimate incarnation of Willy Loman when it comes to the actual event.
The experience of panic just doesn’t translate very well into words. It’s a beautiful dance between perception and reality. Tragic at it’s peak. You quickly assimilate to the fears as the feelings reinforce your perception. Reality is the loser here.
I didn’t like my panic attack this morning but it is what it is. I’ll have more. I think it’s time to quit *thinking* my way through my panic and start *feeling* my way through it. Words are fine, but words escape when that first burst of epinephrine hits.
It’s just uncomfortable. I will cope.
… if you think about it, I’m lucky. I can fix myself. I have the opportunity to make myself better.
I have my health. I have a good family. A good job. Good friends. Etc.
My life’s struggle is agoraphobia and the associated panic. If this my big struggle then so be it. I need to seek panic. Each panic attack is more real time evidence that it’s my jumbled perception that causes it – that it’s ok to have them.
It might be uncomfortable – I will cope.
Brian
Two major panic attacks events in the past two days.
Sitting on the bus (again). I just finished a big coffee at work and was a bit tired from the day. Man was the bus getting crowded. At early stops too. Just a ton of people leaving work at the same time.
“Just don’t freak out where I usually do” I told myself as I sat in a seat toward the back but facing forward. But I was wired, tired, and just in one of those *I don’t feel like dealing with it right now moods”.
I should go
No, I should stay. Shit, I don’t know what to do. I’ll just stay.
Bus pulls away from the stop. “OK, I’m stuck until the next stop a few blocks away”. This thought is always a bad idea.
My heels begin to raise off the ground as I squeeze my calf muscles. I feel my shoulders begin to tense. My posture changes from relaxed to ready.
We’re now in heavier traffic and still far from the next stop. I WASN’T EXPECTING THIS! Now what? Uh oh. I’m going to panic. Shit, not now. Please, I just want to go. I don’t want to experience this. BAM! Full blown panic attack.
I take a deep breath in an effort to control my now rapidly beating heart. My mind races with “how do I escape?” thoughts. How do I escape. I can’t. The bus is in the middle of the street. My entire body is reacting to the adrenaline pumping through my veins.
At this point it’s good to note that from the outside, I *seem* completely fine. I’m probably experiencing one of the worst feelings a human can experience, yet panic is designed to save us and is not dangerous. So although I’m literally trying to figure out how to save my life on the inside, on the outside it doesn’t show.
I fold my arms and put my head in the middle as if I was sleeping. The bus begins to move. The sleeping gesture is helping. Fright, while high, starting to fade a bit. We get to the next stop. Heart is upwards of 160 / 170 bpm (if you’re wondering what that feels like, go out side and sprint 100 yards and immediately take your pulse).
The fright is gone. The panic is gone. I *made* it. But my body still has some leftover chemical in it. My liver hasn’t had time to process the huge dose of adrenaline I just sent rushing through my veins. My leg shakes. I’m calm now.
The helpless feeling during a panic attack is an emotional avalanche. I’m happy I had it. I need to experience more.
Avoidance Junkie
Conrad Blomberg nails it in this article on why panic attacks happen.
Quick read – check it out.
Avoidance Junkie
Uneventful bus ride this morning. A young woman to my left wearing a green sweater, preoccupied with her iPhone. I’m reading a book. Hitchens. A nice morning.
We pass the last stop before veering off onto a street in which we have to make a left turn. “So, what’s the big deal with that?” you might be asking yourself.
Agoraphobia is all about escape. I *have to* have an easy escape or else I’m *trapped*. Of course, I’m not really trapped and I’m perfectly safe where i’m at – but just the mere fact that I’m not able to leave at will constitutes “trapped”.
If we were in the right hand lane, I’d probably be able to talk the bus driver into pulling over and just letting me out, right? I’ll make up some excuse ~~ “I’m sick and need to throw up, can you let me off here please?” ~~ “Here’s a 20 (dollar bill), can you please let me off here?”
But if we’re in the left hand lane, I can’t get off. It’d be too dangerous given the traffic whizzing by the right side of the bus.
I’m stuck.
Typically I’ll think this stuff and just get a *tad bit* nervous or brush it off. But for some reason today, it hooked me. I went from complete calm to full blown panic in about the span of 5 seconds. Here’s the thought process.
“It would suck to panic right now”
“What if I did panic right now?”
“I’m feeling a bit nervous right now”
“I might just panic right now”
“I need to leave this spot right now!!!” Mind you, I do realize that ‘this spot’, in whatever permutation, is perfectly, perfectly safe.
But I panicked, full blown. My hands raised high in the air to let more air into my lungs. I squirmed in my seat. I probably bumped the woman next to me. I must have. But at that moment I a) don’t care and b) don’t realize it. The blood is rushing from my extremities and to my major muscle groups in preparation for fight/flight. Epinephrine (adrenaline) is released into my blood stream.
I feel like I want to jump out of my skin. Just hanging on by a thought. Salvation in my control. But I dive further.
The bus begins to move and I realize that we’re now turning left and the doors will open soon at the next stop, some 20 yards away. I don’t get off, of course. It was just a test. My stop isn’t for another mile or so. I’ll stay on, knowing that the rest of the way is a trip in the right hand lane.
Avoidance Junkie
I read this on CNN this morning. 
With mental disorders, words matter. Big time. And there’s a great lesson learned from the quote below. If you didn’t read on the news, Air Force One was flying low over Manhattan causing a huge scare, building evacuations, etc. This is one persons account …
Linda Garcia-Rose, a social worker who counsels post-traumatic stress disorder patients in an office three blocks from where the World Trade Center stood, called the flight an “absolute travesty.”
“There was no warning. It looked like the plane was about to come into us,” she said. “I’m a therapist, and I actually had a panic attack.”
Garcia-Rose, who works with nearly two dozen patients ages 15 to 47, said she was inundated with phone calls from patients.
“They’re traumatized. They’re asking ‘How could this happen?’ They’re nervous. Their anxiety levels are high,” she said.
We are designed to go into fight or flight when we feel like we’re in immediate danger. In the scenario above, this person actually perceived real danger. It would be abnormal if she didn’t panic.
Panic is not *bad* for us. It rushes blood to our major muscle groups, it gives us epinephrine for more energy, it prepares us to save ourselves in dangerous circumstances. But you have to perceive immediate danger for it to happen.
If the plane was flying at 30,000 feet and she panicked, then yes, it would probably be considered a panic *attack*. But it wasn’t. Many people considered it a real danger. The panic reaction was a correct reaction. It wasn’t an *attack*. It was her body doing what humans have done from the beginning of time … it’s us saving us when we really need it.
Avoidance Junkie
3 blocks. The length of the Broadway Tunnel in San Francisco. About 5 minutes to walk it. Scratch that. 5 minutes if you walk it the way I walk it, which pretty much means I walk then run then walk.
A couple weeks back I lost my sunglasses at a bar in North Beach so I went back the next day to see if luck was on my side and they were still there. They were. “Things are looking up” I thought to myself as I confidently walked into Cafe Trieste for a celebratory latte (to go).
It’s all positive. I’ll drink my coffee and walk home. It’s a nice night, why not. Plus it gives me the opportunity to walk the tunnel – something I always have a difficult time with.
I walked half way into the tunnel. I looked back periodically to check my progress. Wait, no I didn’t. I looked back periodically to see what it would take to ditch this claustrophobic place and head back from where I came.
This is the point where I should mention that by checking for perceived “safety”, I’ve given the fear undeserved credence, making it much more likely that I will panic. (panic of course being the combination of a PERCEPTION of immediate danger combined with bodily symptoms)
I go back. Get about a quarter of the way back to my starting point then turn around again to make another go at it. I get to a point. A point that I translate as “now I’m in it”. Up until I hit that point, I’m safe. I know I can easily return to the start of the tunnel, quickly. But once I pass this point, I’m half way in. I have to go forward. I have to panic. In a tunnel. With walls closing in on me (figuratively of course).
I do this about 6 times and see a few cop cars drive by. I’m feeling like they may think that the guy running around the tunnel in leather soled oxfords for the past 20 minutes might, just might, be a bit suspect. So now I’m thinking about this, ditching my coffee long before, and I bail. I hang my head and walk back. I failed this time.
I walked up the hill, taking the easy route. Then I remembered my biggest regret in life. Avoiding to the point of becoming a severe agoraphobic, an avoidance junkie. No more. I walked back and (this is key) without hesitation (which also validates the false fear) I walked. Ok, I did jog for about maybe 20 yards. But I did it. I walked to the end. I said screw it.
Life’s too short. Screw it. Hmmm, new mantra?
Avoidance Junkie
