Fast. Everything is too fast. I can’t stop the jitteriness in my hands. I can’t take a full breath.
Everything. Everything is a spike of pain. Dad’s footsteps, the AC, my own breathing. His voice. Everything.
My head is light. I can’t speak clearly. Damn. Sound like a broken record.
Try to help, but my hands won’t respond. I want to stand still and breathe.
Eyesight hazy. Want to cry but can’t. Everything is going into this sort of numbness.
Can’t think. Can’t speak. Only type.
I think the end is in sight. Please let the end be in sight. God above, please help me.
Panic attacks happen for the dumbest reasons. The reason for this one is my dad’s pacing while he works, and possibly the intensity/difficulty of the game Thumper. It’s a cool game, don’t get me wrong, but when you’re off the pill...
Anyways, so I wrote this while I was in the climax of my panic attack this morning. Even now, although I am much better, I can still feel the panic grip at me. Stupid anxiety.
The words that come out of my mouth were nothing but a broken record of “okays”, and “c’mons”. If I try to speak normally at that point, the first word replays over and over again in my head, and that’s what comes out of my mouth. When I tried talking to my mother, trying to ask a question, all I could say is “What,” in a string of frustrating sound.
But to best illustrate this, imagine your sentience just leaving you. Imagine your thinking being reduced to one word. Imagine the primal urge to run from your stressor in an animal-like way. That is a panic attack. It isn’t the soft cloud of anxiety before you go on stage or anything like that. It is an all-encompassing shutdown of your mind and body.
Yet, despite all of this, people like my father (even though he does have mild GAD) still think that it’s something that can be controlled. Like I can, if I think hard enough about something, get rid of it. It’s true that I can control myself a tiny bit; I fought during the climax to be able to help my siblings out with carrying things in from the shed. And I was able to help in some capacity. However, there’s no stopping the onward tide of the panic attack sweeping over you.
So, from us who have this problem to those who are blessed not to have it, remember that we’re trying our best, and that we’re fighting against something that is programmed in our DNA. It sucks to lose our sentience. It sucks not being able to do stuff because your body just wants to flip out. We hate that we have this problem. Just please acknowledge that it’s very real, and our efforts against it are just as real.
titsay
theartofmadeline
jbbartram-illu
turnnoffyourmind
