How would you describe your first panic attack? Scared, worried, the thought that something is seriously wrong with you. Your first thought wasn't, "it's all in my head". How can this all stem from the same place that gives you excitement, anger, and sadness? That it is also a part of your personality. This made me reflect on how this happened to me. Could it have been prevented? I started to think back as early as my childhood.
I can remember when panic attacks controlled my life. It was the middle of October 2005; I had just received a promotion at my job a month prior. I also was in school full time. Things were going terribly wrong at work; I had hired a friend with no experience because I needed the help and she needed a job. She was not making any progress. And I had felt that EVERYTHING at this company was dumped on me. I had only received this promotion because the person who had the position was leaving along with his loyal crew of workers. I had only been with the company for a couple of months and I knew that I had to take the responsibility on; to make more money and maintain full time hours. Little did I know that this was going to be the straw that broke the camel's back. But can I pinpoint where it all stemmed from? Where I may be able to see warning signs in my own future children?
I was a child who always worried. I was the scaredy cat; the one that other kids called chicken. I had issues with the development of my leg muscles, which left me weaker than the average child plus other genetic issues with my ankles and knees. Needless to say, I fell down a lot as a child. I was always afraid; afraid of the kids at school, afraid of disappointing my mother and making her angry, afraid of getting hurt, afraid of not having any friends, afraid of being the last to be picked on the team, afraid of failing. It was exhausting. I even suffered what I would consider a mental/nervous breakdown when I was 10 years old in the beginning of 6th grade due to being constantly bullied. My mother decided to take me out of private school and home school me for a year. I'm not sure what my mental health would have been had she kept me in that school.
Two years later when I was twelve, I was with my cousins and my father at a public swimming pool. It was a 12ft deep pool. I was capable of swimming; I had learned how to swim at three due to my grandfather being a life guard and I even taught my little sister how to swim. Yet I was terrified. I was terrified at the fact that I couldn't touch the ground with my feet and keep my head above water. But then all of a sudden I got this willpower/urge to go on the diving board, nothing too high in the air. And I jumped off it, over and over again. I must have done it at least ten times, everything was fine. Went home and later that night, I thought about the whole process of climbing up the board and jumping off it and swimming to the ladder. I was instantly terrified. What if this happened or that happened? I knew that I would NEVER do that again.
My teenage years brought driving in cars with inexperienced drivers; which oddly did not concern me. It did not bother me that they would race others or stuff a five passenger car with eight people. I just got in and had a good time. My boyfriend when I was seventeen had a habit of rolling through stop signs. It did concern me; but what was I going to do? And one day we were t-boned right down the block from my house. Luckily I only suffered from a couple of minor cuts from shattered glass. His car was destroyed and so was our relationship. A few months later I was in the car with another friend. She had a habit of not paying attention; and ended up rear ending a truck. Nothing too devastating, her car was repairable and we were all alright.
Finally, it was my turn to own a car. I had my license for a year and I worked hard after school and earned enough money to buy my first car. It was a Pontiac Grand Am. I got to drive to school and work and use it anytime I wanted. I even got a job a little further away since I didn't have to rely on my mother to drive me. Everything was going okay. Until a couple of months later when on my lunch break, my inexperience kicked in and I pulled out in front of someone that I did not notice and was t-boned (again). The car was destroyed and so was that job as well as my independent spirit. A couple of months later I managed to get an old truck. The truck drove so badly in the snow (the four wheel drive did not work) that I would start crying. It also had terrible wind resistant's which would make me so frustrated that I would start crying. I had these moments in which I had no control and I was physically starting to feel it. One day I even hit a patch of black ice and went into the woods destroying my front fender; digging a little deeper into my worrying thoughts.
Two years later now in my twenties I started a new job in which I made some more money. So I decided to buy myself a new car. It was great. I drove places without worrying that it would break down. I did a couple of long drives. I also signed up for a class at the furthest campus which was thirty miles away since there wouldn't be an issue of how I would be getting there. This brings me back to the beginning of the article of getting the promotion at my fairly new job. I was starting to feel the weight of the position on me. I had a boss who could switch from good to bad in the matter of seconds, a worker/friend who was incompetent. And a boat load of unhappy customers. I couldn't escape from it when I got home from work. My thoughts would be racing about what issues I would be encountering the next day. I took classes at night; luckily it was art so it kept me in peaceful zone. Unfortunately it could not save me from what was looming ahead.
October 2005, I was about to turn 22 in a couple of weeks. I was driving home at night on a familiar highway. I quickly became deliriously light headed, my head was foggy and there was a tightening on the back of my neck/head and I had an intense hot flash. I immediately went over to the right lane, contemplating if I should pull over. I then realized I was only one exit away. I had NO idea what was wrong with me. I just took it slow and I made it home. I was living with my boyfriend (now husband). I walked through the door and was scared, stunned, shocked; I had no idea what was wrong with me. I had just recently lost 40 lbs. He thought maybe I was just hungry. So I ate and went to bed. The next morning I got ready for work. I started to eat a bowl of cereal and thought about the fact that I had to drive to work. I then started to become dizzy and started having hot flashes. I knew I had to be checked out. I called my job to say I was going to be late, called my mom to take me to the doctor.
The doctor didn't know what it was. So he recommended me to see a neurologist and a cardiologist. Neurologist didn't see anything wrong. But when I went to the cardiologist, one of the tests is to go on a treadmill. Seems normal right? Nope, I had a fear of treadmills. The doctor treated me like a crazy person and told me how simple it was to just put one foot in front of the other. Well, with anyone with phobias knows, it's NEVER simple. What if I stopped, and fell? My friend from JR. high had scars on her knees from falling on a treadmill, that could easily happen to me. Every time I got on and the doctor started it, I jumped off. We tried over and over again. I was so frustrated, I started crying. No one understood what I was going through. The doctor looked at me and said "maybe you should go see a psychiatrist".
Me, see a psychiatrist? So he's saying this is all in my head? That couldn't be it. There has to be something medically wrong with me that could be cured. Or maybe it was my windshield; maybe the angle of it triggers these attacks? Or maybe it's because I started wearing fake earring and it's screwing with my equilibrium, which is making me dizzy. Or maybe there is something wrong with my eyes. I had to do something. I had a car I was making payments on and I was relying on others to drive me around, or even take taxis to get around. I even started looking at the public bus schedule to get to work, which was a joke. I would have to be at the bus stop at 6:20am to make it to work by 9am and my job was only 9 miles away. That was not going to work.
I go to see the psychiatrist, who listens to me for ten minutes and then writes me a prescription for Zoloft. An anti-depressant, but I'm not depressed? Whatever, I'll try anything to get back to normal. So I begin taking anti-depressants, still panicking when I attempt to drive. I decide that I'm paying for my car, I better use it. So I start to develop coping strategies. I would crack my window to have the sound and the feel of the wind keep me in reality. And even leaning my head onto my left hand became a habit. And I would always catch my shoulders up by my ears. And my teeth would be constantly clenched. I became obsessed with how clean my wind shield was. I was still partially convinced that was the issue, because my mother complained about how slanted it was. I would go through bottles of windshield wiping fluid like no one's business. I even purchased from an infomercial, this 'special' glass cleaner that was supposed to eliminate glare. I started to avoid highways. I would panic if I didn't have a car in front of me (it provided some kind of focal point). And I would really panic if there was car behind me, I felt like they knew that there was something wrong with me. I would usually pull over and let them pass me. The phobias started to manifest. I started to get the feeling that I could no longer control myself in public. That I would scream out during class or during a movie at the cinemas or open the car door when someone else was driving and jump out for no reason at all.
My phobia list was growing. Being in cars in general (I couldn't control what others were doing) deep water (the mass of it freaked me out), boats (I could jump off the side), planes (I could go crazy while we're in the air and open the door), heights (a force could pull me over). Elevators (it could plummet to the bottom). My boyfriend even got me Broadway tickets for my birthday and got front row on the balcony. I was in tears curled up in the fetal position because I was convinced that somehow I was going over the edge. Luckily they were nice enough to give us seats on the ground level. And so many other odd phobias that I don't even remember them all.
I stopped taking the anti-depressants, I hated not feeling anything. I felt no love, no hate, no excitement, just blah. Plus I was still having panic attacks. I would sit in the last class of the night, obsessively looking at the time & thinking about the drive home. All the different points of my journey and how long it took to get to each one, needless to say I did not give that class 100%. I started researching online about anxiety and methods of treating it since the medical world had let me down. If you suffer from panic attacks you get to the point where you are willing try anything. I just kept thinking about my future. I knew that I wanted to have children. How on earth was I going to be able to do that?! And have my baby in my car while I was driving?! The thought made me absolutely mad, it brought me to tears.
A year had passed and a woman at work recommended acupuncture. I was like sure, anything. It was nice, but the panic attacks were still happening. I felt that the treatments just helped out my extremely tense muscles. She gave me some herbs and some rescue remedy drops. I continued to cope with my driving, avoiding highways. I had to know my route in my head before I went. If someone tried to change it, I would get upset and overreact and get angry at them for being so insensitive. I found some DVD/CD set online. I figured "hey these testimonials sound good; these people seem really happy and panic free". I wanted panic attacks to be a thing of the past. So I ordered it. I think it was around $80. I would listen to it in my car. It was alright, it basically told you to stop having caffeine and sugar, exercise, and take time during the day to lie down and have breathing exercises. Also according to them, the listener (meaning me) also suffered from depression and insomnia. I just thought to myself, "the effort that I put into everyday stupid things, plus work, plus school I was exhausted by the end of the day. I passed OUT; there was never an issue of insomnia". I couldn't relate. Basically it was a CD promoting relaxation, oh and generating new phobias. I was fine with red lights. I use to actually welcome them because it kept me aware; it gave me an opportunity to relax. But one of the people on the CD talked about how anxious they got at red lights. Yup, add that to my phobia list. I believed that if I was the first or second car at a red light I was not going to be able to wait and will uncontrollably slam down on my accelerator through the red light. My foot got so tense it was unbearable. I told myself worst case scenario I could put my car into park; it never did get to that point. And don't even mention railroad crossings. So no highways and red lights were excruciating. I even drove myself to hospital's emergency room at one point because I just couldn't take it anymore.
Another year, I was learning as many back roads as possible, coping at red lights and coping with driving in general. There was no relief in sight. I continued with the acupuncture. She told me to stop working so much. In my head I was like, "yea right". Another year of people not getting what I was going through; thinking that I was completely mental or that I was just making it up. I always wished that I could give the person who did not understand what I was going through the physical symptoms for 30 seconds. Then they would back off and leave me be. I tried reiki, hypnosis, psychics, st. john's wort, and l-theanine. Still panic attacks were happening on the regular. I would have them while driving and others that were in the car had no idea. I was starting to finally convince myself that it was in my head. And let go of the fact that I didn't have cancer or an auto-immune disease. This was because I noticed that whenever I had a lot of stuff going in my life that wasn't related to my anxiety; I was driving fine. I was still taking back roads; but my general panic attack symptoms and the tenseness diminished. This was because I was thinking about other stuff.
I decided to take advantage of the psychology program at my school. Turns out that they had an anxiety clinic, and I had no idea. But of course there was a waiting list. A few weeks later I received a call that they had an opening in their program. And it was $20 a session and I would have to expose myself to my fears. I said fine, fine, whatever, I would pay $100 a session if it meant I would never have to deal with a panic attack again. I just remember being so envious of people who just hopped in their car and went here and there. They didn't have to think about it. They just did it. I just wanted that; something as simple as someone asking me if I could drive up to the store for coffee and I would say "sure" and jump in my car and go. But instead I started thinking about the route and knew that there was a left turn involved so I would be apprehensive. And they got the hint. It was embarrassing. I wanted to be the person who could drive to another state. And drive during a long road trip. I wanted so badly to travel; I was in this purgatory within myself. I started to convince myself that that was never going to be me.
The cure; so I met with the psychologist and a grad-student. I spent two sessions just dumping everything on them while crying, full of anger and fear. They determined that I was obsessive compulsive with a panic/anxiety disorder. I started working one on one with the grad-student. She wanted me to have the panic attack symptoms in the office. I told her that the foggy disoriented feeling almost felt like I was somersaulting. So we tried that in the office. Then it was time for my exposures. Which was to go into these panic trigger situations and have the panic attacks. And don't escape mentally but live in the moment. I told them that the fact that their office was on the fourth floor freaked me out. So they took me to the window. My heart was pounding out of my chest and I started to get cold sweats. It got better as time went on. I had to discuss how I was feeling, and how I rated my level of panic. We then went to the building across the way that had 19 floors with an elevator. I had to ride up and down it over and over and over again. I must have done it 15 to 20 times. I had to think about what I was doing. I had to be in the moment. She even took me to the window on the 19th floor I had to sit there until my rate of panic went down. Then it was the treadmill. Red lights; she made me do red lights. I thought to myself, "really? What have I ever done to you?" The larger the intersection was, the larger the panic was. I always avoided being the first car because I was capable of killing somebody (in my mind). I did it, over and over. It was excruciating. I cursed and cried. I called her every name in the book. The panic began to go down, but not completely. So my homework was to do these exposures. I brought my boyfriend who was my safe person. I thought if I did something out of the norm, that he would save us. It got better though; my foot started to relax a little bit more. Highways; was not as painful as I thought. I stayed in the right lane at first so that I could easily escape. Then I moved into the middle. It took a while to get in the left (fast lane). But it didn't matter. I hadn't been on a highway in 6 months. I was unstoppable! I could do anything now and get there faster too!
2008, unfortunately was not my year. My sister was going through tough stuff that tore my family apart and estranged me from her for a while. That was on my mind. Then my relationship between my safe person (my boyfriend) was in trouble. I began to regress. I stopped doing my exposures. I had ended my treatments with the anxiety clinic because I had completed the program earlier in the year. We broke up and I moved out, after 6 and half years of being together. I was never on my own in my adulthood. I was scared. I stopped driving on highways all together. But luckily other things were easier than prior to my treatment. I gained a bunch of weight and was miserable. 2009; brought more light in my life. After four months apart my boyfriend came to get me back and we became engaged a few months later. I began graduate school. And I started back up on driving on highways again; with the same behavior methods that I learned during my treatment with the anxiety clinic. I even bought a brand new car.
Unfortunately a close friend of ours was killed in a motorcycle accident early that summer. He was suppose to be in our wedding party and was suppose to be a part of our journey through life. We were devastated; I remember so many conversations with him. I even discussed my panic attacks with him. I regressed. I kept replaying his accident in my head over and over again; it terrified me. Life was so delicate. I tried doing his sister a favor and drive her somewhere (I had to take a highway). Of course I had to do it. I suffered and coped the whole way, it was as if I never went through treatment. The following year was my graduation and our wedding. And I reconciled fully with my sister. My grandmother called it 'my year'. My driving was still limited to local roads, no highways. Around mid-fall of 2010, something clicked. I hated my husband's driving. He was always glancing at everything and changed lanes too frequently. I love him, but I would consider him a reckless driver. We had to drive a county over which was about 40 miles away. I convinced myself that whatever issues that were going on in my head could not be as bad as enduring being a passenger while he drove. I knew that if he was always doing the driving, we would be getting divorced. So after a heated argument; I told him that I will do all the driving for now on. And I meant it.
I began highways again. I was feeling good. And then something remarkable happened. I went out one night with a couple of friends. I normally wouldn't have gone out because I'm not a night owl. But my one friend was going away for a while for work. I volunteered to drive. It was going good. Until I was at a traffic light (the first car) and I was rear ended by a pathfinder going about 50mph. My car went across the intersection. My year old car was totaled. And luckily everyone was okay.
My husband and my sister's reaction was, "oh boy, she's never going to drive again". You would think that, right? But that never even crossed my mind. I was a driver now. I got a rental for a week and eventually decided to purchase a used jeep. And I kept driving. I still drove highways. Nights were a little hazy, but got better.
That following spring, I did my first drive EVER off the island. I drove twice that summer two states away to visit my grandmother. And that following fall I took a road trip with my mother and sister 600 miles away. There were parts of the journey when I got a little tense. But some of it you'll never be able to get rid of. We are naturally nervous people who get uncomfortable driving next to tractor trailers in the mountains; nothing abnormal about it. I even did a trip by myself into the city a month ago. All these things are such a big deal, because I thought that I would NEVER be able to do them. I feel like I've gained so much. And I'm grateful everyday that I didn't let panic attacks control my life. I haven't had a panic attack in probably two years. I believe that anyone is capable of getting their life back. I'm living proof.
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