SHE: The Diagnosis

As this doctor, that had been at the right place at the right time for her, smiled reassuringly, he repeated the words, "I am pretty sure you are experiencing what is known as 'Panic Attic's, or Anxiety". 

Quickly her brain went to work. 

Sure, she had been under a lot of pressure recently, yes, there had been a lot of very hard, heavy loads placed on her heart and shoulders, but she was doing ok now...she thought. 

So clutching a note to the pharmacist, prescribing a well known anti depressant, off she went with strict orders, to make an appointment with her regular physician as soon as possible. 

That would be no problem, if, she had such a person. 

On the second night of the perscription, it was blaringly obvious to her that this prescription was not for her. 

A call had been made to a neighboring town, and a family member's doctor was well on the way to becoming her own.

Wanting to be as actively involved as possible in understanding, and solving, what was happening in her life at this point, her self study, and study of self, began.

First of all she went to her journals. As she read through her perspectives of the past year, she began to notice a tightness in her chest as she progressed. Grabbing a notebook, and taking many, many, deep breath's she began to write down health related musings.

It started by noticing a stiff neck, followed by a toothache, that she had written about being able to 'move' to a different place when concentrating. This soon gave way to a painful earache, and trip to the last doctor she had been to. Next was noticed a tendency to hold her breath. Noticed only because of the necessity of sudden intakes of deep, lung filling breaths. There was also mention of numbness in her shoulders and hands, that she had associated with her daily employment. 

She was amazed at the growing list of 'ailments'. Both major and seemingly minor.

Once she felt that list was complete, she went back over the same journals, with a new list being made of, 'stressors', it's length overwhelmed her. 

The next step she felt she needed to take was to see how closely these things correlated with each other. Little surprise that they walked hand in hand across the pages of her journals, as well as traveling parallel through her days and nights across the mountains of her recent life's journey. 

And finally, she contacted a trusted family member to learn of the family's medical history. 

When the designated time to meet with this doctor arrived, she not only had her 'life findings' clutched in her hot little hand, she also had a list of questions that 'Dr. Google' and 'Nurse Wikipedia' had helped her accumulate.

When the doctor sat down and began the conversation with, "What seems to be the problem...", from out of nowhere her eye's filled with tears, her throat locked up with a thinly veiled sob, her arm shot forward with a jab of a shaky hand, clutching a crumpled piece of paper mere inches from his chest. He spoke not a word, but gently retrieved said paper. 

Turning it every which way the wording had spilled onto the paper. Lifting his eye's periodically to look over the papers edge at her, only to return silently to his intense deciphering of her findings. With surprisingly only one statement/question  he uttered quietly during this time, "Interesting choice of words, 'Broke my heart and hurt my spirit'?", glancing up again, "Yes, I can see that."

Eventually the paper was folded neatly back into its stress worn folds and gently handed back to her. 

Handing her also a handful of tissues, he glanced overly long at his folder, giving her time to whip her unraveling emotions back into shape. 

"You have carried so much, for so long." he paused, "it's going to be ok. You. Are going to be ok. I can help you. And together, we, will get you over this hump." 

Along with those words, a new, limited time, prescription, and a shortlist of helps, a stronger determination to learn as much as possible, she headed back out, into the 'sun'...

She: introducing Panic Attack's

Seclusion. 

Her'Safe place'.

That's what she was craving. Needing it as surely as the air that was desperatly trying to fill her lungs. 

To high.

The air was to high. 

It wasn't reaching her lungs. It felt like it was getting stuck in that space, high in her chest, yet barley below her throat. Causing the pressure to intensify around her heart.

Which was only encouraging the panic attack to escalate, thus multiplying the lack of breathing ability while enducing a more rapid and severe sense of hysteria.

Focusing every fiber of her being on the tip of her nose,she drug in the cool air, as if it carried the fragrance of a thousand flowers on a tropical breeze, feeling its passing dance, delicately skim across the tip of her nose and tantalizing the place just barely beyond. 

The next breath carried the coolness a little bit farther. This time reaching the back of her throat. Each breath carried the coolness a little bit closer to her lungs. The panic, unnoticed now, ebbed into nothingness with each controlled and monitored breath.

She remembered all to well, that early morning, when panic attacks were introduced into her world...

It was around three a.m. when she was awakened by something. Laying quietly, not daring to move as she noticed the building pressure dead center on her chest, her sternum feeling as though it were pinned under a trick elephants balancing foot. The crushing compressions heaviness seemed to squeeze through to gain a tight hold on the spine directly behind.

As time passed the growing pressure compelled her to whisper a barely audible, 'I think I'm having a heart attack. Aren't I too young for this?'. After about an hour of every heart attack symptom being experienced, everything began to dissipate, as unbeknownest, peace was restored through the gentle swaying that rocked her as tenderly as a mother sooths a new born babe.

Over the next  few weeks speradic attacks brought less extreme symptoms. Tests were preformed, results seemed elusive.

Then one seemingly ordinary day was ripped apart by an attack, that carried with it a new experience. 

'Flight', was introduced, in a crowded room. 

The unexplained demand to "get out, get to your safe place, NOW!", kicked in. She felt that if people did not clear a way, or move faster, she would soon start picking them up and physically moving them out of her way, just as you might move mugs on a counter top. Once the building was cleared, she wrenched open the escape hatch to her car and was soon encapsulated in its safe confines. Leaving there she made the decision to go straight to her Doctor's office. No matter, she had no appointment. No matter, as she drove the irrational feelings that had enveloped her were subsiding. 

As she spoke with the receptionist at the front desk, a Doctor was just passing, noticing how distraught she appeared, he asked her a few questions. The answers seemed to be the key to opening up an impromptu visit. 

It was during the visit, with this physician, who was not her regular MD, that a diagnosis theory was vocalized.

Panic Attac's that had recently been active in her life, we're now not only her's, they were also named.

She decided then and there, to educate and aquaint herself with these intense attacks of anxiety...

Thoughts

The morning sun was sliding slowly over the mountain's ridge, dispersing the mist of the early morning with it's light golden glow.Yet again today, the sun was bringing no solace with its rising.

The sky looked like it was going to graduate into the same beautiful blue that only comes in the Spring.

It is the color of sky that tricks her mind into thinking that it is as warm outside as it looks.

She knows that this is the season's grand illusion, and prepares herself against it's trickery.


After the house is empty for the morning, she knows full well there is work enough to be done, but she just can't concentrate on that. Her mind is racing on hummingbird wings, from thought to thought and back again before darting off in a different direction then darting to a new territory before coming back again, completing the constant internal loop of her frenzied thought patterns of late.

Leaving the house and its work, along with the suffocating confinement behind, she drives to the new walking trail by the small lake that she likes on day's like this. The day's that she can't run from her inner dialog, when it takes on that accusing giant's relentless finger poking in her face, reminding her of all she "should have done", "could have done", "didn't do", and "will never be good enough for's". Followed closely on the heels by those dreaded 'what if's', 'Why me's', and 'What do I do's'...

Quickly reaching 'her spot' she pulls the car into the first yet farthest parking stall, shuts it off and just sits and listens to the silence that fills it's warm interior.

There go the thoughts crashing in on the momentary peace.

Grabbing up her gear she goes into a whirl of activity that ends with the door opening like some sort of escape hatch.

Noticing as she steps from the car that there are not many people out as early as she. Her mind jumps on this and starts in on, 'I should have called one of my friends to come with me..' squelching that thought quickly by turning on her Walkman and placing the earmuff's over them, slipping her hands into her gloves as she tops the rough railroad tie steps to the walkway. Her breath is sucked from her lungs by the wind rocketing across the the ice covered water hitting her full force, rocking her frame as it envelopes her.

Tears spring to her eye's and she is not exactly sure if they are here because of the freeze drying winds touch, or if it is the tears she knew where to close to the surface the past few day's. It didn't really matter to her which they were, she wiped them hurriedly on the back of her glove then leaned into the gale with stubborn determination.

Rounding the bend where the tree's provided a natural block to the wind's viciousness, she gratefully dropped onto the protected bench that someone was wise enough to place at this particular juncture.

Shutting off the Walkman, she leans her head against the severely scratched plexyglass wall's, where she lets her thoughts and her tears run as loose as the winds dancing across the ponds icy surface.

This felt like it was a safe place to do that.

'That's enough', she thought, swallowing a few big gulps of the icy air helped fill her head with a good amount of what she thought of as common sense.
"If you don't rein it in now, its gonna be harder to control than a runaway horse on an endless straight away!", she firmly said out loud to herself.

She knew the thoughts and concerns were to big for her to carry alone, but she didn't know what to do with them either!
She didn't want to give them to anyone else and add to their load...

Then a new thought slipped almost unnoticed into her ear, just as though someone had leaned near and whispered, 'Box them up and give them to me.'
"How?" She demanded aloud.
'Just look a the thought that is standing at the front of your mind, tapping its toe in agitated impatience as we speak. What sort of box would be able to contain that?'

She made a conscious effort to look at the haggard image of thought that was there.
She knew it well, it was one of her oldest accusing thoughts, ruthless in it's implicating attacks.

She was surprised that she could picture it in a form...

Surprised also at the calmness accompanying the viewing of it.

She stood, then quickly and quietly retraced her steps, the whole while looking at that thought image as though it were a rock she had picked up along the the early morning trek.

As she drove back home, she didn't notice the calmness that had enveloped her, nor did she notice that the other thoughts on that self deprecating loop had all stopped, and were now standing hushed, watching with their thought jaws gaping.

Home. She hurried to put her things away, making a hot cuppa, gathering pencils and paper, then sat at the sunlit table and began a process.

A process that she never knew before, but would become good friends with...


Inspired in part by Taming Your Gremlin