#mentalhealth

I almost don’t know how to start this. Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting millions of adults every year.

I am one of those people who suffer. When I’m in panic, it’s almost as if a doppelgänger took over my body. So many people do not understand what happens and that the person has no control over how they feel. Stress and cortisol flood the body.

Last night I had a panic attack. I actually had several in the past week, and 4 or 5 just yesterday alone. What made my last two particularly long and painful is that other people were home and weren’t reacting compassionately. They live with me and don’t quite understand what I go through, how painful it is, and how little to no control I have over how I feel or can possibly react. I can empathize and understand that it can be scary to someone else—really I can. I don’t want to be in full-blown panic either, believe me—way more so than the people around me don’t want to see it.

A key driver is understanding. Panic disorder with panic attacks is not something that can be helped in the moment or have a lid put on it. What makes it all so much worse is when those around you judge you and believe mental health issues are something that can simply be controlled. I’m writing this because if my own household doesn’t quite understand what this is about, how can anyone else? I need to do my part in spreading awareness.

I didn’t know much about true anxiety either. Why should I? We throw the word around a lot. Many of us live with low-level anxiety constantly. As a society, we are mostly all anxious. Anxiety and panic disorder are a little different. Nervousness and anxiety can both cause similar symptoms, but normal nervousness—like before a big presentation or applying for a job—is tied to a real situation and passes. Panic disorder is not like that.

I’ve read a lot about anxiety in the past two years since I’ve been diagnosed. Stress is prevalent in our culture. A large part is due to technology and the constant bombardment of information. Also, the ability for others to reach into our lives at any moment—through social media, texting, email—creates a constant sense of urgency. When I was younger and we had a house phone attached to a wall, leaving work meant the day was done. No one was creating new demands through texts and emails late into the evening.

Now, something as simple as a phone notification at 9pm can cause our heart rate to increase and create a false sense of urgency. Whether it’s from a loved one or your boss, the body reacts as if something is wrong. For most people, that feeling fades quickly. For those of us with an anxiety disorder, it doesn’t go away—it escalates.

A panic attack can feel like your body suddenly believes it is in danger, even when nothing is actually happening. Your heart races, your breathing changes, your chest feels tight, and your body prepares to fight or run. Rational thinking goes offline. It is not the time to reason through it or try to explain it away.

With panic disorder, the body goes into full fight-or-flight mode without a real, present threat. It differs for everyone, but for me, I am often triggered by something external that was threatening in the past. Many times I cannot initially identify the trigger. It is almost impossible to do so when the brain is flooded and executive functioning shuts down.

I want to feel normal and not panic more than anything. Riding it out, medicine, and therapy are helpful, but it took years for my body to become this dysregulated. It likely will not go away overnight.

I can tell you what makes it worse for me:

Being with someone during a panic attack who doesn’t understand and becomes annoyed or frustrated. I can’t be helped in that moment. Someone in my face trying to rationalize it feels condescending. Being ignored feels humiliating and similar to abandonment. I’m already overwhelmed—those reactions only intensify it.

Another difficult experience is trying to hide it so as not to scare others. That creates another layer of pressure. I’ve had panic attacks on airplanes, in restaurants, at work, while driving, while getting ready for bed, and even when waking up. When people pretend nothing is happening, it makes me feel like something is wrong with me—like I need to be hidden.

And then there is the shame. The feeling that you need to hide such a significant part of your experience from others. Our society does not always respond kindly to mental health struggles. Before experiencing this myself, I also believed it was something that could be controlled. Last summer I spent a full month in an Intensive Outpatient Program, but I was afraid to tell people why I was on leave. If I felt that way, I’m sure others do too.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. If you don’t struggle with mental health (and that’s wonderful), it’s very likely you know someone who does—you just may not realize it. Let’s do our part to bring awareness and approach one another with compassion instead of judgment.

We are all human. Let’s treat one another as such.

Peace.

Anxiety and Depression Association of America https://adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics#
We Need to Talk. Our Society Has an Issue With Anxiety and Mental Health. https://futurism.com/we-need-to-talk-our-society-has-an-issue-with-anxiety-and-mental-health/amp/
How to Handle Someone Else’s Anxiety or Panic Attacks https://medium.com/@gtinari/how-to-handle-someone-elses-anxiety-or-panic-attacks-51ee63f5c23b
How to Help Someone Having a Panic Attack https://m.wikihow.com/Help-Someone-Having-a-Panic-Attack
Mental Health America http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/may

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/doppelganger/

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The familiar heart pounding experience sets in. My whole body tenses. I have a slight shake, and I feel like I’m rocking back and forth in the upper part of my body. My temples tense and kind of pulsate. Fear grips me. A slight bit of heat overcomes me. My body is in full on fight or flight mode. One would think I see a tiger that is about to eat me and I need to make a quick life saving decision. But the truth of the matter is all that I’m doing is checking my work email right now.

I feel like I’m doing too many things. In general. I feel stressed. Like all the time. Today is Wednesday, April 20th. I just came back from a most awesome yet very demanding week of visiting colleges with my husband and daughter. I was pretty relaxed all week. It is an unusual feeling for me. The noise in my head was shut down a few times. Totally quiet. Usually there is a myriad of several demanding things competing for my attention. And even on the rare occasions when there isn’t such as when I’m driving, getting ready to go to bed or uncommonly watching TV, there is still a background static of things I should be doing, forgot about, am worried about, want to look up… the list goes on.

This week it was mostly quiet in my head. It felt great. Maybe what normal non-stressed, anxiety ridden people feel like. Perhaps I’m changing I foolishly think to myself. That thought was shattered yesterday when my flight was delayed in Dallas. It was just me and Gabby coming home with many things to do as soon as we got home. First the connection was tight. I started to tense up when I realized this only after the plane landed and I looked down at the next boarding pass. I mentally started to plot the route out of the deplaning process to the next gate. I watch with increasing frustration as people move out ever so slowly, stopping as they are pulling down their overhead luggage and talking to another passenger as if they cannot do two things at once, and suddenly this very trivial conversation about the weather is more important. People with wheelchairs and strollers seem to just jump in our way, getting in as if they have all the time in the world. Stopping to laugh and admire the child who is running off and not getting in the stroller while blocking a plane full of people behind them. Gabby and I finally make it into the terminal only to realize we are in terminal A and need to be in terminal C. We are both starving. We stop at Starbucks knowing we will be a few minutes late to the start of boarding time, but agree it’s more important to grab food since we didn’t have time for breakfast and it was almost noon. Starbucks is painstakingly slow too. The girl making my smoothie is moving at a molasses pace and keeps stopping to flirt with an American Airlines employee who is leaning over the counter to talk to her. She doesn’t even look at me when she hands me the drink and says “have a nice day.” My blood starts completely racing. We book it out of there and rush to the gate only to see there is a 10-minute delay. My mind starts mentally calculating what a 10-minute delay will do when we get home. I find that we can still be 45 minutes late and will have plenty of time to pick up the dog from where he is being boarded. Gabby and I find a seat quite far from the gate and take a moment to breathe. I return a phone call to the dentist, write a thank you to the friends we just stayed with, and write a restaurant review. Fifteen minutes pass. Then twenty. Radio silence from the airline. Only 10 minutes more. Then 10 more. Then it’s unknown. The stress really sets in. I call Koji’s boarding place to add another night. I go through all my work email. I start to mentally plot how to best carry in the bags, go through the mail, scrape cat litter, get the laundry rolling, and shower before work tomorrow. I have a grocery delivery coming that will likely also get delayed if this plane doesn’t take off soon. My mind is racing. I can’t read or meditate or do any of the things that one would do to chill. Suddenly I get the idea to calculate whether or not I want to “waste” another vacation day tomorrow. As I weigh the options, I notice my muscles and jaw relax at the thought. I text my boss and start to unwind just a bit. I will be ok. I’m still stressed but at a lower level. Gabby is stressed and has all her homework pulled out in the terminal and is balancing it on her legs. She later tells me she was on the verge of tears. My real life starts to set back into my thoughts. The quiet is gone. I’m back to my normal stressed baseline.

Life, right? Most people have similar experiences or far worse. First world problems. They are so silly in comparison to disease and starvation. I struggle to realize this. Telling myself this doesn’t quiet the noise in my head. My husband and I are both outside of the home for work at least 11+ hours per day. We have 4 kids between the two of us. One is at college now and is a huge help when home. Another drives, which made life so much easier. The 3 living at home are in 3 different schools. Two of the schools are 30 minutes away in opposite directions from each other and without transportation services for the two younger kids that don’t drive. One of the kids is in hockey at least 4 days a week, and anyone familiar with the sport knows it’s actually a lifestyle. The other two play sports and one still needs rides quite often. We have 3 cats, a dog, and 3 fish. We have ex-spouses with complicated schedules and arguments over legal issues. My husband’s ex travels quite often and doesn’t communicate well. She lives ½ hour away and the kids often forget things they absolutely need in either house. My ex recently moved over an hour away out of state and insists my 16-year-old daughter drive herself up there every other weekend as if he still lived down the road. It makes me nervous for her to drive so far and on highways with a new license. She stresses about her homework and not being able to see friends when she goes up there. Weekends are filled with trips to these schools, sports, and friends all in towns quite far from our home; prepping food, taking care of the lawn and garden, trying to squeeze in some personal exercise, getting the dog out of the house to burn out some of his high energy, maintaining the home and fixing whatever needs fixing. If we use a weekend to get away or visit the older one in college, we need to squeeze this other stuff in elsewhere during the week between concerts, sports practice, dinner meetings, after-work medical, dental, and veterinary appointments. Not to mention during the week there is getting dinner on the table, laundry, homework, lunch prepping, mail, phone messages, some crisis to avert or bill to straighten out or package to pack up and squeeze in sending out or returning. Every new thing elevates my stress just a little more. I mostly capitalize on it to plot the next course of action in the most effective, streamlined way possible. Work is the same. As new emails pop in, calendar items are added, thoughts to explore from my well-meaning co-workers and superiors are piled on; my heart pounds, I tense, and I breathe erratically. I try to avoid people in the halls or in my suite who want to chat or connect over something mutual because I don’t have the time. I’m thinking 20 steps ahead at how I’m going to accomplish it all, and stopping to smell the roses and have human interaction wasn’t part of the plan. I feel like I must look like a walking lunatic; however, I’m always surprised to hear that people think I’m friendly and outgoing, seem to have all the time in the world, and pull it all together so seamlessly.

I am so ingrained in this system that when I have a few minutes to read at night before bed or a moment to catch my breath and enjoy an afternoon out on the weekend or time with friends, I feel like I must be crazy to think I have a hectic life because look—I have time now and I’m not stressed. All in all, that is probably like 5% of my life. It’s so enjoyable that it keeps me going the other crazy 95%. Ninety-five percent of the time I’m in fight or flight mode.

Thanks to my decision to take today off to unwind and catch up, this morning I woke up softly and did not have to rush. I felt relaxed and well rested. I had coffee, checked Facebook, and responded to my texts with time, attention, and enjoyment. When I left to pick up the dog, I had the most lovely 9-minute ride. I felt the sun on my skin, the air coming through the window. I looked at the trees and bushes. I heard other people’s music. I was SO in the moment. I was not rushed, sort of like the people getting off the plane yesterday. While I waited for the dog and saw people dropping off their pets for daycare in a rush and in tights, heels, and neck-hugging ties, all stressed out that it was taking so long, I felt thankful that wasn’t me today. Koji and I drove home in peace. We had nowhere to be. He oscillated between having his head out the window and coming over to me to give doggie love. We got home. I fed him and enjoyed watching him enjoying being home. We went upstairs to keep the laundry moving. He sat at my feet while I folded the big, messy, unruly pile into nice, neat, beautifully folded laundry. My bedroom windows were open. The sun was shining in. I folded the laundry with love. Looking at my clothes, the stitching, the lace… I never noticed these things before. My husband’s shirt he wore on Friday, his running clothes. I thought about him in them and how much I love him. When I went to put the towels away in the bathroom, I noticed the pictures on the wall. I hardly see them. I remember the day Daren and I bought them in Marshalls a few years ago. They are pictures of tranquil beach scenes from a porch front. They match the blue and white walls and trim. My bathroom looked picturesque itself this morning with the sun shining in the windows. The plants on the window sills were sitting there alongside the candles. I hardly ever notice them. We rush to water them every week as we cross off a chore on the list. We don’t light those candles, but gosh, they are pretty. We don’t have time. I want that time. I put away the laundry and feel inspired to write about this. I feel good, calm, peaceful, happy.

I walk downstairs and pull out my computer. I look at my to-do list I made for today. I took the day off to catch up, so there is quite a bit to do. The list starts to make my heart pound. I pull up my work email to put on my out-of-office and decide to go through all the new emails that arrived since the airport yesterday since it will make my job of going back to work easier tomorrow. I look at my calendar too for tomorrow. I have back-to-back meetings ALL day except for 2 hours. There were things to prep for that I should be doing. There is an email string with some friends of mine from work about a happy hour that keeps interrupting me in a good way, but an interruption nonetheless. I start to stress. And then I stop. I stop and start writing. It’s what my heart wants to do.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Please feel free to leave a comment or subscribe for future updates.

On Understanding Panic Disorder

My struggle with stress