Gratitude: January 25, 2016

I am in the middle of a panic attack.

I woke up this morning with the uneasy feeling that something wasn’t right. So, I ran through the docket of questions:

• What physical symptoms are present?
• What is different from the last few days from your normal routine?
• What is the weather like outside?
• What is on the docket for work today?
• How is your mood otherwise?

To which, respectively, the answers were:

• I feel very fatigued and jittery
• I ate like crap and got a foreign device inserted into my body (IUD) within the last 72 hours
• There’s a change in the barometric pressure due to an incoming wave of snow and cold air.
• Nothing out of the ordinary.
• I am feeling a little blue and missing someone special.

And yet, even with such logic applied and any possible serious, life-threatening conditions debunked, I still — hours later — am sitting here, feeling glued to my chair, looking like a deer in the headlights, just wanting to go home and cry my eyes out.

I realize that PA’s are merely the body’s response to a fight-or-flight situation. It’s a biological instinct; all animals have it. However, with PA’s, you get them for no reason. It’s a misfiring of brain chemicals and neurons. So I’m riled up, feeling like I’m about to throw down Bowser in the third encounter of Super Mario 64:

And sometimes, all you can do is take some steps to on-site acute self-care:

• Drinking cold water.(I like a splash of Tang water drops in mine!)
• Breathing deeply and steadily.
• Reading something quietly, when the workload changes to allow more flexibility (I don’t say the “s” word; it rhymes with “mow” and if you say it on the unit, the OPPOSITE happens).
• Reassuring myself that it will pass.
• Talking to people to distract myself.
• And, if nothing seems to work, I have a, “bottom line, out of options, now what?” med I can take. Downside is, it snows you out and makes you feel like the walking dead.

I can’t begin to tell you how real these are. I could spend a whole post trying to tell you that they took a huge chunk of my life away from me when they started in 2011. But, that was five (!) years ago, and I am in a much better place. I have gone from 3–4 daily to 1–2 a week.

I have a long ways to go until I’m panic-free, but it will get better.

And even just now, typing this out … it has made it a lot, lot easier. So, if you have them, I’d suggest writing to take your mind off of things. You’d be surprised how easy it is to get lost on screen or in a notebook. :)