THE CRACK

Began when I was 28 years old.

I was sitting at my desk at work.

I liken it now to a snag in a sweater that once it starts it just keeps pulling until it comes undone and looks ruined. I would feel ruined, pulled apart, completely undone by what was about to happen to me.

I didn’t understand, one minute I was sitting in my comfortable chair at work and had simply closed my desk drawer. I felt as if the walls were closing in on me. My mind did not feel like mine anymore and my body felt detached.

The day had started off just like any other day. I worked as a legislative assistant for one of our state’s senators. Of course, I had stress because I wanted to have a baby. I wanted a lot of things that any 28 years old wants to have, but what I did not understand why this was happening to me.

This was in 1990. There was no Twitter or Instagram or support systems out there to help you not feel so alone.

But I did feel alone and I felt like I was dying. I remember running out of my office for air. I was breathless. I know I had a panicked look on my face as people who had worked with me for years recognized that the smile I normally had was gone. In its place was a pale, panic-stricken lost person. My heart was racing. I began to feel numbness as not enough oxygen was reaching my limbs because I was hyperventilating.

That day I asked to leave and I left the capitol building not knowing what was going to happen to me.

Thus began my search for who to turn to for help. Should I hide it? Pretend I was okay? I would keep breaking down until my husband took me to our family doctor who referred me to crisis intervention. Because I could not honestly tell them that I would not hurt myself, I was referred to a partial hospital program and put under my husband’s constant supervision. I remember clinging to his work shirt and just crying like a child and telling him “please don’t let them take me away from you.” He helped to save my life.

I felt like I was going to lose the ever elusive “it”. That being my mind. My mind felt foreign to me. I would find myself grabbing for “it” through a partial day program for people suffering from psychiatric disorders. I was diagnosed with panic disorder and depression. I would be told it was one of the worse cases that my psychiatrist had ever seen. Dr. Richard Fonte helped me with finding the right medicine and therapy to starting living and coping.

What no one could teach me was how to not feel ashamed of what was happening. That was a lesson that would take years to learn.

I remember attending my daily program. I could no longer eat for fear of vomiting. Every time I would try to eat another crushing panic attack would overtake me. I was disappearing. I was afraid and I felt lost.

My friends and family did not understand but they loved me. My mother called me and cried because she thought she did something wrong. The doctors would later tell me that my stomach problems as a child probably stemmed from anxiety. My generation just did not see the signs or clues of an anxious child who was overly sensitive. You mix that with a few other external traumatic events and you have the perfect storm for what happened.

It was time to clean up and to face my truths. I found a wonderful therapist named Ann. We stayed together for years. It took her and I so long to pry my masks off and for me to find my center. I was well into my 30’s by the time I felt centered again. We touched on every taboo topic, every sacred place inside me. Places I didn’t even know existed. She was patient, tough, and she worked with me and I dare say knew me better than I knew myself at times.

Why am I writing this now? Because I feel like someone needs to hear this. That what I appear to be in my present is not always how I started out in life. That my scars don’t show on the outside but I carry them with me every day and I am proud that I made it through and I want to help others to see that there is another side. I lived through crippling panic attacks that would cause me to avoid life. I feared going outside and eating in restaurants. I did not want to eat in front of people for fear of getting sick. I followed rituals that I believed would stop the panic attacks from happening.

It was only when I found the courage to confront my fears and to actually do them that I found that the worst thing that I feared would happen did not happen. That I did not die. That I did not embarrass myself in front of others. That I made it to the exit. That I did not jump off the ledge because I was close to it. I have been to hell and back.

It is not always perfect, I have my setbacks but those formative years in therapy I learned a lot of coping skills. I learned to move through the panic and it is hard. I learned to relax my body and I have gained too much weight. I love to eat in restaurants, I travel, I laugh, and I walk on the ledge because I know that I can stop myself from going over.

Please reach out to someone. If you are suffering from anxiety, panic attacks, depression, suicidal thoughts or feel as if your life just too much, please reach out to a medical professional; or go to the emergency room; call a crisis hotline, friend, pastor, rabbi, or mentor.

Just please don’t leave.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Call 1–800–273–8255

Available 24 hours everyday