I Forgot How to Breathe at Age 20
It was about as fun as it sounds.
Notice me.
It was the summer of 2018. I was doing well in school. I finally made good friends. And I had an internship for a great company — life was really going well for me.
My internship was in Chicago, IL, a wonderful place for a young adult to spend a summer. It was the first day of training. I nervously sat at the back table and watched college friends reunite and gossip about their early summer travels. I went to school in California so I was the odd-one-out in an internship class full of Big 10 students. I expected this, whatever. We were each handed a laptop and immediately the room went quiet as we ignored the instructor, desperately trying to figure out how to use our emails and find our client schedules.
I saw my schedule and noticed my client was in Ohio. Unexpected. My sister actually just moved to Ohio and I’ll get some frequent flyer points. There have definitely been worse problems. I was excited.
I was so caught up in the excitement over my new project I barely realized my throat felt like it was totally closed.
You noticed.
After work, I walked home to the West Loop on a perfect Chicago summer night to meet my girlfriend for some Greek food and some ice cream. The night was wonderful. On the walk home from the ice cream shop, I turned to my girlfriend, “I think I’m allergic to something.”
“What? Did you eat something new today?”
“No. I ate a veggie wrap for lunch, and then our favorite Greek place and ice cream.”
“Then why do you think you’re allergic to something?” Her confusion was warranted.
“My throat has been closed all day. I just realized this. I can barely breathe right now.”
“Uh, are you ok? Do we need to go somewhere?”
“No, no. I mean, I’m talking. Aren’t I?” We quickly walked back to my apartment. I awkwardly used my iPhone flashlight to look at my throat in the mirror. Hm, looks fine to me. Oh, well.
Try NOT to notice me.
I went to bed assuming life would resume problem-free the next morning. Surprisingly, it did not. My throat still felt like it was clogged? Or shut? Is that the same, medically — having a clogged throat or a closed throat? Either way, I felt like there was no air coming in or out of there, which seemed important. But I was breathing, so I guess was fine, right?
My throat persisted to fade in and out of feeling like someone was strangling me. I, like any other child of the 21st century, googled my symptoms endlessly. Soon enough, I convinced myself I had every type of throat cancer. Well — too bad, I guess. I didn’t have time for treatment. I had an intense internship where I was traveling every week to Ohio with a team who counted on me. (Yes, this is funny to me now too. They weren’t really counting on an intern, c’mon.)
Well, one trip came and my senior and I were working late. My manager walked into the hotel conference room we were using to tell us it was well past dinner time and we needed to eat. Fair enough. We walked across to our new found favorite Italian spot for a quick meal. My throat felt so closed I went the bathroom at dinner because I thought I was going to collapse in front of the entire restaurant and I was not going to have that happen.
I locked the bathroom door and again, like the medical professional I am, used the iPhone flashlight to check if I could see something in my throat. I’m not sure what I was looking for, but I knew I’d figure it out once I found it. Well, it looked fine, again. Back to the table I went, struggling to breathe. This time was different. I was sweating. My eye even started twitching.
I hurried through dinner and my team and I walked back to the hotel. We said our goodnights and I waited for them to go into their rooms before calling an Uber to pick me up from the hotel. I needed to go to the hospital.
You’re fine.
It was almost 11pm on a Wednesday. I had a busy Thursday full of challenging client meetings and work to prepare. But, I was in a hospital patiently waiting to be seen.
The doctor walks in, finally.
“What’s wrong?”
“Uh,” I nervously chuckle, “my throat feels like its totally closed. I can’t breathe. I’m sweating and I’ve worked myself up so much that I feel like I might collapse.”
“Hm, ok. Let me take a look.” The young doctor says as she takes her fancy doctor tool and looks down my throat. Definitely better than an iPhone flashlight and a mirror. “It, uh, looks totally fine. A little red, but I can give you some benzocaine to try and alleviate some irritation.” Sure, you know best.
I picked up the medicine from a 24 hour pharmacy, excited and hopeful to feel any sort of relief. Apparently, benzocaine is a numbing agent. And apparently, that was a terrible idea. A numb-closed throat is WAY worse than a closed throat.
I didn’t sleep that night. Nor did I tell my team I spent my night in a hospital. I didn’t want them to think I couldn’t handle this work when I was excelling.
It’s time to figure this out.
This lasted for a few months. It became part of my life. Work all day, try to breathe, and go to bed. Repeat.
Eventually my internship ended and I had about 10 days before I had to go back to California for my senior year.
I made the wise decision to go to an ENT and get an expert opinion on this. I told him the whole story. He looked confused too. He decided to put a scope up my nose and down my throat to get a better look. If you’ve ever had this done to you, I’m so sorry. It’s terrible. Add a tube and a flashlight to an already “closed” throat and trust me, it is worse.
The doctor had me do all sorts of weird commands. Sing this note. Say this word. I desperately tried to follow the instructions. A lot of time no sound came out at all and tears ran down my cheeks.
“Ok,” he said as he gently removed his torture device from my nostrils. At least that is over. “You have paradoxical vocal fold motion”.
Was that — was that just a diagnosis? Is this about to be over?
He prescribed me a few months of therapy and check ups every month to make sure nothing was getting worse, because he noticed a few polyps on my vocal cords as well. A fun bonus, if you will.
Well, I had 6 days until I was moving 2400 miles away, so wasn’t the most convenient answer. I still didn’t even know what paradoxical vocal fold motion even meant.
Mind and body link.
A few weeks later, I ended up going to a laryngologist (larynx specialist, yeah, I didn’t know that was a thing either) at a hospital near my school in California. I endured the scope procedure, yet again. This time it was much longer, and just as uncomfortable.
Eventually, which seemed like a lifetime, she removed the scope and explained what was going on. “When you breathe in — instead of your vocal folds opening, they are closing. This makes it feel like you can’t breathe. And, for your case, this is likely triggering a panic attack which snowballs.” (She admitted it was unclear which was coming first, the panic attacks or my throat closing, but I was just relieved someone seemed to know why I suddenly couldn’t breathe as a young adult.)
Wow, why couldn’t she have worked in a hospital in Ohio a few months ago? According to the University of Pittsburgh Department of Otolaryngology, periods of intense stress can create incoordination in the vocal control system — basically, you get so stressed your vocal cords forget how to work. Fun! There isn’t a ton a research on this disorder, yet.
So, not only did I forget how to breathe at age 20 — I forgot how to breathe because I was so anxious and stressed. This oddly made sense to me. I’d been going nonstop for years. Working hard to get into a good college and then finally being there, I had to work even harder to maintain my grades, keep up appearances at parties, and apply for internships so I could one day have a job. The pressure (which mostly came from myself) was immense, and apparently, sitting comfortably on my larynx.
I soon started respiratory retraining, which consisted of countless vocal exercises ranging from singing scales, managing breath, and even an interesting breath resistance machine to improve my vocal muscles. I was literally relearning how to breathe at age (now) 21.
It took the better part of my senior year, spending most Thursdays in a medical room, for me to see any progress.
The real progress came when I tried targeting the root of the problem. I started meditating (Thank you, Headspace), doing breathing techniques learned in vocal therapy, and even changing how I worked out to better manage my anxiety and stress.
It continues to blow my mind how trying to treat my mental health had such an impact on my physical health. Outside of just, you know, forgetting how to breathe, I also found myself getting sick. Constantly. I didn’t realize that my inability to manage stress and anxiety was tearing apart my body. I couldn’t understand that just because I was doing well in school and was having fun, I could still be having mental health problems — that mental health issues don’t have to look like an unsaturated version of life. I loved school and frankly, crushed it. I ended up getting an offer from that internship and it was my dream job. I wish I spent even a fraction of the time I spent trying to do well in school and have fun, caring for my mental health because I would have saved myself a lot of Thursdays spent in a medical room (not to mention tons of money).
I was simply never taught the reality of mental health and the direct link it can have to your physical health. I’m pretty sure if someone told me, “Make sure to find ways to relieve stress and anxiety or you might forget how to breathe,” I would have prioritized it. But that definitely never came up. It seems so silly to me now — how naive I was in thinking you had to be super sad and miserable to have mental health issues so drastic they are truly life altering.
I now have been working full-time for a year and continue to prioritize my mental health. I have found new ways that work for me: running, various styles of exercise, and meditation (although, I find myself slipping on this one again) to name a few. I have even gone so-far as to schedule time out in my busy work days to ensure I have time to release anxiety and stress. I have found simply talking with friends reduces the burden of stress. It is definitely a crazy time, there being a global pandemic and all, but this government-mandated extra time has been really beneficial for me. It has forced me to review my progress on prioritizing my mental health, to ensure I am healthy physically as well. It is easy to be swept up in the endless sea of scary news, but I urge you to take a few moments and prioritize yourself. Do something with this new found time to find some calm. I mean, you don’t want to forget how to breathe, do you?
