Ugh. My Brain Is Such A Drama Queen
But I might have discovered how to stop her panic attacks
I’ve had more than my share of mental breakdowns in my 40 years. I’m highly sensitive, AuDHD, and I spend an extraordinary amount of time chastising myself for not being more “normal” like I perceive everyone else in the world to be.
Can’t I just condition out my sensitivity through exposure? Perhaps by spending more time in scary escape rooms, making friends with a pro parachutist — or my biggest fear, being forced to work in a meat processing plant and being tasked with using the bolt gun on some unsuspecting cow with the cutest face and longest eyelashes ever (probably affectionately nicknamed Dolly or Bluebell by the rancher’s kid).
Ouache, as we say in Quebec. Gross.
Last week I came off a five-day streak of having three to five panic attacks per day. It was terrifying. I couldn’t figure out why they were happening.
I mean, I’d just sold my condo, moved into my ex-husband’s basement (until my new-old house is vacant in four months), had several fights with his father who lives in the apartment upstairs, my boyfriend broke up with me, a friend died of a heart attack (at 40!), boyfriend and I made up, my son was getting punched at school, I started a new business, and my main business stopped bringing in income all of a sudden. Oh, and we didn’t see the sun for like a month because Mother Nature is having a temperature tantrum.
But everything is finally okay.
Why the panic attacks now and not during that hot mess of a time?
I’m rolling my eyes so hard as I type this, I might just be able to see out the back of my head, for real. Jokes on you, kids.
Thankful I inherited the hypochondriac gene from my mom’s side, I booked the next available appointment with my doctor so I could prove to her once and for all that all the pain I was experiencing was linked to the fact that I suddenly developed lung cancer, a bad heart and a brain tumor (google confirmed it) and that this wasn’t anxiety like it has been all the other times.
But could it also be perimenopause…?
I recounted everything to the intake nurse (who, incidentally, just finished medical school to become a doctor and would soon be starting his residency). Knowledgable enough, my brain decided. He gently giggled at me after confirming my blood/oxygen saturation levels, blood pressure, and pulse were all, in fact…perfect. Oh, and so were my labs. It’s probably just anxiety.
Then he divulged what I think might be the cure for it all.
Panic peeps, are you listening? Check this out.
His daughter also suffers from anxiety & panic attacks - but specific to hurting herself. Scraped knee? Boom. Panic attack. Hyperventilation. Loss of consciousness. Seizures. (I am such a baby. I don’t lose consciousness, but now that I know it’s a possibility, it’s on the menu for the next wave, I’m sure.)
After consulting his medical buddies, he had an epiphany. Could our brains be like computers? Yes. And what happens when our nervous systems get overloaded with information — when any computer freezes? We have two options. Keep pressing buttons, continuing to overload the system — or hard reset… if you aren’t mesmerized by the spinning wheel of death as I sometimes am, which, technically, is option number 3.
How do you hard reset the nervous system?
“Scream.” he said. “It’s like releasing a pressure valve.”
What.
I’m kinda hoping for another panic attack so I can test its efficacy.
Admittedly, it’s a little scary at first to witness someone screaming at the top of their lungs in fear, he said. But apparently, it works. A year and a half into her journey of consciously screaming every time she hurts herself and his daughter hasn’t had a seizure or passed out once.
Will this work for everyone? How should I know? But it does sound promising. 90% of the time, I have panic attacks when I’m alone in a bedroom near a stack of pillows I could easily scream into.
Wait. Could bedrooms be what cause my panic attacks? Pillows? Being alone?
SHUT UP, BRAIN!
After digesting all that hopefully very useful information, I was finally able to see my doctor, a very lovely woman in her 50s. She listened to me, smiled so calmly my whole nervous system felt bathed in a land of warm clouds, and then she listened to my heart, lungs, and palpated my abdomen. She did nothing to confirm the presence of a brain tumor, however. How could she? She’s a generalist. But by the time she finished all the other exams, I was convinced my tumor spontaneously disappeared. All was well in Jarentown.
“My brain is such a drama queen,” I said sheepishly.
“That’s okay.” she said and smiled, reassuringly.
And I believe her.
Anyway, if I start feeling awful again, I’ll try screaming and let you know how it goes.
