Contrary to popular belief, driving and panic attacks don’t mix

So I’m driving to work this morning and about half way there, I start to have a panic attack. NOT GOOD. My eyes went blurry, my throat and mouth went dry; I tensed up.  I am so sick of feeling like this. I’ve had just about enough.

Luckily, I had my calm and reassure spray in my purse and I pulled it out at the next red light.

To tell you the truth, I haven’t been doing all that well with these panic attacks and my anxiety in general. It’s been a last few weeks of stress and I am tired. I honestly feel like I’ve been through a war. I watched a movie on the Second World War last night and I felt like I could relate to how those men felt after all that fighting: tired, worn out, stressed, emotional, aching all over and just wishing you could just go home and lie in a warm bed.

Just the thought of the commute home is making me a little antsy. Sometimes I just want to lie on the floor and just lay there. Let the feeling take me over and wrack my body with whatever it is that it’s going to do.  It’s almost as if I am in the eye of the storm and I’m just waiting, tense and wound up for the storm to hit again.

My body is tired and my mind is too. I just want some type of relief from feeling like this.

Today, I feel like I’m just crouched down, arms around my knees feeling the wetness of the paper bag close in around me and I have no strength to fight it. Not today. Not today.

Another poem

Nowhere

You rise out of nowhere.

Unexpected. Unwanted.

You contain no logic in your voodoo magic thrust upon me.

I see no reason for your presence in my life.

You are not real to me, but yet feel so lifelike.

I am told you are all in my mind.

I am told you are real.

Which are you?

Show yourself!

Reveal to me your secrets – Your wolfsbaine.

Tell me where you come from.

Do you live in shadows?

Do you live in bogs?

Do you live in fairy tales?

Do you live in alleys?

Do you live under the floor?

Tell me dammit! I want to be rid of you.

Now this very minute!

I want to suffer no more!

No more…. No more….

No one understands me anymore.

No one wants to understand why you are here.

Set sail, no one wants you least of all me.

Be gone and I do not bid you godspeed.

A poem

Not Sorry

You have to leave me.

Right this instant.

I don’t want you around me anymore.

You plague me till I am tired and ill.

I can’t stand it!

LEAVE! L-E-A-V-E!!

I will not beg you.

I am demanding you to.

Leave.

Immediately.

I have no need for you. I never have.

You do not belong with me.

You never have had a place with me.

Why do you stay when you are unwelcome?

Pains; aches; fear – intense fear overcoming sense.

YOU NEED TO LEAVE ME ALONE!

Be gone anxiety! I say be gone!

I will not be sorry to see you go when you do.

For I know that you will be gone.

How do I know?

Because I say so.

A short story about flying and scrambled egg sandwiches

In my last post I mentioned that I had been sick on a plane before. Here is that story.

In 2002 I went to New Orleans for work and my husband – then boyfriend – decided to tag along and we made a trip of it.

It was a long flight and I was ok getting there. A little perturbed in Dallas/Fort Worth airport though when the Texas Rangers went through my bags dressed in their fatigues and their AK-47s strung on their backs.

We had a great time and the city is beautiful. I always recommend to everyone to go to New Orleans at least once in their lives.

The night before we left we went partying with some friends we met while there. Too much drinking, little sleep and having to catch our airport shuttle at 4:30am was not an ideal mix.

When we got to the airport at six am, we checked in and at our gate was a little food stand. I ordered a scrambled egg sandwich and gobbled it down as I was starving.

We got on our flight and I started to feel a little ill. As you know, when you are taking off you are supposed to stay in your seat with your “seat belt firmly fastened until the pilot turns the seat belt light off.” Well, I started to feel very ill, which then turned into panic as I did not want to be ill on a plane.

Well, too late for that! I looked at my husband, turned pale, broke into a cold sweat and quickly released the buckle of my seatbelt, bolted upright and literally ran down the aisle of the plane to the bathroom.

The flight attendant in the back started to tell me that I needed to be in my seat, but stopped short after realizing I did not look well and quickly pointed to the location of the bathroom.

I entered with a bang of the door and promptly fell to my knees and the entire scrambled egg sandwich was relieved from my stomach.

I actually do not remember how I got back to my seat, but I did and the flight attendant was kind enough to bring me some water.

We landed in Dallas and I was not well. We sat at our gate waiting for our next flight and I started to panic. Dallas airport is very busy, which didn’t help my state of mind. They called our flight and as we were waiting to board I burst into tears.  I was overtired, sick and panicky. Ugh! I can remember the feeling as if it happened this morning. My husband quickly dashed across the hallway to a little store, bought some Dramamine (aptly named –drama) and I chewed on two of the tablets which felt like a thick, awful tasting paste in my mouth with a hint of orange.

The last thing I remember was lying across two seats on the plane clutching a barf bag and the flight attendant asking my husband if I wanted something to drink. He said, “No thank you. I don’t think she’ll be having anything this flight.”

Flying and Panic disorder do not mix

I love to travel. However, I am NOT a good flyer.  I actually get quite worked up about flying whether it is a short or long flight.

I recently went on a trip to Las Vegas. I love this city. I love everything about it: the weather, the hotels, the shopping, the food. Ah! Vegas! Anything you desire, you can have.

The flight was only two hours and twenty minutes. Ok. Doable, I told myself.

The closer to the day to fly out, the more nervous I became. Everything around me was stressful. My poor husband did not know what to do with me. I even freaked out at him five days before we left for no reason. Just felt stressed out and he bore the brunt of a slammed door after a yelling episode.

Now, I know flying is safer than driving or taking the train, but as an anxiety and panic sufferer, anything that you can think of go wrong, I did.

I even had nightmares about it. Everything I looked at around my house would create some sort of pang in me about not coming back to it triggering fear. Fear that at times I could not control. I wouldn’t even watch TV shows about flying or planes.

*SIGH* What’s a girl to do? Correction: What’s an anxiatic girl to do?

For safety sake, and my own piece of mind, I kept my back up plan in my purse: a bottle of Ativan. I even worried that it would be taken away from me at security and had visions of begging the officer for my bottle of ‘happy pills’.

Obviously all was fine and safe. A few bouts of mild (or so the flight attendant said) turbulence and we landed. The flight really wasn’t that long and I’d flown there many, many times before.

Even though nobody could tell I was nervous on the flights, I knew and I tried not to let it show. But man, what am I going to do when I want to go to England? It’s a nine hour flight. Just thinking about that now gives me anxiety and I haven’t even booked time off to go, let alone the flight!

All I can say is that it’s not fun feeling like you’re punching your way out of a wet paper bag while on a flight. At least I had the paper bag to barf into in case I got sick which I have before on a flight – but that’s a whole other story in itself!