The big, red, shiny panic button

I have a panic button. It's big and red and shiny. It looks like a very yummy piece of candy to my brain's eye. I think that my muscles trick my brain into thinking that this panic button really is a piece of candy. Candy that tastes so good that you'll want for more. In reality, it's a trick. A trick that is played on my brain to tell it to hit that panic button thinking that it's going to recieve something so mouthwatering it doesn't know what it's missing. My back muscles are especially in on the trick. They twitch and turn and ache and it makes my brain hit the red panic button. When it hits the button, it gets nothing. Nothing but a big panic attack that turns me into a deer in the headlights. A cornered cat. A wild bucking pony. I'm willing to do anything to save myself from the fear that I'm experiencing. It makes my brain turn from thinking it's receiving candy into thinking I'm suffering from a heart attack.

Today, I think the paper bag has friends. They're doubling up and making sure they're good and soaked so that it's harder to fight out of the bag. One day bag, the last laugh I have will be on you.

Can you be excited and scared at the same time?

I am extremely excited!! I will be going to Europe in October for the first time ever! I am also dreading the plane ride over. I don't like to fly as you can tell by my previous posting about flying to Las Vegas and home from New Orleans. I don't know how I will handle a nine and a half hour flight.

I started thinking about it the other night before I went to bed. Bad time to think about things. I always get bad anxiety before bed time. So to couple it with feeling scared about flying to Europe was not good.

I tried to calm myself by reading. I also tried to reason with myself that flying is very safe. My husband went last year and said the flight was smoother than the Vegas flight. So what is making me scared? It could be a number of things. Which I am sure all you anxiety sufferers out there know what they are so I will spare my readers 'the list'.

Still, I think that my excitedness has won over the fear. We'll see if that changes any time soon. Onward and upward! Out of this bag!

Anger perpetuates anxiety

Yesterday, I had an incident at work where someone tried to make me look bad – behind my back. Little did they know that the email they sent to someone got forwarded to me. I was so angry I was shaking. I emailed my director immediately the string of emails and said I was not happy. My director agreed with me and contacted the originator of the email and gave them what for.

After calming down, I didn’t feel very well. On my bus ride home, I started to shake again, but this was in reaction to the panic that I was feeling at the time. I guess I have to control my anger in order to stop the panic. Or maybe my body recognized the shaking from the anger and it brought on a panic attack. Either way I really felt like I was in the wet paper bag and honestly, at that point, I was so angry, I played out a fight scene in my mind.

It was me and the bag, one on one. Duelling it out. I managed to subdue it yesterday, but it got away from me and I am waiting for it to rise again. But this time, I think I’m ready.

Helicopter crashes, murder and me

Today I found out that my grade ten teacher was murdered by one of her students. Tragic.  I started to panic when I heard about it. I thought I would be next. I have no idea why. This news came on the heels of a friend of mine from university who died in a helicopter crash as the pilot leaving behind two beautiful daughters.

I then went to catch the bus home from work and started to be really scared about that guy I last wrote about that sat beside me on the bus drunk and threatening another guy who accidentally bumped into him. I got scared he might be on the bus again, that he might pull a knife and stab someone; stab me.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to run away and go back and hide in my office. I thought to myself that these things come in threes and that someone I knew would die or that it might be me.

I forced myself on the bus. Forced myself to sit and just let the music I was listening to calm me down. I watched the door intently every time someone got on. I made sure I was ready to get up and get off if that guy came on the bus again.

I was letting all kinds of scenarios swirl through my head. What would I do if the guy got on the bus; what would I do if he tried to attack someone or me; what I would do if the bus crashed. Crazy! I wanted nothing more than to just get home safely and into a cocoon. Then, when I was nearly home, I thought that I can’t let these thoughts overtake me. I stopped and pulled myself together mentally.

Today, I’m not going to let this paper bag win. I’m tired, yes. Hell, I’m crazy enough to go to war with the bag. Go all commando on it (military style not panty-less). I read something tonight that made me turn my thoughts around: “You don’t have to be brilliant at everything. You just have to have the courage to put yourself in the line of fire.”

Ok. So I have to be courageous enough to just let the feelings wash over me. Be courageous enough to take it. I have to be courageous enough to fight this paper bag and break out of it. I just have to do it.

My everyday surroundings

So I was riding the bus home yesterday after work and this drunk man sat down beside me. Another man bumped into him by accident and said sorry, but I don’t think the drunk man heard him apologize since his music was really loud because I could hear it even with my earphones in. After chowing down on some popcorn and beers (yes, beers on the bus), he proceeded to threaten the man out loud and making shooting motions with his hands at the man. It was out loud and nobody said anything to him.

He was dirty, threatening and no one (including me) didn’t do anything about it. I prayed he would get off the bus before I did. Nope. He wouldn’t even stand up when I asked him to move when it came time for me to get off. He just moved his knees slightly and gave me a stupid smile, then watched as I uncomfortably tried to push past him. What a jerk!

I got home and was really angry. So angry in fact that I started to shake as I told my husband what had happened. The shaking triggered me into a full panic attack. Not a nice end to my day.

I really felt like I had my attacks under control and all it took was some loser to trigger them back into effect. Maybe this paper bag is a little tougher than I thought. New strategy needed on how to break through the paper.

Is it really me?

Some days I wonder if all that I do to keep the anxiety at bay is ever going to be fruitful. I am a firm believer that we can control our own anxiety, but we must follow through on what we do and do it every day. Whatever we may do, exercise, reading, belly breathing, inspiring reading, meditation, etc. I think though that we must look around ourselves too and see if there are any external things that may be contributing to the anxiety in our lives.

I know that I am tired. I can feel my body just wanting to give up and lay down. Not to die, but to just rest. It has been ever ready at the start line waiting for the starter’s gun to go off. I have been in this starting position waiting and now I cannot and am tired. I am ready to give up the race and walk away to save my sanity.  

Sometimes it may hurt others around us, but in the end what is better? To please others or yourself? Maybe the bag around me is wet because I let it be and that is why it feels so hard to fight it.

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.