Panic

Was browsing reddit like always the other day and I came across a thread talking about last thoughts for when you're 100% sure you're gonna die. Saw this comment:

"Panic. Helplessness. The sense of doom was so great, there was no way the paramedics would get to me in time, it was a major heart attack. I just remember feeling like someone was sitting on my chest, I couldn't breathe, and there was a sharp pain, but also a numbness. I couldn't feel my left side so I wasn't sure if it was a heart attack or a stroke, either way it was serious. I told my brother to make sure he'd take care of my kids.

Paramedics arrived, start taking vitals, everything's elevated, but fairly normal. Not a heart attack or a stroke. I don't see how that's possible. Then they ask if I've ever had an anxiety or panic attack. I think they're fucking with me, not taking me seriously, I mean...I'm dying and they're telling me it's just in my head.

Aaand that's what my panic attacks feel like."

Panic attacks are the most scary things ever. Before I had one, I didn't think it'd be anywhere close to this bad. But this story really got to me... it's like "yeah, I'm dying. And confused." But then you're told you're fine.
I thought about what it meant to me.

The plane ride where I was drugged up and woken in a panic, stumbling as my world was spinning, trying to get through the people but not being able to stand up. Every step was like walking through Jell-O. Everything was spinning fast and time went by very slow-or fast- can't really tell in hindsight. Finally stumbling into a seat and puking up the very few contents of my stomach was the cherry on top.
I remember half-awakenly thinking "please God, let me die right now."

The previous plane ride, clutching my mother and then clutching the barf bag. The feeling that you NEED to get out of the situation. I clearly remember thinking "I sincerely wish I was dead right now."

The time on a coach bus on the way back home. I was in a weird state; not sleeping, not awake, but extremely aware. The sound of the rain and people's phones going off due to flash flood warning. The mumbles about how bad the weather is. That weird eerie, creaky sound from the back of the bus. Everything felt almost paranormal. I was playing "Stacy's mom" very loud on repeat on my headphones because I thought it was upbeat and silly and would calm me (and because it was the only one that would load.) Somebody felt sick and that alone makes me panic. I remember driving home in the car, feeling incredibly worn out. I remember thinking "this cannot keep happening."

The time I was being helped with music, when I tried to shun that weird feeling coming in my head that I was about to panic. Feeling cold and then extremely hot. My senses quickly faded out- all I could hear was a very loud ringing and couldn't see anything clearly. My entire world was completely spinning. I laid on the ground for a second but was okay with it because I actually thought it was a dream. I remember thinking "I am dying."

And just a week or so ago on a bus when I fell asleep and woke up as we were driving on the highway. All I remember was that I NEEDED to get off thag bus and NOW. I felt like something super bad was happening to me. I remember thinking "maybe they will drive me to the hospital?"

Now I know what you're thinking:
DRAMA QUEEEEEEEN! Yes, I agree. It sounds unbelievably drama-queeny.
That is why I never let people in the situation know, because it's just brain stuff. I'd feel quite silly if I said it was a panic attack actually. To me, it isn't just anxiety, it is the legitimate thought that I am currently dying. But other people just hear "she's anxious" when panic/anxiety attacks come up. I don't blame them. That's what it is, really. It just feels very very real.

Of course I was fine every time, and looking back at and typing it out doesn't seem very bad. However, the feeling of sheer panic, dread, doom, and yearning for immediate death is very intense at the time. No words can explain it. Of course I don't actually want to die, but at those times, it feels like something SO horrible is happening that that's the only option.

So, there it is. How I feel about fucked-up brain reactions that make you look very silly and feel very scared.

An Excerpt: Why We Will marry The Wrong Person: Self (Part 1)

Partly, it’s because we have a bewildering array of problems that emerge when we try to get close to others. We seem normal only to those who don’t know us very well. In a wiser, more self-aware society than our own, a standard question on any early dinner date would be: “And how are you crazy?”

Perhaps we have a latent tendency to get furious when someone disagrees with us or can relax only when we are working; perhaps we’re tricky about intimacy after sex or clam up in response to humiliation. Nobody’s perfect. The problem is that before marriage, we rarely delve into our complexities. Whenever casual relationships threaten to reveal our flaws, we blame our partners and call it a day. As for our friends, they don’t care enough to do the hard work of enlightening us. One of the privileges of being on our own is therefore the sincere impression that we are really quite easy to live with.

Our partners are no more self-aware. Naturally, we make a stab at trying to understand them. We visit their families. We look at their photos, we meet their college friends. All this contributes to a sense that we’ve done our homework. We haven’t. Marriage ends up as a hopeful, generous, infinitely kind gamble taken by two people who don’t know yet who they are or who the other might be, binding themselves to a future they cannot conceive of and have carefully avoided investigating.

When first looking out for a partner, the requirements we come up with are coloured by a beautiful non-specific sentimental vagueness: we’ll say we really want to find someone who is ‘kind’ or ‘fun to be with’, ‘attractive’ or ‘up for adventure…’

It isn’t that such desires are wrong, they are just not remotely precise enough in their understanding of what we in particular are going to require in order to stand a chance of being happy – or, more accurately, not consistently miserable.

All of us are crazy in very particular ways. We’re distinctively neurotic, unbalanced and immature, but don’t know quite the details because no one ever encourages us too hard to find them out. An urgent, primary task of any lover is therefore to get a handle on the specific ways in which they are mad. They have to get up to speed on their individual neuroses. They have to grasp where these have come from, what they make them do – and most importantly, what sort of people either provoke or assuage them. A good partnership is not so much one between two healthy people (there aren’t many of these on the planet), it’s one between two demented people who have had the skill or luck to find a non-threatening conscious accommodation between their relative insanities.

The very idea that we might not be too difficult as people should set off alarm bells in any prospective partner. The question is just where the problems will lie: perhaps we have a latent tendency to get furious when someone disagrees with us, or we can only relax when we are working, or we’re a bit tricky around intimacy after sex, or we’ve never been so good at explaining what’s going on when we’re worried. It’s these sort of issues that – over decades – create catastrophes and that we therefore need to know about way ahead of time, in order to look out for people who are optimally designed to withstand them. A standard question on any early dinner date should be quite simply: ‘And how are you mad?’

---

The problem is that knowledge of our own neuroses is not at all easy to come by. It can take years and situations we have had no experience of. Prior to marriage, we’re rarely involved in dynamics that properly hold up a mirror to our disturbances. Whenever more casual relationships threaten to reveal the ‘difficult’ side of our natures, we tend to blame the partner – and call it a day. As for our friends, they predictably don’t care enough about us to have any motive to probe our real selves. They only want a nice evening out. Therefore, we end up blind to the awkward sides of our natures. On our own, when we’re furious, we don’t shout, as there’s no one there to listen – and therefore we overlook the true, worrying strength of our capacity for fury. Or we work all the time without grasping, because there’s no one calling us to come for dinner, how we manically use work to gain a sense of control over life – and how we might cause hell if anyone tried to stop us. At night, all we’re aware of is how sweet it would be to cuddle with someone, but we have no opportunity to face up to the intimacy-avoiding side of us that would start to make us cold and strange if ever it felt we were too deeply committed to someone. One of the greatest privileges of being on one’s own is the flattering illusion that one is, in truth, really quite an easy person to live with.

With such a poor level of understanding of our characters, no wonder we aren’t in any position to know who we should be looking out for.

NY Times, The Philosopher's Mail

Truth

Even if the truth hurts more than you could imagine, it is easier to sleep at night without lying to yourself.