Well it happened..
A panic attack..
I don’t know what triggered it, why it triggered it, how it triggered it, but it happened – 4 times on Saturday. You can imagine how upset I am about this, if you have ever been unfortunate enough to have one. If you haven’t, consider yourself lucky.
Typically when it happens I’m stuck in traffic. That’s my main trigger, my next trigger are loud confined busy places. If I’m in one of those situations it’s almost guaranteed to happen, so I prepare for it, but this time I had no warning.
This day I was traveling down to Freehold for my hair trail for my wedding day. I knew where I was going, thanks to Google Maps “street view” and my GPS, and I’m familiar with the Freehold/Route 18/Route 537 area. I was making REALLY good time despite the distance I had to travel. It was a gorgeous day too.. highway driving with the sun roof open what could be better?!
I did a time check and I was a good 30 minutes early so I decided to stop at the WAWA on Route 18 and relax and stretch my legs before continuing with the next 10 minutes. I was facebooking via my blackberry and just people watching when it started.. The tingle.. the one that feels like your skin is crawling, you get REAL hot, and almost dizzy, the stomach shifts and well.. it’s time to get moving.
I started back on the road and arrived at my destination 15 minutes early. Screw it, I said, it’s only 15 minutes. I ran the door bell, her sister got me situated in the salon area of the house and I was chilling out with her 2 yr old son looking at his finger paintings when it started to come on again. I ran to the bathroom, got sick, got HOT, so I put both my wrists under ice-cold water and WANTED to lay down on the ice-cold tile floors, but hey I didn’t’ think I should do that in someone’s house lol.
Upon exiting the bathroom I told her sister that I was not feeling OK.. I didn’t want to make anyone nervous, but I had to inform her God-forbid I pass out.. When my hair stylist arrived we made her aware of what was going on, and the cool thing about her was .. SHE’S COOL! she grew up one town over from me, and is married to someone I “should” know (I just haven’t checked my yearbook yet lol) so it helped having someone with whom I had something in common to keep my mind preoccupied. My Matron-of-honor, Jess, finally made it (traffic sucks in NJ) and again, more conversation led to killing the 2nd attack.
Afterward, Jess and I headed to Outback for some salad.. well that ride proved to be the start of attack #3. WHY!!?! I’m on Route 9! I know where I am, I’m with someone I know.. WHY!!!!? I now have no appetite, so I ordered the house salad, plain with nothing in it and an ice-cold class of water oh and the check. We bolted out once we were done and I headed to my house to show my mom my hair. We made a couple of tweaks and viola! I think I have my hair for the day!
I spent some time at home just chilling out and getting my nerves down, left around 730pm to head back up north. Playing it safe, I took 287 to avoid any possible jams on the parkway. I got up to Bridgewater and well, I didn’t quite feel good again, but it didn’t make it to panic stage, thankfully.
It’s now Monday.. I’m wiped out. Yesterday I slept all day, had a massive headache, and just had no desire to do anything. My emotions were so high I cried a lot just to release the pressure. Of course, the brain is going a mile a minute trying to put the puzzle together. What caused it, and why? and will it happen on my big day? on the plane? in Aruba-AGAIN?
People that do not suffer from panic attacks do not understand the thought process that happens after an attack, or multiple attacks. You can easily say “don’t think about it”, but that’s not possible, unfortunately. This is the scariest thing that can happen to someone, and I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. What’s even worse is when it happens when you are alone, it just exasperates it because you are scared something will happen to you and you won’t be able to get help or your loved ones are way too far away to help you.
So if you are ever in public (airports and planes are real good place to witness attacks) and someone starts acting frantic or nervous, you might just need to take a moment and instead of laughing at that person, try and understand, help, or sympathize with them.. it helps knowing someone is helping and not laughing at you. If it had a switch we would all just turn them off and go about our daily lives, but that switch doesn’t exist.
