Ok then. What the hell was that? Apparently it was my usual panic attack hell + a new layer of total hell in the form of a bad medicine reaction.
On the advice of a dear friend and honorary medical professional by experience (thank you A) who recognized a bad reaction when she saw it, I gave myself permission and stopped the new med and felt like myself again by saturday night. Feeling like myself was pure heaven.
Today I saw the psychopharmacologist, and she graciously agreed that the new med was Not For Me. Whoot. I do not need more crazy.
So- a new tact-- specifically a trial of inderal, which I took long ago for social anxiety and liked it. So who knows? I have no idea if it will keep me from triggering into crazy land. I can only hope it will and wait for reality to test it (no time soon please). The fear of the fear is really debilitating. And I wish I could say otherwise, but I would be totally lying. I have never, and I do mean never, felt so debilitated. Not by colitis. Not by acute grief even. Because in the midst of the colitis. In the midst of the grief, I knew I was still kate. When taken up with panic, I lose connection with myself. And that, my friends, is some extra scary stuff for me and probably most people.
I am worried, of course, that it will not work. And that I will get triggered and and and and... and then be on that bad ride. But at least it is a bad ride. Not a bad ride covered in an extra coating of crazy. And I know that is better than my 24 hours of sheer hell from friday to saturday night.
I want to thank all of you-- both here and facebook friends-- for being so incredibly understanding, kind, supportive.... and while I do feel vulnerable talking about this, I think it is really important.
Here I am-- dealing with this nearly invisible thing that pulls me down. And while there is nearly nothing as lonely, I know, I KNOW I am not alone.
How many others have their version of this? Maybe not panic attacks. Maybe more generalized anxiety (oh my heart goes out to you), or depression (oh loves), or mania, or secret eating, or shopping in hopes to get the Thing that will change everything for the better. Make the aching stop. Make the loneliness go away. Make the feeling of otherness vanish. The Thing that arrives on wings of self esteem and gold dust. Or maybe it is secret shame. Regret. Even longing. Whatever pulls us away from our centers and into the big scary land of insufficiency and out of controlness.
We all have secret wounds. Secret battles. And as we move through the world, when we are strong, I invite all of us to send out compassion to the unseen. The unknown and unknowable in all of us.
3 comments:
Even in the dark you are a Light. Your Kateness shines into the dark corners we all carry and brings us into Truth.
Hugs my dear.
kate-- thank you so much for being so real and being willing to be vulnerable and for speaking to that part of all of us that wants to hide under the couch. sending you love and light.
I'm so terribly sorry. I don't have quite the same thing, but I have had depression, and that feeling that it is back, or even just the fear that it is beginning to come back and I don't know how long or how bad. It sucks. Then last year I woke in the middle of the night with food poisoning and a vasovagal reaction to it, but I didn't know that. I just woke up to my heart racing and my mind feeling not all there and way overheated. I passed out while my wife was helping me to the bathroom. Then got to the toilet. I feared I was going to die before we figured out what was happening and with our 2 kids in bed I didn't know if we should call an ambulance. Then I began to be sick and I was relieved to know it was food poisoning, not death from the unknown. Once I started getting sick my heart rate went back to normal. After 30 minutes on the toilet I started to cool off. I could think clearly and sit up on my own again. I laid on the floor with chills. A few months later I had a few similar episodes but without being sick, just got way too hot for no reason and my heart raced and I feared I would pass out. I ended up going to the doctor, referred to a cardiologist, no cause that we can find. We think it was stress that led to anxiety and a panic attack with heart palpitations. Worst feeling in the world. I'm just so sorry anyone has an experience anything like that. Feeling like you are not yourself and not knowing how bad it will get. Feeling like your logical mind knows you are ok, but you can't control your body and you feel like an electric current is running through your body. I'm just so sorry. I'm glad you are feeling better now and I sincerely hope that the medication you are on now works very well and you don't ever have to feel like that again.
Melissa
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