PaNiC aTtAcK…
…an ominous phrase if ever I heard one.
If you’ve never had a PaNiC aTtAcK be very thankful! They are one of the most painful, frightening and grueling experiences you can ever have. It is not overstating the fact that you honest to god think you are dying. Seriously. Your mind and body become overcome by a crippling pain which convinces you that death is about to touch his boney little finger against your shoulder and zap you off this mortal coil.
I’ve had so many PaNiC aTtAcKs in my life that I couldn’t even give you a rough estimated figure of how many there’s been. I can tell you the first I ever had, which was when I was 16 and walking down the street near my old high school. I spied out the corner of my eye a small group of people, including a girl I had a wee crush on, and the very thought of them seeing me was enough to send my mind into a downward spiral of eventual defeat.
The most memorable panic attack I ever had was also the most embarrassing. It was the one I talked about in this post and I have never forgotten either the pain I was in or the look of utter disgust and degradation on my “friend’s” face as she formulated in her mind her opinion of me as a weak and useless individual. That panic attack changed our relationship forever, and is what finally made me realize that people just do not understand panic or anxiety.
Anxiety is something that is often confused with stress. We all feel stressed from time to time, we’ve all sat exams or had job interviews that have freaked us out and set the butterflies a flitting in our stomachs. This isn’t technically anxiety. On many levels it could be conceived as being so, but really it is just stress, for as soon as the exam/interview is underway/over those butterflies quickly fly away.
Feeling anxious or suffering from an anxiety disorder is different. It is not merely the event which makes people anxious; it is everything to do with the event. It’s build-up, occurrence, aftermath, aftermath of the aftermath - anything to do with that event creates an unstable feeling in the brain which can, if left unattended, result in the most dreaded of things - a PaNiC aTtAcK!
Take for example this somewhat innocuous event from my life:
Last year I was invited to a trivia night at the Sherlock Holmes pub in Melbourne. Now I love trivia nights, always have, even though I’m not the smartest card in the deck (or is that what I want people to think *wink*?) I try to attend them whenever I can.
Unfortunately the night was cancelled due to the sudden business of everyone involved which left two people still able to attend, however as our combined knowledge would have meant the utter thrashing of everyone else in the pub we decided to spare them the humiliation of defeat and instead I was invited to go for a few drinks with her friends.
This is when the anxiety really kicked in!
I had been a little anxious about trivia, it’s all part and parcel of the social anxiety, but as I knew the majority of people who would be attending that gathering I was able to control the anxiety somewhat. Now that the plans had changed, and I was going out with people I had never really met before let alone had any conversations with, the anxiety threw itself up a few notches and eventually the panic began taking over me.
The smartest thing to have done would have been to phone and cancel, for the closer I got to the event, the more anxious I became - the whole vicious circle state of affairs - but as I was working hard to overcome the social anxiety and expand my social circle, knew it was something that I needed to do.
The mere thought of being in a social situation with people I didn’t know was enough to trigger intense anxiety. It really makes no logical sense, which is why it’s so hard for people to understand it. The anxiety was beyond stress it was beyond mere shyness it was a crippling state of fear about being “judged” by these people and in someway humiliated, be it by something they would say to me, or something they merely left unsaid and I caught in a look or backward glance.
[What made it harder was that one of these people I didn't know was Sally, who, if you've read back on the history of my life through this blog, you may recognize as being the lost friend of my life; i.e. the person I desperately wanted to call my friend but due to various conflicting circumstances (some anxiety related, others not) this never came to pass.]
The mere thought of being in a social situation with people I didn’t know, yet wanted to get to know, was enough to nearly trigger a PaNiC aTtAcK.
On this occasion it didn’t, I was able to suppress it long enough for it not to occur, but in suppressing it ended up doing what I always do; managed to convince people I was a snob (a common misjudgment for people who are shy or who suffer from social anxiety, merely because we do not say as much as other people, and are therefore assumed to think ourselves above them, that they are not worthy enough for us to talk to…either that or gay, both of which I had frequently in my life! And c’mon people, anyone who’s had even a cursory glance at this blog will realize how much I adore, cherish and worship the enigmatically curious gender that is woman.
Anyway, like with all forms of mental illness, those people suffering from anxiety disorder are often treated unfairly and unjustly by society merely because people just do not understand - nor it seems want to understand - exactly what it is we are feeling.
People are too quick to throw judgment and pass sentence before digesting all of the facts.
It’s the same as some of the high profile trials we see on TV: we as society have a quick read of the papers and automatically pass judgment of guilty beyond shadow of a doubt or completely fracking innocent! We seem to forget these “facts” we are hearing or seeing are being fed to us by the often sided-media as the reporter is weighing the story with her/his own beliefs. We don’t take into account any of the smaller details which we don’t get told, nor do we seem interested in finding these out. Just take a look at the public and community reaction to the West Memphis Three or Madeleine McCann cases for examples of this quick judgment call by the not willing to understand majority.
Mental illness, depression, panic, anxiety all works on the same level. People assume a weakness of character is to blame - whereas more often than not the person is one of the strongest on earth - but as soon as that label (or snob or gay or shy or whatever) is slapped on, it is done so with superglue and will never be torn off.
Living with a panic/anxiety disorder is a confusing, demeaning and painful thing. There are so many things I can’t do without being overcome with anxiety, things other people take for granted; getting on planes, having conversations with potential new friends, walking down the street, talking to the shopkeeper, drinks with friends…it takes a great deal of strength for me to do any of theses things, even knowing that when I do, all that’s going to happen is people will make a snap judgment as to who I am and that is all I will ever be to them.
In all honesty, it’s bollox! And by gum that word should be used in far more countries than the UK! There is nothing quite like saying that word, nor giving someone a good bollocking! So to all of you prejudiced against those with panic and anxiety disorders, consider yourself bollocked, because you are quite honestly, talking utter bollocks.
Now you can head to ‘Self Help tips to help control Panic and Anxiety
Or skip along to learn all about Anxiety Disorders (if you didn’t at the start of this ramble)
I started self-harming when I was in High School as a way to deal with bullying, low self-esteem, social anxiety and an onsetting depression. I was able to get it under control in mid 1999, and after a brief relapse in 2001, had it under control until 2007. I have self harmed on/off since my breakdown in March 2007 and am not yet in the space to get it under control again at this time.
