My Story: Part Three

When I left off, I said that life had thrown another curve ball at me. That curve ball? My well intentioned, but slightly misguided mother.
  You see, I had been doing better because of my medicine. So what would make me feel worse? A lack of medicine. And that's just what I got.
  When I ran out of my first bottle of Prozac, I was expecting that my mother would take me back to the doctor to get a prescription for more. But, she didn't. And whenever I asked her, she would get OFFENDED. So I ended up being without it for a month and a half, feeling myself sink into the same, black little pit I had been in before.
  The depression came back, that much I expected. But what I didn't expect? Anxiety attacks.
  Now, I could give you a dictionary description if anxiety attacks, but I don't think it gives the full effect as well.
  Envision this: you're doing something perfectly normal, like sitting in class, where you've never had bigger problems than having to pee or boredom. Suddenly, you get this severely sick feeling in your stomach. That's the gastrointestinal distress. Then, it gets really hot. That's the heat flashes. You think that something bad could happen at any second. Wait. What's wrong with your heart? It's palpitating. You must be having a heart attack. That's possible, right?  Wait. What's that? Oh god, you're going to die. You're going to die. You're going to die. You've never been so afraid in your life. You need to escape. You need to get somewhere safe. You need to focus on something. Your brain is moving way too fast. You need to scream. But won't that be embarrassing? Won't everyone think you're crazy? You know there's no danger, but you can't believe yourself. Everyone says there's something to be afraid of. Every alarming news headline from the past few months comes rushing back. Bombings. School shootings. Tornadoes. Anything could happen at any minute. Why is everyone still sitting here? You need to be somewhere safe. But you can't leave. Just distract yourself. That'll get rid of it. You're not going to die.. You're not going to die.. You're not going to die..

  And that is as close to describing a  panic attack as I can get. You get really scared, and think about all the bad things that could happen. Of course, there's no way that that stuff could happen, but your brain can't process that at the moment.

  This has also happened to me in big crowds. Particularly concerts. It's crowded and loud and if something bad were to happen and you screamed, people would just think you were into the music. The lights and movement and volume don't really help the situation, either.

  When my youth group went on a trip to a Christian camp, there were concerts by some guy named Aaron Keyes that I had never heard of. The first night we were there, I was all energetic and hopping around like a lunatic, but pretty soon I started to fee really, REALLY sick, and had to sit down and curl up in a ball. The next morning, which was way too early for a concert, I left about five minutes in to calm myself down. That night, I did the same.
 
  But on the third or fourth day, I apparently stayed just a bit too long. Because when I went into the preaching when the concert ended, I still couldn't handle it. Every little noise was irritating. There was a girl behind us eating a little bag of chips and every time it made a noise I almost cried. Eventually, I curled up in a ball and cried. Why was I freaking out? There was nothing to be afraid of. But like I said before, I couldn't believe that. I ended up going outside and crying on a bench until it was over and my youth group came out.

  But anyways. The biggest two things that make me freak out: the weather, and the news. You see, my town was one of those hit by those HUGE tornadoes a while back. So now I automatically think of the bad things that could happen when it starts raining. One day at school, it had been overcast for a few weeks, and boy was that horrible.

  But onto the news: It scares me. Why is there never any good news? And when there is good news, why do bad things come out of it? For example: the death of Osama Bin Laden. Good thing, right? Wrong. What if Al Qaeda got angry and decided to attack us? After all, we did kill a huge icon. So for a few weeks after that, I was constantly scared of going out to big cities and what not, and I refused to watch the news.

  But you can calm yourself down from panic attacks. I can do that now by distracting myself, talking to Daley, or doing this little breathing exercise. However, when I was new to the world of anxiety, I calmed myself down by cutting. Why? It made me feel more in control of the situation. If I can't control our impending doom, at least I can control this, right? And it was something to focus on. The blood, mostly. 'Course, the blood was my favorite part of cutting due to depression too.