Part Five: Rock Bottom

Say what you will about my melodrama—the following is true to me.

I know what it feels like to die. My mind told my body it was dying multiple times a day. I know what it feels like to be a non-native speaker. On more than one occasion my mind convinced itself that it no longer understood English. The people around me carried on their conversation with no idea that I couldn’t understand a word they were saying. I know what it feels like to be someone else. My mind separated itself from my “self” as if I was a passenger taking a terrifying ride in a foreign body: John Malcovich style. I’d lose myself multiple times a day and be sure my mind wouldn’t return to the body it came from. 

I don’t want to sound overly dramatic, but it’s important that I reveal how intense my sensations were at this time. No one could tell me what was wrong with me, and I was constantly certain I was dying or losing my mind.

I mustered the nerve to go to the doctor, and I was finally informed that my situational anxiety had progressed to a panic disorder. All I knew about panic attacks at the time came from tv and movies. A character—usually weak physically and mentally—would find themselves in a stressful situation and resort to breathing into a brown paper bag. I didn’t know that my panic attacks were a defense mechanism for my body. I didn't know that there was more to anxiety than needing to breathe into a bag.

Enter into my life the glorious SSRI. (All hail the SSRI). I was medicated. I was diagnosed. I was still having panic symptoms, but I could brush them off because of some great resources and helpful therapy. One thing that still sticks with me to this day is a quote from my clinic’s therapist.

“Discomfort, Not Danger.”

I found myself repeating this quote often over the next few months.

“Imagine,” she said. “The discomfort you’re feeling in your chest. Your chest is where important organs operate: your heart is pumping blood and your lungs are breathing air. If either of those fail, you’re toast. So, when something feels off in your chest, it’s reasonable to freak out. Let’s remember that these sensations are only your body pumping adrenalin at a greater rate and dealing with stress in a way that’s meant to get your attention to prepare for fight or flight.”

“Correct,” I said. “It’s the literal fucking worst,” I said some iteration of that.

“Now imagine," she continued, "that same discomfort manifested in your left big toe. Would you still find yourself at the hospital? I think you’d write it off as a sore toe and go on with your day. Try to remember that these sensations you experience are no more dangerous than discomfort in your big toe. Discomfort but not danger.”

That clicked—I had a new weapon against anxiety. A damn powerful one at that. Panic attacks came and went like a passing breeze. I sent panic symptoms on their way as soon as they showed their ugly faces. I was, for all intents and purposes, cured.

I was CURED! 

Not really. That doesn’t happen. But I was a lot better. I was able to go to work. I even began feeling so good that I drove for Uber—a feat that I could not have fathomed a few months prior. I felt pretty good for about a year, but just as the angry bee stings twice, panic showed its damned head again…