“Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.” ~Eckhart Tolle
Sunday started out with a panic attack.
It wasn’t little butterflies in the stomach like right before a first kiss. It wasn’t the feeling of anticipation as a rollercoaster slowly climbs the big hill before the drop.
This panic attack felt like I was about to jump off a cliff, while being chased by clowns. Not cute clowns—scary ones. The kind of clowns that were in the paintings at my pediatrician’s office when I was a kid. The clowns that smiled at me smugly when I was getting emergency asthma shots, unable to breathe.
Panic attacks are my suffering at its most profound. Over the years, I’ve become an expert on them.
I was twenty-nine when I had my first major panic attack. I was sitting in a hotel room in Sunnyvale, California, getting ready to drive to the beach, and I couldn’t decide whether to eat at a local restaurant or wait until I got to Santa Cruz.
Bang! It hit me out of nowhere.
That’s how it happens for me. I can handle a major crisis like a medical emergency or aiding in a car accident with unthinking grace. It’s the day-to-day living that sometimes gets me.
Suffering the break-up of a romantic relationship a few months ago brought the panic attacks back out of hiding. Instead of going through a depression, I felt riddled by anxiety.
A lot of the anxiety had to do with the fact that I was going to have to deal with my ex in a working situation. It was compounded with the awful things I was telling myself over and over again in my head. It was extremely painful and maddening.
At least I have some skills and resources for dealing with panic and anxiety, and I’ve gotten a lot better at using them.
I’ve found meditation and present moment awareness to be effective in dealing with panic attacks. (more…)
