Don’t ask if I’m going to have a panic attack

Here’s two pieces of good advice regarding mental illness:

  1. Don’t ask a person who hallucinates what they are seeing and where
  2. Don’t ask a person with panic disorder if they are going to have a panic attack

Here’s an example of the second:

You know I have panic disorder and you are asking me to do something. You ask whether this will cause me to have a panic attack. Or you ask if the stress of what you are putting on my plate will cause me to panic. Or you say “don’t panic.”

Seriously, why do so many people think it’s okay or even funny to ask a person whether they are going to have a panic attack at that moment? I’ve had people ask it with a chuckle.

This is no joke. This is my life, my experience, my mental well-being.

You may assume because I have panic attacks I can’t function with the realities of every day life. That I can’t handle stress. This is not true. I balance an incredible amount of responsibilities.

And although stress is one of my triggers, this doesn’t mean every time I experience any amount of stress I automatically freak out. You are belittling my actual triggers and using them as weapons against me.

This assumes I have no control over the panic attacks, a dangerous idea. I rely heavily on a mental wall I have created that tells me I can fight panicky feelings. That just because I am panicky, this does not mean I will have a full blown panic attack. That I can fight it and I can survive. I rely on this strength I have cultivated.

I’m also not always having panic attacks because I live with panic disorder. It’s a myth that everyone who has a mental illness experiences symptoms 24/7. A lot of mental illnesses have periods of symptoms and ones with fewer or no symptoms.

And most of all, you don’t ask a person who is hallucinating what they are seeing in that moment and where because it makes it real. It is real life interacting with the unreal. For someone who sometimes has trouble deciphering the two, you are adding to the confusion.

The same things apply to panic attacks. You are inadvertently telling my brain there IS something worth panicking about.

If you learn I have panic disorder and it makes you feel confused or awkward, go ahead and feel this. If you don’t know what to say, that is okay.

I know you may not understand or believe this is an illness. Because of this, you may think panic attack triggers aren’t a real thing.

Don’t try to deflect this feeling or cover it up by making a poorly thought out comment. Do better.

A brain can come up with enough things to panic about on its own. I don’t need your help.

Getting over a mental health relapse

I had my first major panic attack in several years.

YEARS. I had deep-breathed my way through those years. I had maintained medication, moved to the city, and started grad school. Then it hit me.

It hit me hard. It felt like a sign of complete and utter failure. A relapse. Square one. I felt stuck. It’s hard to get back to normal when the normalcy you enjoyed for so long is pulled from under your feet.

For years I built a wall of comfort to stave off anxiety. I gathered friends, animals, and photographs. I had my medication. I had my books. I lowered my stress level. Still, my insides feel no less vulnerable than years ago. At times, I still feel like a child afraid of the boogeyman.

I learned quickly comfort is not everything. This can be a disconcerting realization. It can make you feel hopeless.

When the calm no longer calms

What do you do when the tricks that worked for years don’t work anymore? When comfort no longer comforts?

I became used to the equation: Anxiety + Comfort= Anxiety goes away. Voila! No panic attack. It’s never that simple, though. Something subjective like comfort doesn’t work all the time. Heck, medication doesn’t always prevent relapse.

It can be especially difficult to swallow when there is no concrete reason for the relapse. Before this panic attack, nothing particularly stressful had happened. I hadn’t stopped medication or traveled to a new place.

With a mental health relapse, it is easy to feel like everything you worked for disappeared instantly, to feel like you are no better at overcoming this than you were before. Succumbing to this thought is dangerous. It can lead to giving up on what is working–medication, therapy, exercise.

Recovering from a relapse is all about re-framing it. It’s about changing the narrative in your head.

Here’s how I dug myself out of a mental health relapse:

 1. Celebrate

It’s important to go back to what you learned, to celebrate the progress you made. Think about the times you could have fallen back into your illness, but didn’t. Those are huge accomplishments, even if they seem moot now.

What did you learn that helped in the past? Write these things down and read them over and over. Even if this list didn’t work this time, it worked at one point. This means it could work again. Focus on the positive. Celebrate.

2. Strengthen

Strengthen your mental health strategy. Try a new therapy or form of exercise. Start hiking. Join a support group. Meet people who understand what it is like to live with a mental illness. 

Consider talking to your doctor about altering your medication. This isn’t essential, but may be helpful if the relapse was severe.

Doing something will not only help prevent a relapse in the future, it will help take your mind off your current slump.

3. Embrace

This one is the hardest for me.

Embrace the uncertainty. Realize you will likely have another relapse. This panic attack was not my last. I don’t exactly love this thought, but I accept it. As hard as it is, I realize panic is a part of me. It is something I fear, yes, but I don’t need to.

Don’t give up because the relapse happened. Take what you can from it and move forward. Don’t think about when it will happen next, just focus where you want to be.

Mental health is a journey. It’s not this one event. It’s a series of moments. It’s not where you are at this exact moment, it’s where you want to go.

Celebrate.
Strengthen.
Embrace.

Repeat this to remind yourself of what is important when you need it the most.

What do you do when a healthy mind suddenly becomes ill again? How do you bounce back?

Children’s games

Children play a game 
where someone lives 
& someone dies.

From inside it looks real.

I never understood 
blaming the coyote for eating the cat
or poisoning wasps 
		or setting traps for fear

Last night I caught a honeybee in a jar
& watched it die.
	            
Poison for pleasure 
or maybe
poison your pleasure. 

Something still tells me to close my umbrella inside, 
			  something says swat.                                         

I have scars from my last speculation, 
when cold water failed, 
when blood 
replaced lipstick.
	                Indomitable, you said. 
Abominable,
	         a bomb in a bowl 
under the bed.

truth and matter

I.

Tonight I’m convinced
anyone could hold me.

There is always some truth
in the matter.

What, then,
is the matter?

Let the hollow tree fall
onto the sassafras,
one leaf

for each child
we never had.

Go ahead—
smash it.

In fact,
get a baseball bat.

The trunk is already falling
There is no time to hold on.

The box screamed fragile
and even wind catching leaves
sounded loud.

Tonight,
weather wins.

II.

You packed saplings away
for a later day

Let’s be fair, you said.
You’re irrational, you said.

I heard
fair is safe.
I heard
an irritating rash.

The truth is—
who needs it?

My fingertips
burned to dust,

my branches used for
kindling

Turn the light on,
let us count the dead.

Tips for naturally anxious people (and everyone, really)

I’ll admit, somewhat begrudgingly, I’m a naturally anxious person. It’s funny because most people wouldn’t guess that about me. Us anxious people can be good at hiding.

I tend to attribute my anxious tendencies to my perfectionist nature. I tend to want to get everything right the first time. In my effort to achieve this, it sometimes feels like a constant to-do list runs through my head, spouting off this and that: pay bills, write a blog post, get groceries, and so on. 

It’s fairly easy to say “there’s no way I can stop worrying.” Unfortunately, no matter who or what I choose to blame, I have to live with the way my mind works. This mind is mine for the rest of my life. 

First, let’s clear up what anxiety means. Anxiety, by definition, is stress when there is no stressor (something that causes stress).

Say the stressor is a big exam. A student may be stressed when studying for the exam. Anxiety is what happens if the student leaves the test and continues to experience the same feelings they had when they were stressed. Of course, chronic anxiety is not as simple. Chronic anxiety tends to be deeper than this example. It can completely re-wire how a person functions. It can zap a person’s energy and affect your relationships. 

In the United States, anxiety has ballooned into an epidemic. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 18% of American adults have some type of anxiety disorder. This is huge. If so many of us have problems with anxiety, is it just part of our American nature? I don’t have the answer to this question, but I know it doesn’t have to represent us.

Anxiety shouldn’t be viewed as a curse. If your tendency is to react with anxiety, you’re not inherently flawed. This thinking is just a different way of interacting with the world. This unique way of interacting can be managed. When you are easily anxious, small things seem to affect you more than other people. You wonder why this is. To deal with anxiety is to feel different.

People like to tell someone to “stop worrying” when they’re anxious. That’s like telling a train conductor to stop on a dime at full speed! Dealing with anxiety is a learning process. It takes time.

Here is what works for me. Please note I am telling you this as someone who has to work at this every day and has not been magically cured. There is no magical cure. There is learning to live a fulfilling life with it.

1.

Get out of your head

I find when I am constantly focused on my own thoughts, I can quickly spiral into a cloud of anxiety. I get stuck in my head and can feel incredibly bogged down for an entire day. 

Worrying about the future or whether I forgot something at home gets me nowhere. The sooner I can intercept my rapid fire thoughts, the sooner I can get back to the present where life is moving.

To get out of my head, I may have to literally tell myself “stop” and go do something, anything to get my body moving.

2.

Recognize unhealthy thoughts

This takes some practice. If you’re naturally anxious, anxious thoughts are so commonplace they are hard to discern. Practice picking out the anxious thoughts that aren’t helpful. Then, try to physically imagine the thoughts leaving your head.

3.

Be mindful

Mindfulness has become a buzzword. It’s one of those things you don’t really understand unless you experience it.

Be connected to the world around you and be aware of what’s going on in your head. Stop checking your email on your phone every ten minutes. Allow yourself to check in with how you feel instead.

4.

Cultivate joy

I don’t like the term happiness. For me, it seems to miss the mark. Happiness feels like a fake smile in a school photo. Joy feels like a belly laugh. I’d rather have a belly laugh. Cultivating joy goes hand in hand with being mindful.

Try to gather joy from the world around you. Recognize beauty in the small things. Even when you are worried about something in the back of your mind, force yourself to see the present. If you redirect your thoughts to something positive, that silly worry might just fade away.

5.

Simplify

This is imperative and probably the hardest for me to do. Don’t take on too many commitments. Learn to say “no.” Set rules for yourself as to what you will take on. If you’ve been working all day, don’t work all night as well. 

Give yourself mental breaks and the authority to determine your schedule. Don’t allow yourself to believe the simple life is an unproductive life. Try to resist feeling like there is always more to do. Insist to others that you need to simplify in order to be a better, less anxious person.

6.

Work at it

Responding to life with anxiety is like muscle memory. In order to change it, you must repeat, repeat, repeat.

Don’t be afraid of failure, just keep moving forward. If you feel like you’re stuck in a cycle of anxiety, try your hardest to swim away from the current.

Even if it’s hard to try, having it in your head that reducing your anxiety takes practice and isn’t instant can help you manage the ups and downs.

7.

Praise Yourself

Changing a behavior is hard. Make sure you acknowledge your successes, no matter how small they seem. Doing this will keep you focused on the positive.

Better yet, write down your small successes. This way you can go back and remind yourself at a time when you really need a reminder of how far you’ve come.

Why change what you already know?

I know, it’s hard to recognize an embedded behavior and set out to change it. I get it.

Here is a reason to kick start your journey. Understand that reducing anxiety is important for your health. When you are stressed or anxious, your body completely changes. It ramps up. Your mind signals the stress to your body and the body reacts like it was designed to.

Not only is anxiety bad for your mental health, it can contribute to physical problems like gastrointestinal and heart problems. Stress can make your body more prone to infection.

If your body is a home, imagine anxiety as an earthquake shaking its foundation. How can you function normally when the foundation is cracking? It’s difficult. In fact, it’s nearly impossible.

The key to dealing with anxiety is awareness. Awareness that being anxiety-riddled is not the only way to live. Awareness of your thoughts, strengths, and successes. It’s about taking steps, even tentative ones, away from your norm.

Note

National Alliance on Mental Illness is a great resource. Check out their online resources or enroll in one of their classes if you’ve been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. 

And as always, if anxiety is negatively affecting your quality of life, please seek help from a licensed professional. It was life-changing for me.