Flashbacks and Panic Attacks

For the love of little green aliens from the planet X, I wish I could not panic. I wish I could just file away all of those things that send me into outer space and not remember them. I wish I could not have panic attacks, feel like everyone is out to get me and put me in a padded room and lock the door and then beat me to a pulp and no one could hear me scream, gasping for air and trying desperately not to freak out my mother and keep it hidden because damn-it-all I'm scared for no good reason. I wish this all would go away and let me live a productive life.

There was a time about a decade ago that still haunts my waking, and sleeping, life. I'm not ready to write it all down for the world to read quite yet. I should, and my counselor has encouraged me to, but I'm not ready. It's too hard to write it down, because it still sounds like I'm saying "Boo hoo. Poor me, feel bad for me because I made a series of bad decisions" when I try to write it down. My parents always said, "Pity parties are parties of one," and I guess I should just suck it up, but maybe that's why I'm suffering from anxiety disorders now. Who knows?

I will tell the world this much: it culminated in a 9mm being placed directly between my eyebrows. That's what my latest panic attack was *checks watch* as of 30 minutes ago. I spent an hour in my darkened bedroom with the door shut, freaking out because I thought the holder of that gun had found this house and was going to break the door down and either take me and my mother hostage, or just shoot me where I lay.

That makes no sense whatsoever. I realize this fact, that while he will probably never forget me, he most likely will never be able to threaten me again. I recognize that this is an irrational thinking pattern. 

That doesn't mean that, in the grip of another panic attack, that I don't think it will happen all over again. Part of panic and anxiety disorders is irrational thought patterns focused on impending doom and death. If I had a menagerie of potentially deadly animals in the bedroom with me right now, I wouldn't be as scared as I am when I am having a full-on panic attack. It takes EVERY OUNCE of willpower I have to not scream in holy terror at my waking nightmares.

The most irrational thing about these suckers is that they can come on at any time, in any place, while I'm with anyone. Last Christmas, I went to Florida for the family get-together. I love seeing my family, I love watching my cousins' children play, I love seeing those children grow up and learn and just be children for as long as we will let them. I love seeing my cousins as they watch their children and the glow that they have as they do. 

At the time, I was sleeping on the couch in the living room. My cousin was bringing her daughter over to play while her mama helped Santa. I was still asleep when that sweet child walked up to the end of the couch and said, "Hi Megan!!" I panicked. Straight up panicked. I tried to act like I would normally, making myself a cup of coffee and going out to the veranda so that my cousin could talk to my aunt while her daughter played with her aunt. Then I sneaked around to the staircase and locked myself in the guest bedroom, cried buckets of tears, and rocked myself while I talked myself down. 

Why did a three year old scare me so badly? I really don't have an answer for you, or for me. I wish I did. The best answer I had at the time was that it takes me a long time to ease into waking up, and to wake up suddenly and completely didn't give my brain a chance to analyze my surroundings. "Well, why didn't you get up earlier?" is a perfectly reasonable question, but anyone who knows me knows I'm a night owl. Long after everyone had gone to bed, I was still up. I did wake everyone in the house up when I set off the alarm (I was getting a glass of water), and maybe subconsciously I was still on alert from that.

All I know is that I hate this disorder and what it does to me. I hate that it makes me scared of a three year old child who is one of the sweetest little redheads (I think this about all my cousins' children) to walk the face of this earth. I hate that it keeps me in dark rooms trying not to scream my bloody head off because a monster from my past is out to get me. I hate everything about this, and the fact that it can break through the two drugs I'm taking for my disorder and still feel like everyone's out to hurt me. Don't Panic indeed.