Successful Panic Attack

How does somebody have a successful panic attack you may ask?

Last week I started to feel very anxious about an appointment I have coming up. It's something that I've been waiting on for a very long time, so I have had plenty of time to worry about it haha.

I received a call that they were changing the time of the appointment and after I hung up I thought to myself ok, no big deal, it's not like they've canceled it or changed the day completely. Suddenly I started feeling really anxious though, so I decided I would try and just journal to see where these feelings were coming from. Halfway through my journal entry I felt like I was going to cry. I don't like to cry because sometimes they can turn in to panic attacks. But sometimes you just need to cry you know? So I told myself ok, maybe that's all this is.

Of course it wasn't. It turned into a full blown panic. The kind where you're not sure if it's going to stop even after you've done the deep breathing techniques you've been doing since you were thirteen.

Finally after several minutes of this, I told myself that I was ok, and that it was ok if I took some medicine to help me calm down. Normally I'm stubborn and won't take anything and then later I'll have even more panic attacks. This time I decided to do something different and just admit that I needed the medication to help me calm down. I reminded myself that that's what it's there for and that it didn't mean I had somehow "failed" or something.

And you know what? Even though I did feel pretty sleepy the rest of day, I was able to continue to function and I haven't had another panic attack sense. I actually feel very proud of myself for managing my anxiety and taking care of myself, rather than denying that I needed a little extra help. I also was glad that I managed it on my own. Sometimes I'll call my mom and she'll come home and stay with me until I feel better. This time though I just called her to let her know what had happened but told her to stay at work because I had it under control. And I did have it under control.

That is what I call a successful panic attack.

What kind of successes are you having this week?

A Beautiful, Honest Poem

I was scrolling through facebook today and I came across this blog:#BeReal by Nicole Marie.

Here is a poem on the blog that really hit me:

I might have been seven

– Nicole Marie

when I’d grown old enough to know the
hard difference
between love and
convenience,
I started about fashioning
the most beautiful smokescreen

with

bits of old velcro
wrinkled bubblegum
wrappers

the first tears that ever made me aware of every muscle in my body
in one single, fleeting motion

you know it
the kind of hurt that rolls in and out like violent ocean.

I might have been seven when I realized I didn’t like me.

I kept all those costume bits in a pencil box
with my name scrawled in immature
loops on the front, the “e” half smudged away
like my heart.

I am a woman now
or some novel version of one

who on occasion takes aging bits of herself she’d rather forget
and mixes them with words, with her husband’s sweet empathy
with anger, resentment, and all the other ugliness
she can’t seem to detach from her sorry ribcage.

so, a woman now
a mother, even

plotting self against self 

click here for the original post

I think it's fair to say that we all have felt like this at one point in our lives. It reminds me of the moment when all of sudden you've grown up and you're no longer a child. It's like a sudden event that changes everything. I'm sure it's different for everyone but for me it was when my mother was having treatment for her cancer when I was nine. I was old enough to realize that she could die, and I'd have to grow up with out a mother. I think that's when my childhood sort of ended. Thankfully she is in remission and has been for over 20 years now, but that moment, that moment changed my life.