panic (but minus the disco)

I was a junior in high school when I had my first panic attack. I was standing on stage, preparing to sing in chorus, when all of the sudden I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The back of my neck started to sweat, my hands began to feel tingly and I felt like I was going to throw up. 

I stood in front of the entire audience, frozen. I moved my lips to make it look like I was singing, but nothing was actually coming out. I couldn’t comprehend what was happening, but I felt like I was dying. “This is it.” I thought. “This is how I’m going to die. In the middle of my chorus concert, wearing hideous, black gaucho pants. What an awful way to go out.”

After the concert, I immediately grabbed my phone to Google my symptoms. WebMD seemed to have all the answers. It was simple: I was either having a heart attack, a stroke or a panic attack. Not exactly the comfort I was looking to find.

It didn’t even cross my mind that I could have had a panic attack. I mean – I had no idea what that even meant. But… I had assumed since I was in fact, still alive, that maybe there was a slight chance that I had one. 

I went back to Google and typed in “symptoms of a panic attack” and sure enough, all the symptoms I had experienced were front and center. At the end of the article it said in bold:

“A panic attack is a mental disorder and if you are experiencing it you should seek help immediately.”

“I was better off having the the fucking stroke.” I thought to myself. 

I put my phone away and chalked it up as a “fluke” incident. If anything, I would blame my large Caramel Swirl Dunkin Donut iced coffee that I drank with 4 creams and 4 sugars. That had to be it. The milkshake that I was trying to pass as an iced coffee had finally caught up with me and my body was rejecting it. Case closed!

Unfortunately, I wasn’t just over-caffeinated. The panic attacks followed me throughout my life after that. They’d sneak up on me during the day, always looking different then the last; thinking I was going to vomit in the middle of class, insomnia that would keep me up at night, feeling like I couldn’t breathe while at the gym. 

I had them through the rest of high school, into college and a year or two after graduation. I never really understood them. I could go two months without having one and then all of the sudden have three in one day. The anxiety and panic attacks weren’t completely taking over my life to the point of not being able to function, but it was enough where I realized I was no longer living, I was merely surviving, looking for distractions to get through the day.

I know this story sounds depressing as fuck. Stay with me – it gets better!

When I turned 23 I realized that doing nothing wasn’t helping me. Distracting myself with validation from Instagram and that extra glass of wine at night was only doing so much. No one was going to fix me except for me, so I turned inwards.

I started meditating, not really understanding what I was doing at first or how this would help me. I would sit on a pillow on my floor, while listening to a guided meditation on the Calm app. I’d take a few deep breaths, thinking I was getting somewhere and then my mind would immediately dart to what I was going to have for breakfast. But with time, practice and eventually caving in and paying for the Calm app (all worth it, of course) I learned how to let all thoughts come and go, especially the anxious ones. 

I also started therapy (shout-out to my girl SUSANNNN!) and not only learned tools to help calm me down when I was anxious, but learned what was triggering me to feel that way in the first place. This was huge for me. There were certain people, places,and even things that made me anxious. Just being able to recognize them allowed me to take the power back from my anxiety. 

Journaling has been a huge outlet for me as well, ( Check out @amberrae on Instagram for specific prompts!) When I can’t articulate how I’m feeling, I’ll write how I feel. Writing all of my worries, anxieties and fears onto a piece of paper, without it needing to make  sense or be grammatically correct, makes me feel lighter. 

My anxiety was not fixed overnight. It’s taken years of peeling back layers of myself, practicing self-love and compassion and letting go of the perfectionism that was holding me hostage. I’ve begun setting realistic expectations of myself and not getting upset when something doesn’t go as planned. I’m (trying) to let go of control and, dare I say, ~go with the flow~

I still have moments when my anxiety creeps in, but what has changed in the last 10 years is that I now feel safe talking about it. I’m no longer ashamed about it, I’m proud of how far I’ve come to manage it.

Let’s start talking about working on our mental health the same way we would talk about working on our physical health in the gym. Except minus the gym-bros with the ridiculously deep cut-off shirts.