October: Oh boy. A big one. October - Get rid of fear. I tend to be fearful of ridiculous things. It's time to face some of them head on.
I have been paralyzed before. It's not a secret or something I haven't brought up in the past. I have left fear consume me in the past. To the point where I dropped out of college for a semester. And almost out of grad school. And a number of other things.
I had never experience panic or anxiety before. Here is how it started and how it evolved into something I could not contain. And how I've somewhat managed to come back from it.
It was January 2004 and I was sick of the disgusting Massachusetts weather so I decided to apply for a semester at the University of Arizona. I was accepted for the fall of 2004, and I was incredibly thrilled. I had never been to that area of the country but had always wanted to go and more importantly I wanted to avoid a winter and have one year of warm weather. I had spent a semester in Spain previously but this was for a longer time. Still, it was in the USA and flights home would be feasible. Plus my parents said they would visit.
My friend, Meghan and I eagerly planned a 5 week road trip through the entire USA ending with me at the U of A. I needed to drive because at this time in my life I had let one fear control me. My fear of flying. I had had a really rough flight in February 2002 that kind of scarred me. I literally thought we were going to crash. Meghan and I planned to go literally everywhere. We were told our trip was too ambitious. It wasn't. We went everywhere we said we wanted to go and even had a week left over to go to more places. We hit 35 states that trip. (And after a subsequent week long Spring 2005 trip, we managed to visit 48 states).
About a week before the trip I started to feel something rumbling in my stomach that was making me nervous. It was nothing I had ever felt before. I can still mentally transport myself to this time because it was so incredibly raw. I remember the night we left - July 26 - I spent a few hours crying but could not figure out what was wrong. I thought it might be anticipating homesickness. I had experienced that feeling for, I am not exaggerating, 15 seconds when leaving for Spain. But the feeling quickly went away as Meghan and I drove down the coast. We were making an overnight drive to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Around 2p the next day I was filling up our gas tank at a random place in North Carolina when Meghan went inside to go to the bathroom. And something inside me SNAPPED. It felt like someone had ignited a stick of dynamite in me. I started breathing really heavily and my mind felt like it was wired. I couldn't stop the racing thoughts that kept coming back to leaving for 5 months and all the things I would miss at home. And what if my parents died while I was gone? What? Where did that come from? I am not a crier but I couldn't stop crying and felt like I couldn't breathe. For a few hours, Meghan and I tried to figure out what was wrong. I traced it back to her leaving to go inside and me thinking to myself that I was going to be alone in AZ for 5 months. I called my parents and talked to them and begged them to let me come home if this feeling wouldn't go away. They didn't like the idea but could hear something was really wrong so they said ok. Instantly, once I knew I had permission to come home if I needed to and wouldn't be thought of as a failure, all the panic ceased.
Meghan and I enjoyed 4.5 weeks of amazing adventures with 0 panic attacks. I thought it was over. Then on August 17, Meghan and I ventured to the meteor crater in AZ but were too late and arrived after it closed. About 1/4 mile away from the entrance, the car started to overheat. Something was wrong with my little car. We called AAA and they towed us back to our hotel in Flaggstaff then we went out and hit up Chilis and drank our faces off. I drank way too much and was sick the entire next day which was ok because the car was begin fixed. But while we were holed up in the hotel room, the panic started to set in because Flaggstaff was our last stop before Tucson - my ultimate destination.
By the way, just writing about all of this is giving me chills because I remember these moments so vividly and the terror is still there subconsciously. This is my way of confronting that fear.
Again, something flicked that light switch but I had never failed at anything before so I fought m way through it and we ended up at the U of A on August 19. Meghan and I tried to snap me out of it. I was placed in a freshman dorm wehre I was the only senior and my original roommate that I had gotten to know over AIM for a few months before had transferred to a California School for softball. I was left with this random girl who was already rushing a sorority. And all I could think of was how scary this situation was because my body was reacting in this weird way. I talked to my RA, my RD, the director of my exchange program, and to school officials. I also attended a church service and met with their pastor and he prayed for me. I even switched out of the freshman dorm into a senior housing complex. I tried breathing exercise. Nothing seemed to work. I had phone conversations with my mom and some of her friends because my parents had gone to Mexico that week and I couldn't reach them. It was round the clock, 24-hour panic for 4 days straight. Exhausting.
In the end, I asked Meghan to not leave me. To not get on her plane and come home and instead to drive home with me because clearly I was not in the state to do it alone. To ask for help is something I am not good at so this was a big deal for me to ask. And she was awesome - she did it. But unlike the first time the feeling did not go away when I dropped out of the U of A. Instead my mind continued to focus on all the crazy things I had been thinking about - what if my parents died? What if I died? What if I never got married? What if I never had kids? There were thousands of questions swirling around at once and I couldn't focus or find any answers.
I tried talk to my friend, Justin, who had gone on a semester exchange and he was the one who gave me the idea to do it and he said if I dropped out, what would stop me from dropping out of everything in life? If I gave into my fear once, what would I become. His question didn't help at the time but it has helped a LOT since then. I constantly ask myself that question whenever I feel scared to do something.
When I got home, I decided to not go back to UMass until the spring. I had more than enough credits. I immediately went to see my doctor and she told me to take some anti-anxiety medication. I had never even thought that was what I was going through and there was no way in HELL I was going to take that stuff. I point blank asked her if there was an immediate fix to stop the panic and she said no. By the way, the answer is yes. It's called xanax. Or anything like it would've stopped it within the hour. I called many many many people and talked for hours and hours. But I refused medication and counseling. And I wasted 5 months of my life to sitting on the couch every day and watching tv. I became nothing. I let fear control me.
I wrote this journal on August 25, 2004: "I can not explain what I am going through right now. It's absolutely terrible. Something is really wrong and I don't know what it is or how to fix it. It's like I have become a 3 year old child... I need to be around people all the time or I freak out.
I feel like I am being suffocated and I don't know what I want to do with my life when I graduate and that scares me. I never really understood before. I feel like I am choking. It's like a million things crushing me all at once. And I can't think about them fast enough."
I basically didn't have another panic attack until one year later on August 29, 2005 when I enrolled in graduate school and freaked out about all the unanswered questions that went along with doing a master's program in 1 year and teaching full time in an inner city. I had a panic attack for 4 months straight. That is not an exaggeration. That happened. I barely slept. But I pushed through because what was my alternative? Live in my parents' basement and collect welfare? I couldn't let it get me that badly. And it ended up working out wonderfully and I met some amazing people.
It makes me regret not going to the U of A. What would I have gained from it? So I try to use that thought too whenever I feel like copping out. What will I miss by leaving this?
I still have many fears. I have learned to manage the panic and I have an emergency supply of xanax to get me through in case I can't. But mostly I avoid panic because I don't think about my fears. And I need to. Because I faced my fears before and I know how that turned out so I can face my fears now. Right? It's time to explore mentally what would happened if these things occurred. Should be interesting.
But I won't be paralyzed this time. Here is how.
I am reading a book called The Dark Side of the Light Chasers that is helping me face some of these fears and embrace the things I am scared of. Sometimes all I need is simple knowledge to overcome something. I have many fears from my parents dying to my own death or spiders and snakes so I am going to try to get over as many as possible as quickly as possible. It will make me stronger. And give me tools to overcome fears in the future.
I have to say though, I really don't want to do this. I am scared to do this. I thin I would rather be put in a tank filled with gross creatures than do this. So that's why I have to, right?
You are a very strong women. I am proud of you, and I am always here for you.
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