The Anxiety Timeline

My anxiety has taken on different personalities over time. I never know which wacky panic attack I will have. They seem to run in long cycles. For example - if my anxiety/fear is crossing the street - I will struggle with that for at least 6 months. I have not had a "classic" panic attack in about 15 years. What is a classic panic attack you may ask - well, I would say that would be a racing heart, numbness of your legs and/or hands, shortness of breath and dizziness. I will still experience some of these symptoms - but usually as a reaction to my main panic symptom (whatever it currently is). The anxiety I have been suffering from over the past 5 years has been downright paralyzing. It has halted my life and I have talked about some of these more recent experiences in other entries (like my challenges with the subway or when I battled Serotonin Syndrome). When I talk about my symptoms with friends and family...I am usually extremely embarrassed and if I am not crying...I am making it into a comedy routine, because it is all too wacky to be real. It is hard to let my guard down and just let people hear how I am feeling - let them into the window of my brain and experience what it is like to be me right now. Even my doctors tend to mock me about my most recent panic - it is just so odd. I know it is silly - but to my brain...it is a fight or flight situation and I can't stop it if I am in a tailspin. All rational thinking goes out the window...yet at the same time I am completely aware that it is happening. We will get to my current anxiety state, but first I feel it is important to go back to the history of my panic...I guess back further then I have ever considered to be panic. Shit! As I sit here writing this with my aging cat on my lap I realize that my anxiety attacks started as a child...shortly after my Mother died. Welcome to the journey of my anxiety history...

Hmmm - what is the earliest panic attack I can remember? They are all kind of blurring together on the "early years timeline". I did have a lot of anxiety surrounding sleep - as young as 5 or 6 years old. Even before my Mother died (but she was sick - so my little world was being rocked to the core). I remember needing someone to sit with me while falling asleep. I just needed to know I was safe. After my Mother died much of that security was gone, so I created an army of protectors. I had over 75 stuffed animals and I slept with ALL of them. I suffered from the classic "monster under the bed" syndrome. My monster was an alligator. I would take a running jump into my red gingham bed. Once safely under the covers (the quilt my mother made for me when she was dying) I would meticulously encircle myself with my plush army (head to toe and side to side). Snoopy under my arm. I was afraid to lay on my side...if I turned my back to the windows then someone would get in and kill me, if I turned my back to the wall...a monster would reach through and kill me too. The hall light had to be left on and my door had to be at least half way open. I would lie awake at night wondering if my mother was out there somewhere. Wondering if it was all a lie and if she just chose to leave. The decision to not allow me at her funeral proved to be a mistake...I never completely believed she was dead.

I went through a short period of sleep walking. It was a haze...but I remember some of it. One night I had a dream about lions attacking me...the faces and fangs just kept coming at me like a looping film and I was banging on my brother's door confused and afraid. My brother put a latch on his door so I could not get in his room. I was terrified and no one helped or hugged me. The lion was an important symbol of courage in our house...when my mother was battling cancer she was given a plush lion to help her keep the faith - those lions turned on me after she was gone.

I developed a paralyzing fear of thunder storms. As I got older, it got worse. I don't remember how old I was when it started, but I do remember freaking out at 13 years old while in our summer home on Cape Cod. My room was an open loft in our small uninsulated cottage. There was nowhere to hide from the storms and I would completely panic. My Dad and my Stepmother eventually stopped trying to comfort me and locked me out too. "Go to BED!". The panic during storms was with me into my 20's. I would hide in the closet with my cigarettes and a candle to wait out the booms and rumbles. I feel safe from thunder storms in NYC...not sure how I would react in the country - but I think I am MUCH better then I was.

When I was 20 years old I moved to Boston for a year. I was not in college. I moved in with a friend from my hometown who was in college and a bunch of random roommates. After a few months of sharing an apartment with 4 other girls they decided to move downtown and I decided to stay near the Chestnut Hill Mall where I was working. I got my own apartment...boy, was that a mistake. My ridiculous fear of sleep came back with a vengeance. I kept the lights on and always thought someone was outside my window. This felt like panic. My heart would race and I slowly feel into a serious depression. To numb myself from the pain I would eat excessive amounts of food and put on at least 40 pounds. I had to call my Dad for money to help me buy clothes since nothing fit. Eventually my Dad came to get me. I don't remember much about that time - only that one day my Dad was there and the next a moving truck took all my stuff back to New Jersey. Somewhere during the madness...I got myself into college - so in the fall of 1991 I finally went to school and that is when the mental illness kicked in.

I attended a women's seaside junior college in Massachusetts. No distractions of guys or being 18. I was 21 years old and finally mature enough to focus on school. I already knew what life was like without college and I wanted more than just a job at the mall or being alone. I was an advertising major and I kicked ass at it. I was a role model in my dorm. I'm not sure...but I think I was in a good place emotionally for the first semester - the second semester was another story. My roommate did not return to school after the winter break...and I was alone again. I was pulling a 4.0 and on the tennis team. I started to develop a fear of large venues - I always needed to not only know where the exit was...but where the bathroom was in case I needed to throw up. My heart would race. Eventually the fear of being sick followed me everywhere and I could not sleep in my room at night...rather the bathroom floor! I was afraid to leave the bathroom!!! (Note I had not thrown up since I was 18 and maybe 5 times in my life). I would usually fall asleep against the cold lime green tiled floor and would wake-up in the middle of the night and finally get in my bed. I would sit in class having heart palpitations. I eventually went to the nurse's office and told her about the palpitations. She showed me a way to stop my heart from fluttering - which was to bare down as if you were trying to take a shit! (Sorry to be so blunt). It actually worked. I never told her about the fear of throwing up. My anxiety started to shift towards psychosis in the spring. My graphic design professor was pregnant and I couldn't stand to be in her class because I would obsessively visualize her internal organs, the fetus and pulsating blood...I almost passed out in her class. I was her favorite student...and I was losing my mind! I started to have problems driving my car. My hands and feet felt numb and disconnected from my body. I finally told one of my best friends from boarding school about some (not all) of my "issues"...she was having anxiety as well and decided to come visit me. Holy crap...this is one of the more hilarious stories from my life...and also one of the most embarrassing and sad. What is terrible is that I have never told a professional and I really should have been hospitalized during this time...if I had...maybe all of this would have been fixed 17 years ago.

My best friend at the time was Jessica (she is still in my life today). We had been best friends since we were in boarding school together for one year back in 1984. She was a rebellious debutant from Connecticut who was kicked out of 6 high schools for behavior issues. We somehow managed to stay in touch as she bounced from New England prep school to prep school. Jessica is one year younger then me, a stunning platinum blond, who is brilliant, creative, incredibly talented, and unfortunately insane. She stops traffic with her looks and wins every argument. She is a whirlwind and for about 10 years of my life we were terribly co-dependant. Jessica often caused riffs with the other people in my life and my parents even banned her from my house. (Of course I would sneak her in when they were away).

When Jessica came to visit me up at school she had recently been told that her family had lost most of their money and they were moving to North Carolina to be with her grandparents...without her. During this time she was in her hippy phase. She would rarely shower and wear long dresses. A week before her visit with me she had been out in LA with her verbally abusive boyfriend and was caught in the middle of the LA riots. She came to me hyper and in a bipolar tailspin. She believed she was dying from either AIDS or cancer and had gone to an emergency room in LA seeking help. Between me sleeping in the bathroom and Jessica staying up all night rambling to my dorm mates - we were a terrible pair. She was driving me crazy and I was just trying to finish the school year. She just wouldn't leave!

The last straw for us came on one of my last nights of school. I was attending the athletic awards ceremony where I was receiving an athletic scholar award. Jessica sent one of my friends to come get me and interrupted my evening - I wouldn't leave...I wanted my award and this was my moment. Jessica showed up just as I was leaving with my lame piece of paper in hand...they spelled both my first and last name wrong...such a buzz kill. I was furious with Jessica for ruining my night...but I was afraid of her mood swings so I NEVER confronted her. She said she was having a panic attack and needed to get off campus. That she was too sick to drive and could we please just go somewhere. We headed to the white trash mall near campus. We wandered around with little money and nothing to do. We finally bought a huge bag of Twizzlers, some soda and headed back to school in defeat. We quickly started to binge on the Twizzlers in my car, our only relief from our inner pain. We often binged together. Half way through the bag Jessica asked if I thought the Twizzlers seemed wet. I told her that I thought there was just some condensation on them. She started to freak out...literally! She was convinced that we had been poisoned. She said she did not feel well and that we had to get to the hospital immediately. I refused to take her. But as the minutes went by I started to feel funky. The funny thing about me is that I always know when I am losing it...I never JUST lose it. I told her that we were both just having a panic attack. She pressed on, begging me to stop at the nearest payphone so she could call poison control. Finally I appeased her and pulled over. I watched her as she called the 800 number from a payphone in front of a 7/11. Shaking my head in the car. My hands were numb. She was working herself into a tizzy. She jumped back in the car and she said that poison control told her to take the Twizzlers and herself to the nearest hospital...she was now hysterical...I had to listen. I drove as fast as possible...then out of a comedy....we were stuck at a train crossing. A TRAIN CROSSING! We were going to die from Twizzlers as a freight train blocked our path to the hospital. I tried to joke about it...I think we may have managed at least one giggle. We were both sticking our heads out of my Honda Accord windows trying to get fresh air...being that we were dying and all. I was laughing and crying. Finally the train passed and the white barricades went up. We pulled into the parking lot and I chickened out. "Jessica, this is ridiculous, we are not dying from Twizzlers, we are having a panic attack, I'm not going in there!". She hopped out of the car - Twizzlers in had and ran through the emergency room doors - her vintage Ralph Lauren southwestern wrap blowing in the wind behind her. It was all VERY dramatic. Jessica's life was ALWAYS dramatic! I waited in the car for about 5 minutes. I did not know it then...and we never talk about it now...but Jessica suffers from borderline personality disorder (BPD) - all I knew was that she must be making a scene in there, and maybe I should go in and save her. Even before I got to the check-in window I could hear Jessica screaming at the doctors that if they didn't test her Twizzlers she would sue them. Yep, she was making a scene. Sue a hospital for not testing her moist Twizzlers? Oy vey! I could see security milling around...and it was getting serious. I leaned over the check-in window. I told the nurse that I was with the young lady in the wrap. I whispered to her that Jessica was in LA a week earlier, unfortunately during the riots and had taken herself to the emergency room then as well. Clearly...she was unravelling. The nurse looked at me and said "You don't look good honey, I think we should check YOUR pulse". Of course I didn't look good! I had not slept in 4 months other then the bathroom floor, my professor had a creepy fetus growing in her belly that I could see, I needed to "bare down" a few times a day to stop my heart from fluttering and my best friend was having a fucking meltdown.

I don't know how we left the hospital, but we did. I just remember telling Jessica that she had to leave the next morning. I told her she did not have AIDS, or cancer or Cyanide poisoning. It took her about 8 hours to drive home because she had to keep pulling over to the side of the road (the trip is usually 3 hours). Within a week Jessica was checked into a psychiatric hospital. I finished the year with my 4.0 and never told my parents or anyone else about my mental breakdown. The first time I told a doctor was last year...because he was smart enough to ask. I too had a difficult time driving home - it was the longest trip of my life. When I visited Jessica in the hospital she was still in a paranoid state.

My parents were moving from New Jersey to NYC and they suggested that I transfer schools and live with them in the city. They were very proud of the work I had done at school and wanted to see me challenge myself academically. Perhaps they knew that I needed to be at home and found a different way to word it. I spent the summer of 1992 at fat camp again as a counselor. I was VERY stressed out. I was on medication - Prozac and Xanax. I was having panic attacks all the time and trying to hide them from a bunk full of 16 year old girls. I have no idea how I did it. I was often agitated - and eventually my campers confronted me about being mean all the time...I was always the nice one. Once they called me out on my shit I changed my attitude. I recently had dinner with my campers who are now in the their 30's! I told them about my challenges with mental illness and they were all shocked...they couldn't believe that I was able to hide it from them...most of them really looked up to me and we were very close.

The fall of 1992 I went to an art school in NYC and was fine except for when I had to drive. When driving I would "disconnect" from my body...everything would go numb and I couldn't feel my hands. I remember driving out to New Jersey for an event with my cousins and on the way home I had such a serious panic attack that I needed to turn around and stay at their house. I never went into detail - they just let me in when I showed up at their door crying...I crawled into my cousin's bed and took a nap - I waited out my mental storm.

I was able to live with this kind of panic for about 10 years. It was off and on - but manageable until 5 years ago. I have blogged about my experience with the start of my meltdown 5 years ago. Read my last entry about my brother...I talk about how disconnected I became...all the time (depersonalization). The combo of my thyroid medication and Prozac sent me over the edge and I went on medical leave. I was disconnected for about a year - seeing life through a fish bowl...unable to snap back. It's like being on a ton of cold meds all the time or stoned.

Once I started to snap back from the disconnected feeling - my panic of walking the streets and open spaces started to really kick in. My fear of open spaces started with a walk to see my psychiatrist through the uptown part of Union Square. I needed to be near buildings or at least a railing - if not...I didn't feel safe and everything would start to spin. Eventually this need to be near something to lean on made it impossible to cross the street! I once stood frozen in the middle of 3rd Avenue...my feet just stopped moving. I suffered from this anxiety of the streets and open spaces for nearly 2 years! This panic just recently lifted. While I am still "aware" that I am crossing the street or walking through an open space...I am still able to do it. Recently there was construction in Union Square so I was able to walk through a fenced in area that made me feel safe. They removed the fencing and just last night I walked through the park...I wish I could report that all went well...but it did not. My heart started to race - but I was able to keep my feet moving...by the time I met up with my friend for dinner I was having a panic attack. It wasn't massive...but it was brewing. We sat in the restaurant for about 15 minutes staring at the menu - and finally I started to have a meltdown. I needed to leave and on the street I let my guard down and told her I was not doing well. She has heard about my problems, but never seen them...I just cried in her arms (literally)...completely defeated. We went to a coffee shop and she bought me a ginger tea. We talked until I calmed down. I dumped all of my recent major family stress on her - since I do not have a therapist - I clearly needed to put it somewhere. This was my second panic attack in a week. I am also currently suffering from PMDD - please reference my entry from 10/4/08 to learn more. PMDD exacerbates all of my anxiety.

Here is a VERY honest description of what I am currently battling. I will be using words that maybe (and SHOULD be) offensive. My current major anxiety symptom is a fear of losing control (I guess all of them are about losing control!). This fear manifests in the form of what I can only describe as "inner" turret's. This panic is the one that when I share it with others - either causes people to laugh because it makes them SO uncomfortable or for my doctors to at some point mock me. I think that no one emotionally knows what to do with this information and I just hate talking about it. When in a public setting where I cannot speak...like a Broadway show, movie or conference room presentation I get the sensation that I am going to blurt out something completely inappropriate. This started about 4 months ago when at the off-Broadway show "Saved". Again...this was exaggerated by PMDD. The lights went down in the tiny west side theater and suddenly I thought I was going to blurt out "Fuck" or "Nigger". My mind focused on the MOST offensive words - words that even offend me. I covered my mouth with my left hand while squeezing my right thigh with the other. I was 3 seats in and I couldn't get out. I tried to focus on my breathing...I tried counting...I tried focusing on the colors on stage...nothing would release me from what was like an OCD hell! My heart was racing and I couldn't breath. The play was awful and just kept going and going. "Fuck", "Nigger"...racing through my head..."STOP"! My hand was aching from covering my mouth...I had to switch hands. The room was spinning. Finally after a painfully long first act - the lights went up. I turned to my boss's assistant next to me and I told her I had a migraine and needed to leave. I couldn't get out of that theater fast enough. I broke down crying the moment I walked in my door.

Attending movies and shows is a requirement of my job. What a wonderful requirement...wonderful for anyone but me. I have to hide this anxiety and all I can do is cover my mouth and sweat. I have since attended stand-up comedy and a major award show...all the while suffering. I thought that maybe I was getting better - I still felt like I was going to "blurt", but my mind has stopped focusing on such terrible words - it is just a general feeling of losing control. My heart does not race as much...well..until 10 days ago...UGH! I went to a Broadway show with the same assistant - "13 the Musical". We were in the 3rd row...luckily I was on the isle this time. I know most of the kids in the show. The lights went down...and my panic came back! I waited about 15 minutes before getting up. I went to the bathroom and took Klonopin. I stayed at the back of the theater for the rest of the show...only returning to my seat for the finale. When we left the theater I finally told my collegue about my anxiety. I certainly did not tell her the details - but I sobbed. I could not hide it from her any longer - I needed her to understand. She is the one that arranges most of my nights out...I needed her to know that everytime I cover an event it is a success for me...it is a big deal. That I spend weeks worrying about the next one. She had many questions, but was also VERY supportive. I begged her not to tell our boss and explained that it was a big deal for me to be sharing with her...I just pray that she has the maturity to not gossip about it. I found the words to tell her that I am still strong and a competant bussiness woman and that this will pass...but that I need her support during this time. I needed her to know I was still a good person. If I was not facing Disability Discrimation at work - I would tell everyone.

I hope to one day share my story with everyone...and show my face with pride. For now I can only share annoynomously and pray that I get better.