I’m Not Panicking, You Are
Don’t look, it’s embarrassing.
Shame, be gone. Okay. Confession time. Honesty releases shame, here we go. The thing I hate the most about myself are the panic attacks. I’ve had them my whole life. The first one I remember I was 2. Not just a tantrum, it pulled me under, tried to choke me the way it tends to go. The panic attacks come and go, but I can never seem to permanently get rid of them. I’ll go stretches months, sometimes almost a year without having one. Long enough that I convince myself it’s done, in the past. And bam! out of nowhere it comes back. Sam, be honest. Ok, it’s not out of nowhere, obviously. But saying that makes me feel shame. What if I want to have the perfect life? But no, instead I have panic attacks. I have pain. Pain, it’s physically painful. And I’m ashamed that it hurts. Where did I learn that? Did you learn that too?
Once I have one, especially after not having any for a long time, I start to worry it will happen all the time. I’ll live underwater with no gills. Gasping for air, not breathing, not dying. I would do anything to avoid having one but I know it’s not up to me. That’s the part that’s maddening. It’s not like tears, you can’t hold back a panic attack. That’s the whole point, it’s consuming, you’re out of control. I hate that. So I end up panicking about panicking, which makes me spiral even more.
I want to believe that as I get older they’ll happen less, maybe one day never. “One day” is the type of hope that always disappoints. And unfortunately, it seems like the older I get the more I have REAL ADULT PROBLEMS™ which causes real adult stress which turns into real adult panic attacks. If you’ve never had one, I never wish it on you. It’s horrible. You die while being alive the entire time. I don’t know how else to say it, but it’s actually a harrowing experience. You quickly understand why so many people end up in the ER thinking they’re having a heart attack. I don’t know what a heart attack feels like, but maybe kinda like that.
People don’t talk about this shit. Or they do in that trifling TikTok way. SHUT THE FUCK UP. Real talk, Andrea Gibson was the first person I ever heard put into words the experience. She describes it eloquently. I don’t know. Besides saying, “my hands are dead now” I personally find it too slippery to actually talk about.
Of course, therapy helps, there’s meds and shit you can take if you’re able to tolerate it, my body refuses. Maddening, but it is what it is. Besides that, I do all the good things I’m supposed to do. Be good, self-care, no negative self-talk, exercise, sleep, eat, I get it. I’m not trying to be a bitch, it does help. But explaining to another shrink that I’m suddenly completely alone, with nowhere to live, no coherent future, a past full of lies, no one to count on, a mountain of paperwork, and no explanation from her… I mean yeah, I don’t need a professional to tell me it’s understandable to be having recurrence. But validation doesn’t mean you can suddenly tame your panic attacks. It doesn’t matter if they’re somewhat justified. The panic comes when it wants, it kicks me in the teeth, and I have no say. Talk about feeling helpless.
It’s hard not to be afraid of what you don’t know. For so long, I’ve felt like the words escape me, like I can’t actually understand why this happens because I can’t talk about the experience accurately. Intellectually, sure, I understand why it happens. But I have never been able to fully grasp the panic and look at it, examine it, and really try to understand. You can’t hold panic. And that’s scary. So I tried to make a panic attack. By having a panic attack and sculpting the experience.
What panic looks like surprised me at first but it makes sense. As I was gasping for air, my fingers clenching painfully, I remember digging into the clay, trying to desperately clutch the feeling that I love so much, but instead it got mutilated. I won’t show you, it’s not for you. It’s too embarrassing, I don’t know you. You’re not supposed to see people’s private things like that. Okay? So instead, you can picture it in your mind’s eye based on the close up above. The final sculpture looks like getting torn apart from the inside while drowning. Does that make sense? Maybe still not so much. Such a strange thing that our bodies are able to do. I won’t lie and say I understand. I don’t.
