High Anxiety

As soon as I crossed to the Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge, I moved over to the left lane, and cruised along in my parents giant Ford Taurus, happily singing to the tunes on WDHA, “Jersey’s rock station.” I was on my way from my brother Jim’s apartment in Manhattan and was headed back to my parents’ house in the North Jersey burbs. Making lots of local trips to visit with family and friends is just part of being home for the holidays. This particular 40 minute drive is one that I’ve done more times than I can remember. Being in the car by myself with nothing but my thoughts, some snacks and the radio to keep me company is something I had always enjoyed.

I was lost in my thoughts when suddenly my heart beat sped up and a wave of heat washed over me. Even though it was about 30 degrees outside I figured it couldn’t hurt to open the window a bit. I tried to remain calm and just pass it off as an inexplicable hot flash that would go away quickly. I looked at my hands on the steering wheel and saw them shaking uncontrollably. My heart was racing faster than I’d ever felt it, my limbs were feeling increasingly numb and my entire body was covered in sweat. And I was driving 80 miles per hour in the left lane of 6 lanes of traffic. I did my best to recall my social work training in crisis management. “Ok, take deep breaths,” said the calm rational part of my mind that was fighting to take charge. I attempted the deepest breaths possible. “Put on your hazards and your blinker.” Check and check. “Move over to the right lane.” Slowly I got there. “Ok, you’re still shaky and your heart is racing but you’re ok. Worst case scenario, you can pull over in the shoulder.” Ok, thanks, rational mind. But I’m still freaking out. “We can make it to the next exit and pull over and call someone.” Ok, but did you see that sign? Next exit 8 miles. “Shit, that’s kinda far. But wait, since you saw it, we probably drove at least a mile.” Good point, I can do this.

I took the next exit, my heart racing and arms shaking the entire time. I pulled off on to a residential side street and parked the car. More deep breaths. “You’re ok. You managed to escape one of the busiest highways in the country without crashing into anything. Nice work.” Thanks, rational part of me, said my shaky self. But my heart is still racing. “Maybe a walk would help.” I walked one block and had to turn around because my stomach was doing flips. I called my friend Lisa and explained my bizarre situation. Lisa was the fantastic friend she always is and said she’d come get me immediately. She warned me that it would probably take her about half an hour to get there. I assured her that I’d be okay just waiting. Then the heart racing returned with a vengeance. I called Jim, who did his best to calm me down but now that I was out of the immediate crisis of crashing into cars, I started to think about the fact that something crazy was happening to my body and I had no clue what it was. Jim suggested I call 911 just to be safe. He had a point. I’d rather be embarrassed that it’s nothing then be in flight to the pearly gates and say, “Maybe 911 could’ve dealt with this one.” I dialed 911.

"911."

“Hi, first of all- this is not an immediate emergency," I said in the calmest voice I could muster up.

I explained my situation and told the woman that I didn’t really think I needed an ambulance but I just didn’t want to be stupid and ignore the signs. I told her that it would be at least a half hour before my friend got there. That 911 gal was so great. After asking a series of medical questions and determining there was no immediate emergency, she said, “There’s a cop near that neighborhood now. Want me to ask him to just go and hang out with you until your friend shows up?” Sounds perfect. Lisa got a bit lost on the way to meet me (which is quite understandable since I was pulled off in the most random of locations) so it turned out to be about an hour before she showed up. In the meantime, the cop and I shot the shit and tried to diagnose me.

“Ya sure you’re not pregnant?”

“No sir, I’m not pregnant.”

“Maybe just an anxiety attack then?”

“Maybe. Good chance of it actually. But why now when I’ve never had an anxiety attack in my entire life and as far as I know I’m not anxious?”

“Yeah, that makes no sense. You’ll be all right though. You’re gonna be ok.”

It’s funny how telling someone he or she will be okay is “deal with sick or agitated person” 101 but it really does help, even coming from a mustachioed stranger who looked like he was straight out of Reno 911. I decided maybe I should try to take my mind off of it and talk about other things. “So…get anything good for Christmas, Officer?”

Lisa and I went back to her house and relaxed with delicious take-out sushi and "Sex and the City" DVDs. I began to feel better, although my heart rate never really felt like it was back to normal. The next day I went to see “The Aviator” with my parents, and we had to leave about 15 minutes into the movie, because my shaking and sweating was back. Crap. Even Leo DiCaprio couldn’t calm me down. This was serious. I needed to fly back to Oakland, California the next morning and was terrified of being a convulsing nervous freak during the entire flight. I went to the ER. I signed in and shared a nice little laugh with the intake gal, when we realized that the last time I was at St. Clare’s hospital was the day I was born. After a bunch of tests, I was given the great news that nothing at all was wrong with me. “Probably just an anxiety attack,” the doctor told me with no trace of bedside manner.

“Wow!” I said. “Super psyched to hear that! Don’t know if it’s in my chart there, but I’ve never had an anxiety attack in my life so this isn’t exactly great news.” I tried to explain that it seems that something IS wrong with me if I’m repeatedly getting anxiety attacks for reasons that are completely unclear to me. And given the situation while I was driving, it seems that these little “attacks” could shape up be quite dangerous. The doctor’s answer was to hand me a prescription for Xanax.

“Here- you can take this if you begin to feel anxious. Probably want to see your local doctor when you get back to SF.”

Thanks, dude.

I didn’t sleep at all that night because not only was I terrified of more panic attacks, I was scared to taked a drug I’d never taken before, and then get on a plane by myself. In one day I had become a completely different person. Where was the gal that could travel to Africa by herself? The one who could drive across the country alone? Suddenly I couldn’t bear the thought of driving down the highway or getting on a freaking plane.

It’s a miracle I didn’t get addicted to Xanax.

I reluctantly popped a pill before my dad and I headed to the airport. The doctor said the Xanax would take about half an hour to kick in and sure enough, just as I arrived at the airport, I felt remarkably calm. It’s as if the travel gods wanted to test Xanax’s limits. I stood in the long security check line at Newark Airport with all of post-holiday humanity crammed around me. Not one trace of anxiety! My fellow Newark to Oakland travelers and I sat on the tarmac for at least an hour before the plane took off. I was cool as a cucumber. Another passenger yelled, “I’ve got a phobia of flying and if we don’t take off soon I’m gonna seriously FREAK OUT!” Poor lamb. I’d offer her a Xanax if I had the energy to move my arm. Oh well, probably better nap instead.

The Xanax had pretty much worn off by the time I took the shuttle back from the Oakland airport to my apartment. My heart was racing again and I wanted to crawl out of my skin. It’s nearly impossible to describe the feeling to someone who hasn’t experienced it before. My body would suddenly be drowning in a feeling of terror with absolutely no focus for the fear. No matter how many times I’d hear or read that you can not die from a panic attack, it’s hard to imagine it when you’re in that moment. Every time it happened I was pretty sure my heart might just stop. That, of course, is no way to think if you want to calm yourself down.

I immediately made appointments to see my doctor and get blood tests to make sure there was absolutely nothing wrong with me. Xanax was okay for the time being, but it left me lethargic and completely unproductive, so it definitely wasn’t the magic pill, so to speak. In the two days before seeing my doctor, I did some epic googling on panic attacks. I read something about how panic is sometimes a side effect of certain drugs and I nonchalently thought, "but the only medication I’m on is my birth control.” On a whim I googled: Yasmin Panic Attacks. I hit the mother lode on a website where people posted side effects of various medications. The side effects for Yasmin were pages and pages long, as opposed to the few posts for the other types of birth control. I was up half the night reading the posts. They were both comforting and petrifying. I read about people who experienced multiple panic attacks a day and had to quit their jobs because they couldn’t bring themselves to leave their house. There were women who had invested loads of money and time on all sorts of therapy to try to uncover the underlying causes of their anxiety, only to find out years later that it was a side effect of their birth control. I read about women whose significant others’ patience with their panic wore thin leading to break-ups and divorces. In summary- it was scary shit.

First I thought, “Wow- the internet is pretty cool sometimes.” Then I got overly resentful about the politics of birth control and the powers of the pharmaceutical marketing machine. Then I printed out some pages of side effects so I could show my doctor. Then I popped a Xanax and went to sleep.

My blood tests showed that there was absolutely nothing wrong with me. In fact, the doctor praised me for my excellent cholesterol levels and my overall good health. I would’ve been pleased if I had not being waist deep in the throes of the worst I’d ever felt in my life. The gynecologist who prescribed the Yasmin got ridiculously defensive when I told her it gave me panic attacks. “It can’t be the Yasmin! No patient has ever told me that before!” She glared at me with the, “Oh these idiotic patients diagnosing themselves over the internet!” look. I got in touch with the aforementioned resentment about the politics of birth control and the pharmaceutical marketing machine, and unleashed it all over her. She nervously stuttered something about how maybe I should go to a therapist to discuss the anxiety. I’d be damned if I was going to let this clueless bitch get to third base with me again.

“I’m switching my PCP,” I said and walked out.

My internet diagnostics coupled with discussions with friends who are doctors told me that even though I got off the birth control, it could be a few months before it was out of my system. They were right. An added bonus was the 'ol “it might get worse before it gets better.” The next few months were hell. I felt like a shell of my former self where every day was a battle to not freak out for no reason. In an effort to not get addicted to Xanax, I only took half the prescribed amount and I did my best to force myself into situations that made me feel like crawling in a hole and weeping. I cut sugar and caffeine out of my diet completely. I talked to friends about it and I tried to exercise regularly and eat healthy. I did all the crap that the panic experts recommend. And it still sucked. Avoiding a panic attack consumed about 90% of my thoughts for months. After many many days that involved the occasional panic attack while on a packed train, or having an enjoyable concert ruined by the sudden feeling that I might pass out, or a simple round of sobbing in my room out of exhaustion, I felt a little better with each day. It was about six months before I felt pretty much back to normal.

About a year ago, I was on the train headed home from work and out of nowhere, felt my heart start to race. My body flooded with the feeling that I needed to get off the train immediately. I was pissed. Prior experience with this crap made me sure that I wouldn’t die and that I would be ok. But good god, enough with this already. I got home and made an appointment to see a therapist. At the end of my first meeting in which I laid out my situation, the therapist said, “My take is that you don’t have any unexplored underlying issues leading to the anxiety. You took a medication that gave you panic attacks and now your body remembers that reaction and occasionally uses it as a response to every day stress.” That was reassuring but also irritating. I longed for the days when my body chose to convert stress into moodiness and a headache.

There was a period during my social work career that I considered going into counseling. A supervisor of mine said I should become a “reality therapist” because of my lack of patience for bullshit. I think she meant it as a compliment but I’m not sure. Anyway, this new therapist of mine was the reality therapist I can only dream of becoming. She assured me that conquering the panic was very managable. She turned out to be right, for the most part. After less than two months of her teaching me about the science behind panic (being able to translate crazy reactions to a series of chemical actions was somehow comforting to me) and figuring out tricks to teach the panic who was boss, we both decided that I didn’t really need to see her anymore.

After my final session, I walked around Horner Park with a spring in my step. I thought back on the times two years earlier when I sat in my apartment in Oakland, terrified to leave. I reflected on the times when the ten minute underground train ride from Oakland to San Francisco seemed like two hours. I thought about the many times I would try my best to distract my panic by counting specks of dust on the ground or trying to think of people's names for every letter in the alphabet. I thought about how, for a time, I was horrified that I was on the brink of literally losing my mind. I had come a long way. I was in a new city with a new job and new friends and new hobbies and a new outlook on life. Now when I feel a wave of anxiety overcome me, I’m still not thrilled, but I see it as a sign of where I’ve been and where I’m going. The whole situation was a hard lesson in appreciating my independence but remembering that I can’t get by without others helping me along. Driving alone on a busy highway still terrifies me a little, but I know that I can handle it, because in the worst case scenario, I can always pull over and find a friendly cop looking to kill some time.

Yesterday I was waiting at the Rockwell train platform and saw a man standing by himself. His arms were a little shaky and his whole body was slowly rocking back and forth. Who knows what his story was but it looked like an impending panic attack to me. He looked so unhappy, nervous and uncomfortable that I literally shed a tear. Part of me wanted to go ask if he was okay, but I couldn’t decide if he’d want the attention. In a move that even shocked me, my sadness quickly turned to gratitude. If that hellish panic period has led me to be more empathetic to other people, and be more able to break down the masses of people around me into individuals struggling to conquer their personal battles, then, and I’d never thought I’d say this, I’m thankful for it.


(Side note: The title of this just caused me to add “High Anxiety” to my Netflix queue, if for no other reason than so I can hear Madeline Kahn say, “Jeepers Richard, that was terrific.”)