"You really shouldn't be using the computer while you're meditating, Katrina."
I know. But I kept trying and wasn't getting relaxed so I figured I would just talk about how I'm feeling.
I get panic attacks. I'm not sure if I've ever really talked to you guys about this, but I get pretty frightening panic attacks from time to time. They started when I was in middle school. I can remember it pretty clearly. It was the beginning of seventh grade, language arts, and we were working in small groups. I did not like my group. It was comprised of a guy who always dominated conversations, a guy who never talked and only ever laughed nervously, and me. The guy who always dominated conversations did not agree with me about something. I was thinking about how much I did not like him, when all of a sudden, I started noticing everything all at once. This jerk guy in my group, leaning over the table and talking loudly at me, the four other tables full of talking peers, and everything they were saying and doing. All at once. Then, I started buzzing a little bit, and I couldn't see very well. It was like the whole world was in an overly active haze. My teacher had me step out into the hallway, she asked if I was all right, I nodded, and she told me to take a few moments before coming back in. Reality slowly stabilized.
I've had panic attacks on and off ever since. But recently they've been getting worse. Part of it is that my parents' house is so noisy. There always are a lot of sounds that layer up, and if something has gone wrong (like, if I haven't had enough time to myself recently, or if I have to try and make a phone call, or if I've been reading the same paragraph over and over again) I'm really susceptible to panic attacks.
Awhile ago, I had three panic attacks in one day. First, in my house. Someone was watching television, people were talking in the other room, the dog's nails were scratching on the floor. My laptop's charger was busted and so I was going to have to get another one. I tried to order it online, but couldn't quite figure it out so I was going to have to call in--it was awful. I couldn't quite hear the guy, I was stressed about how expensive it was going to be to replace, and the noise was building up so badly. I started picturing placing my head in the freezer and slamming the door against my temple. Why? Because I wanted quiet and calm so badly. I didn't do that, of course. That would be unsanitary, and, well, just generally a bad idea.
Pause for a moment. You might be wondering, as my dad later shouted at me as a rushed out the door, why I didn't just ask my family to be quiet. But it gets very hard for me to speak when I'm having a panic attack. It gets harder for me to speak when I have a panic attack then any other time--and it's already pretty hard for me to speak sometimes. Usually, I have a hard time speaking because I feel like people don't care about what I have to say. When I have panic attacks, I have a hard time speaking because I can taste all the words on my tongue and they are all so angry that I don't want to say them because they will be less productive than when I say things when I'm calm. Which is already so unproductive.
Back to the story of the day of three panic attacks. I tried to distract my panic away with an episode of Parks and Recreation. It was almost effective, because my family didn't speak through it. But as soon as it was over, all the noise built up again. When I rushed out, realized I forgot something, rushed back in, and as I was leaving someone asked "What's wrong?" And I half-screamed, half-sobbed "It's just so loud!" Then my dad yelled at me about how I could have just asked them to be quiet. I sat in complete silence for five minutes before my heart rate decreased and I felt comfortable leaving.
I had to go to the Mac store to pick up my chord because they didn't have it as a ship-to-home offer. So, I went to the Town Center Plaza location, as they had told me on the phone. For someone who gets panic attacks due to over stimulation, the Mac store is basically "hell." It is packed with people, they have obnoxious blinking lights, there are about 10,000 screens, loud music is playing, and every single person in the cramped little building is talking. Cue panic attack #2. I told the guy I needed to pick up a chord, he typed in some information, and there was a problem. A problem they solved by making me call and talk to the office I had already been talking to. It was the worst experience of my life. After every sentence, I had to ask the person on the other line to repeat themselves. Finally they asked, "And you're at the Country Club Plaza location?" That's right. I misunderstood which ____ _____ Plaza location I was supposed to go to. "No, I'm sorry," I half sobbed into the phone. I hung up, told the guy I was at the wrong place, and rushed out. My body was buzzing, my heart was thumping, and my esophagus was coiled tightly increasing the pressure in my chest. I stumbled off the sidewalk, falling face first in the middle of the road. I pulled myself up and sat on the curb until I was feeling a little bit better.
For someone who was still feeling the effects of TWO panic attacks, the Country Club Plaza was the last place in the world I should have been driving. It was full of traffic--both vehicular and pedestrian--and nobody is really considerate of the other people in the area. I tried calling my parents FOUR times each to let them know that I had gone to the wrong location, but they never answered. I was legitimately afraid that I would stumble in another road and be run over and my parents would have absolutely no clue where I was. To make matters worse, I had to drive around the plaza several times before I found the Mac store. I went in there, anxious as ever, and was immediately over stimulated again. Everyone who "helped" me was passive and primarily ignored me. When they finally brought out my chord, I watched the "genius" who was helping me, hold it for five minutes as I was consumed by my third panic attack and assisted another customer.
When I finally got home, I was so drained. I cried a lot, slept, and honestly felt like never getting out of bed again.
Since then, my panic attacks have become more regular. I had one yesterday. The cards were stacked against me since... Saturday, I guess.
See, I'm also introverted. Which means I get my energy from time alone and I prefer socializing with small groups of close friends. Usually, I get 2-4 hours alone in the mornings when my parents are at work and my brother is still asleep. I use that time to make myself breakfast, work out, shower, and get ready. In quiet. In solitude. It's nice. On the weekends, my parents don't work, but they frequently go to the gym and then to coffee shops in the mornings, or they go on day trips.
This weekend, however, our entire town was coated in a sheet of ice about three centimeters thick. So I didn't have any time to myself, but I made due. However, when their school district called school yesterday, it meant I was going to miss out on my morning routine. Not only that, but I missed out on that very necessary time I have to re-energize. As I made my breakfast, my mother washed dishes beside me--a noisy chore magnified by the volume with which my father watched the news in the other room whilst he loudly talked on the phone--and frequently bumped into me or tried to conduct morning pleasantries. I retreated to my room where I felt stifled and trapped, but at least I had something like solitude. Except: I could hear the television and chatter from the other room. (Remember my thing about noise?) Moreover, my father came into my room for more pointless pleasantries. So, on top of being exhausted and incapable of conducting myself in solitude, I also felt extremely guilty about how irritated people being pleasant to me made me.
The stress from missing out on my morning routine, in conjunction with my inability to "recharge," followed me along on one of my busiest days of the week (Mondays and Wednesdays are really rough for me). In my history class, we broke into small groups and worked on questions the professor assigned to us. This has been a source of a lot of stress for me recently, bringing me pretty near panic attacks each time we've done it, and yesterday was certainly no exception. It's hard because a whole class of people is talking at once. The group behind us is very, very loud. To make matters worse, my group is filled with extremely soft spoken women who barely whisper as I try to jot down what they're saying. And yesterday, after I asked my partner to repeat herself (yet again) and she still spoke so quietly I couldn't understand a single word to write down, I snapped. Just like in seventh grade, I noticed everything all at once. I felt my chest tighten. I was so consumed with a desire not to cry in an upper level college class that I missed absolutely everything we talked about for the remainder of the class period.
I was in a haze all through out my next class. Not just a haze, but an angry and unpleasant haze. I thought about how there was only one likable person in that class--a cheerful girl who sits beside me helped me figure out what I had messed up on Photoshop--and how everyone was just unnecessarily loud. So, when I got out of class, I went home. I emailed in to my work study letting them know something had "come up" and I crawled into bed where I remained for the next three or four hours.
I decided that I should try meditating daily. Maybe that would help decrease my panic attacks and help get my anxiety "in check." So I came into the basement, thinking it would be quieter than anywhere else in the house. I lit a few candles, I manufactured a mat with a blanket and a pillow, and I put on a relaxation playlist. I closed my eyes and I pictured myself as a rubber skeleton of anxiety. I pictured each tendon of anxiety snapping and rolling into one ball at my center, which would be expelled from my body. But I can hear everything from the upstairs. People stomping around. Music playing. My father talking to the dog. My mother talking on the phone.
I'm a little bit worried. Today, I tried to carry out my morning routine in as much solitude as possible--despite the fact that the school my parents work at and the school I attend have both been closed for today. But, even distancing myself as much as possible, I don't even have the illusion of solitude. And, tomorrow, my parents' school has been closed again. I can't keep having days where I don't have the opportunity to replenish my energy. Last year, there was a snow storm and I was stuck in my old apartment with two of my roommates. By the end of it, I'd gone so crazy. Like, a bit of me exploded by my inability to get some time or space to myself. I can't bear it. You guys. I CAN'T BEAR IT.
...Writing this blog post has not helped calm me down, though. I am feeling very, very unrelaxed right now. So. I think I did meditation wrong. Oops?
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