a brief anecdote and a call for assistance...

[mallory]

hi there...

i'm very unsure about the whole nature of panic attacks and everything, but ever since two months ago... well, it feels so stupid to say this, i think i may have had a panic attack. for some reason, saying that makes me feel like such a... fake, i don't know. like i'm trying to get attention and steal help away from people who actually need it, deserve it.

well, i suppose what i want to say is: i Feel like i know exactly what a panic attack means. my conscious, however, tells me i do not know what you mean. so let's find out: do i know what you mean, or not? who's right, my gut (says i'm completely disfunctional) or my brain (steadfastly denies such accusations).

let's tell it like a story...

background: self-conscious 16-year-old girl moves 2500 miles away from her hometown in early July. she doesn't cry - she hates crying, considers it a weakness to cry - although she is leaving behind a place she loves and friends she loves even more. she arrives at her new home, feeling as if she's on a very strange vacation. she meets a boy. he's sweet, writes poetry, reads almost as much as she does. two weeks within of moving she receives her first kiss and first boyfriend.

setting: almost midnight. the girl is on the phone with her new beau, lying in bed with the covers over her head, giddy but becoming more tired as the hours wear on.

the scene: the sleepier she gets, the more her defenses lower. she grows closer to sweet unconsciousness, but as she does so her mind groggily reminds her that her wonderful new friend doesn't really even know her. shouldn't he know her? they're going out, they should know each other, completely. but she doesn't want to say "i'm an awful person" even though that is what she often thinks, so she tries to provoke him into asking her a question that could trigger off a stream of confessions. he then frustrates her by claiming to not have any questions. she begins to think he is hopelessly unimaginative, and is proved correct when finally he asks "what is it that you want me to ask you?"

and she let loose. she answers "...about food." then she answers the question he never asked, "i hate food. it's awful having to decide what to eat." and then that progressing into "in fact, i hate eating too." which transforms itself into the hideous monster of "actually, i mostly just hate myself." all through the groggy, not fully awake girlfriend confessing her darkest secrets to someone mostly a stranger. no special effects yet, mostly just pathetic, whining girl. but once she got started, she just couldn't stop. she kept talking and talking nd saying awful things of herself that she knew to be truths, and then seconds later attempting to retract them with "i'm so stupid, it doesn't make sense i should be telling you any of this! i need to stop! why can't i stop!" because she can't stop confessing, someone has to know and understand.... and her breathing begins to accelerate. faster and faster, more filth pours out of her into the phone, more toxic chemicals she must've been holding for ages.

that's when time stops.

after two straight hours of unfiltered self-hatred, she realizes with mortification that she is completely unable to move her left arm. unless you have experienced it, she thinks later on, you can never understand the terror that struck through her when she realized she could no long move her left arm. and then her right arm paralyzed, stuck to the side of her head, phone in hand. she tried to move her legs... couldn't.

she couldn't move. she was stuck in a black hole, she had been sucked into some awful vacuum of darkness. her breathing, irregular before, becomes ragged and awful sounding, like a creature lying on it's deathbed. and she felt that time had stopped. she knew that time had stopped.

the lack of control of her limbs terrified her. the terror petrified her. and so she lay for another two hours, in the middle of the night, immobile and breathing in sharp, short, ragged breaths. she kept up the rant that had subtly thrown her into this state, the raving self-hatred, and apologizing all the while for being the awful inconvenience that she was.

she was stuck. in a mind that couldn't control it's body. in a body that couldn't control time, which had horribly, inexplicitly, stopped.

but she never cried.

around five am, she sat straight up, sweating and trembling and swearing at herself. after a glass of water and twenty minutes she feel asleep. her and the beau never spoke aloud of this midnight occurrence, and she was grateful for that.

end scene

........ ok, so i suppose it sounds all a bit overblown, too dramatic. but that's how it felt. overblown. unreal. nothing real could be so intense, so terrifying.

i don't want to post this. posting this is not denial, and denial is always the route i've taken. but two months ago, denial backfired. and last week during chemistry, for no apparent reason, my heartbeat started beating faster, i started breathing a tad sharper. it was nothing compared to the complete insanity of that night, it lasted hardly five minutes.

but what if next time it doesn't last less than five minutes? what if next time, for no apparent reason, i paralyze in the middle of chemistry? i cant allow that to happen.

so. what do you think? i can't trust what i think, i'm fairly sure all my thoughts are biased against myself and probably deluded. was it just a result from stress, moving away from home? am i doomed to a life of misery or medication? does it have to be one or the other? is there any in between?

.... is there any way to prevent panic attacks... without alerting anybody i know? because i can't do that, not for at least two years i can't.

i want to be an exchange student, and no matter how much you pay, they don't allow emotionally unstable kids on exchange trips.  i know i can handle being an exchange student - it's the only thing i have absolute confidence in myself in. i've been looking forward to a year abroad for years, saving up since sixth grade, and i will in no way jeopardize my chances of making it as an exchange student. i'm not going to ruin my chances of getting into the only thing that makes me feel like i'm worth anything.