The beginning.

I had my first panic attack in elementary school. Or, I don’t know, maybe in middle school. I recently tried to get my mom to help me remember when this moment was because I thought it would make a strong opening line for my blog, but we disagreed on the timeline. I say elementary school; she says middle school. You can see that I wanted it to be the more dramatic of the two. Either way, I do remember what it felt like. I remember laying on our green leather sofa in the evening. I remember desperately trying to catch my breath. I remember being so confused and thinking that this may be it for me; me, a child. I remember my parents leaning over me, trying to help. I don’t remember what did help. But something must have helped considering I didn’t end up in the hospital. Over the next few days and weeks I went to doctors looking for asthma or allergies and went home with an unnecessary inhaler and no real answers. It wasn’t until a few years ago, while writing a paper for graduate school, that I realized that I hadn’t had an allergic reaction or asthma attack. I’d had a panic attack.

Since then I have had a lot of panic attacks. I’ve been in a lot of counseling. I’ve taken a fair amount of psychiatric drugs. I’ve written, thought, and talked a lot about my life with anxiety and depression. I’ve gotten a masters degree in counseling. I’ve gotten married. I’ve had serious bouts of depression. I’ve moved! I’ve moved. For reasons I am still teasing out, the moving triggered one of the worst seasons of anxiety that I have ever experienced. I’m still in it, really. That’s why I wanted to write now. Now, when it is fresh in me. When it is raw and here and accessible. I want to share some of my experiences with mental health, not because I’ve done it especially well, but because I can. Because 10 years ago I would sit up at night on the computer vacillating between binging MTV shows and frantically searching for remedies to my “dark days.” I felt alone and scared and confused for a long time. Sometimes I still do. My hope is that those of you who have experience with these things can find some small grain of hope and comfort, and that those of you who love someone who deals with these things can find out what it is like and how to help the ones you love (but also how to take care of yourself).

I’m open to basically any question about my experience. Please ask.

P.S. my diagnosis as a child was “exercise induced asthma.” I’m basically sure I was just so terribly unathletic that I had panic attacks during P.E. due to embarrassment and shame.