Thursday, January 04, 2007

A peacful easy panic attack

Yesterday I finally got to see my son again. We went out and had a good guys night. Target, bowling, chicken nuggets, french fries, you know guy stuff. When I took him home, the wife was there and we started talking. I asked, again, for him to stay over night with me. All I got was a "I'll let you know". Fair enough...

I asked her if there was anything she needed to say after I wrote her the letter. Anything she disagreed with. We got into this long conversation about God and what she thinks we need to do to save the marriage. Lately this has consisted of:

Praying together
Devotionals
Christian Counseling
Letting God do whatever it is that God does in these situations

Don't get me wrong. I'm a believer. I'm not the best Christian but, then again, who is? But like I told her last night, God in our marriage has been like God in 'Days of Our Lives'. They're going around screwing, murdering, and just generally being bad people until Marlena gets possesed. Then all of a sudden John's a priest and everyone gets religion.

This has been the recurring theme. I get so fed up I want to leave, we pray. She gets fed up, I need to change. Apparently, I'm the only one that needs God in our marriage. But, I digress.

So when I got home, I went through the normal routine of getting ready for bed and then...it hit me. I was laying there and I just started panicking. Not like the 'get me our or I'll die' but I definitely got that feeling like I had last year at the Christmas party. My heart was pounding, I got hot, felt like I was short of breath, my chest tightened up, I started thinking I was having a heart attack. All of it.

I started thinking "who will I call now to save my life?". I have a room-mate but that would be wierd. Do I just call an ambulance directly? Am I wearing clean underwear? OK, I didn't think that last one but my Mom would kill me if I didn't say it.

So I laid there, eyes closed, and just breathed. Its the first time since I've been meditating that that has happened to me. The first time I've actually been able to put it to practice in a crisis. Seemed to work well enough. I'm not sure what the trigger was but I'm guessing I'm stressed out and, generally speaking, that's all it takes to get me going.

Any way, things are pretty good this morning. We'll see how the day goes. I'm hoping this isn't the beginning of an 'episode' but, if it is, I'll just take it one day at a time.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to hear you got to see your son but sad that your wife is making this even more difficult than it already is.

I think you are doing very admirably especially for such a tough situation. You're stable and even, and are approaching this with nothing but the best interests for your son in mind. That's very selfless.

Sorry about the panic attack. Those suck. :( I read something recently by a dr who thinks that panic is brought on when we have circumstances in our life that we can't control. Once we are back behind the wheel, the panic lessens.

I don't do so well under stress either. I hear you. Thanks for sharing...

Lacy said...

Dave

I think that's the best explanation of a controlled panic attack. I've had a lot of those since being on paxil. Body gets hot, heart races mildly, mind races slowly.

I think the adrenaline switch on our body is a constant "on".

dave said...

A "controlled panic attack"? Isn't that like "government worker" or "military intelligence"?

Lacy said...

mwhahahah. funny. :P

Yeah....there IS such a thing. maybe not as controlled as a non panic attack, but more controlled?

Anonymous said...

Sorry to hear about your panic attack. That stinks. My symptoms were exactly like the ones you described. I found a nice natural remedy for panic attack. It starts with breathing exercises and focuses on counting during the attack to take your focus off the symptoms and onto calming down.

-Rachel
www.stop-anxiety-panic-attack.com

Unknown said...

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