When Panic Comes Calling
When grief and disappointment devolve into despair, seeking grace in each moment is the one step I can take.
Once again, this is not the essay I was planning to publish. I’ve been working on an essay in my head over the past several weeks about mania and minimalism and the ways that Justin’s episode has altered my relationship to material possessions, including my ability to feel safely attached to anything physical, including our home.
(Spoiler alert: We bought a new couch, and it helped).
That essay will continue to percolate and will show up here eventually, but at this moment, I’m writing for a different reason.
I’m writing as a strategy to avoid having a panic attack.
Whether bringing pen to page in a journal or typing on my laptop, expressing what’s on my heart through words has always been an extremely grounding act for me. Right now, the feel of the keyboard under my fingers, the tippy tapping of the keys are sensory reminders that I am here, that I am present, that I’m not flying off somewhere into an abyss of fear and emptiness.
And some force, inside me or beyond me, has been trying its hardest these last few days to launch me headlong into that black hole of despair.
It started with Thanksgiving.
Justin and I were beyond excited and happy to be planning a road trip to West Virginia to visit my parents and extended family there for the holiday week. For years, we’ve celebrated Christmas at Thanksgiving with my side of the family, so it’s always a very special and uplifting time, full of love and fun and traditions.
This year, it was even more significant because it represented the culmination of Justin’s recovery and everything we have survived over the past year. Last summer, when Justin was deep in depression and his cognition severely impaired, the idea of our usual summer road trip south was simply an impossibility.
We were barely making it through, day by day. Just getting up and focusing on the basic functions of life was all we could muster, and at that time, it seemed like we might never be able to travel and visit and have those special times ever again.
But things did get better. Little by little, moment by moment, as I’ve chronicled here in these essays. Justin’s depression did lift, his cognition did improve, he eventually went back to work and found a balance and a groove in life again, managing his bipolar diagnosis with acceptance and a steady attention that I’m grateful for and deeply admire.
I’ve been on my own path, dealing with anxiety in different forms, working to heal myself from the post traumatic stress of Justin’s episode and trying to find my own identity on the other side of this time of crisis.
With mindfulness and self-compassion, and a LOT of time in nature, we got through the transition time of autumn. Justin has remained healthy and symptom free through the seasonal shift, and it has started to feel like we’ve actually turned a corner in this journey.
Since October, I’ve been taking a course on somatic healing, which has been incredibly helpful, and I’ve felt my body beginning to more wholly integrate all the experiences of this past year.
We were SO ready for this Thanksgiving trip, ready to do something fun and normal, to celebrate love and to see extended family who were so supportive to us from a distance throughout Justin’s episode and recovery. I had a beautiful vision in my mind of what the week would look like, and how we would return home with a fresh sense of renewal and gratitude, ready to enjoy the December season and launch in to a new year with freedom and hope.
You’ve guessed it by now, right? The vision did not go as planned.
First, the week before the trip, I got hit by a pretty bad head cold. Justin and I hardly ever get sick, and I hadn’t had any kind of sniffles at all since Justin was in the hospital in March, when my energy and immunity was low and I’d had to get through a few days of terrible sinus congestion on top of everything else at that time.
Since then we’d both stayed in the clear, and I was bummed that suddenly now, at the exact moment I had wanted to ramps things up, I didn’t have the energy to do the pre-trip preparations I had planned. Usually, I baked goodies to bring down to family. I was excited to do some early Christmas decorating in our house so things would be festive when we returned. I had some ideas for Thanksgiving themed ASMR videos I wanted to record before taking a break from uploading for the holiday.
But that way okay, it was cool. I pretty easily let myself off the hook for all those things. Mom and I would bake together after we arrived, and there would be plenty of time for decorating and festive content in December. I took a few steps back and let myself rest, and by the end of the week I was feeling a lot better.
Then, two days before we left, we learned that a good friend of ours from college, who we hadn’t seen in almost 20 years, had died. We’d been out of touch for so long, we weren’t aware that he’d been struggling with cancer for a few years. He was an incredible musician and musical scholar and a very influential person in Justin’s life during his years playing in the college jazz ensemble. He was incredibly smart and funny and honest, and he was just a few weeks older than me. He died at 44, leaving a family and a huge community of students, fans, and friends behind.
Receiving this news was a shock and very upsetting to both of us. Because we hadn’t been in active touch in so long, that made it a different type of grief. As our hearts ached and our minds flooded with old memories, there were also waves of regret and guilt and shame. How could we have lost track of such an important person for so long? Why hadn’t we ever made the effort to reach out and reconnect? How could we have supported him, what did we miss out on that could now never be regained?
On top of this pain and loss, I was also worried about Justin because this is the kind of shock/stress that could possibility trigger his bipolar symptoms. I’d read about cases of someone losing a friend or loved one and quickly spiraling into mania or depression. So my vigilance perked up once again, and Justin and I mourned and processed together as best we could. Justin said it made him look forward even more to our trip to see family because he wanted to connect and feel close and celebrate love. So we packed up the car and headed out on our journey.
The drive down was smooth and easy. Justin has always loved driving, and it was such a blessing to see him behind the wheel again, sipping his coffee and grooving to the tunes he’d curated for the trip. Again, simple parts of who he is, that at one point, I had thought might be lost forever.
After arriving, our first and most important order of business was to visit my Aunt Pat, my Dad’s sister. She lives alone and doesn’t have family beyond us, so our times together are always particularly meaningful for everyone. Plus, she goes all out with Christmas decorating and gets everything ready early for our Thanksgiving visit, so going to her house is like stepping straight into Santa’s workshop.
On Monday, we had a wonderful visit with her, with a festive lunch and exchanging presents (she is the only adult Justin and I bought gifts for this year), and it was such a blessing to spend time with her. Aunt Pat has endured a lot of hardships in her life and is a constant inspiration to me of courage and resilience. The supportive letters and cards she sent us during Justin’s recovery were a huge resource to me during some of my darkest days.
Thank heavens for that one good day of celebration, because it all went downhill from there.
Monday evening, I was hit with intense and terrible chills that left me trembling under the covers and then a bout of GI distress that felt like food poisoning. That night, I developed a fever and extreme body aches, and the chills continued. By the next day, I was sick as a dog and when my Mom tested me for COVID, the dreaded little line appeared almost immediately. I was down.
This was my first time having COVID, and immediately all the anxiety and stress and fear that we have all collectively held over the past three years came rushing into my body. Had I infected Aunt Pat? Was I endangering everyone around me? How could I have let this happen? We’d been so diligent during all the phases of lockdown and had avoided getting it for so long, that it felt like an epic failure. Why now? Why, after everything else, did this have to be the icing on my multi-layer trauma cake?
The rest of the week is kind of a blur. I stayed in bed, taking Tylenol for my fever, forcing fluids and trying to keep away from Mom, Dad, and Justin as much as I could. Eventually, all three of them tested positive too (although no one else got as sick as I did) and we did the best we could to look after each other. We obviously didn’t see anyone else and warned extended family to stay away. Mom cooked a little, but we basically didn’t have Thanksgiving dinner, and I had no appetite at that point anyway. We didn’t bake, we didn’t go visiting, we didn’t put up Mom and Dad’s Christmas tree as we usually do. I couldn’t even bear to look at a screen to watch a Christmas movie. All our festive fun had been cancelled.
I recognize that many people have endured incredible personal loss a result of COVID. My little story of woe barely registers on the scale of what has been sacrificed and mourned during this era. But it’s still my story, and for me, as I stared into space in a stupor, feelings the days slip away, my despair was real.
By the following Sunday, Justin was pretty much well, so we made the decision to travel back to Massachusetts. That morning before we left, I had some more digestive stress and had to fight down a mini panic attack. It felt like we’d just arrived and now we were leaving. Nothing had happened as I’d hoped, and I felt pretty terrible in body and in spirit. We prayed together as a family, I took along some dinner rolls to nibble in the car to soothe my stomach and somehow, God watched over us and got us home.
It was a relief to be back in our own bed, but we were both feeling extremely run down and strung out from the whole experience and over the next few days, my anxiety and panic began to take a disturbing and distinctive hold.
For several mornings in a row, I found myself overwhelmed with what felt like hot flashes and a feeling of not being able to get my breath. I was obsessed with thoughts of everyone I loved dying someday and the grief of being alone, and I became more and more disembodied and unhinged from reality.
I used every grounding technique and somatic tool in my arsenal. I called on every type of breathwork I know, did Vagus Nerve exercises, held and stroked objects for tactile stimulation, and told myself over and over again that I was safe. I recited the alphabet backwards, made lists in my head of every word I could think of that started with a certain letter, smelled essential oils, walked outside in the cold air, wrote in my journal, and prayed harder than I ever have in my life.
It’s hard to explain exactly how I felt during these panic attacks. It was so different than my typical anxiety, which is usually focused on my own performance or perfectionism or being good enough. This was far more primal.
My psyche was questioning whether it was safe to be a human and it felt like there was nothing at all I could hold onto. I never felt exactly this way during the height of Justin’s episode either or during my moments of PTSD that have come after. During those times, it was as if the world and everything that was happening/had happened was TOO real, too much to process and take in and accept.
The feelings of this past week were more like: nothing is real, nothing means anything, I am totally alone in the abyss.
I started writing this essay yesterday morning when I was a in a bad place, when the panic was starting to close in around me. Getting this all down helped me, it grounded me, it brought me back down to earth for a little while.
Today, as I finish up these thoughts the next morning, I’m relieved that so far today, the panic has not come to visit. For the first time in days, I feel more normal, more at ease, more like I can actually take a bit of pleasure in the sensations of being alive.
I wrote this for me, to save me from a moment of doom. I don’t know why, but telling the story helps and sharing it with you now helps even more. So whoever might be reading this, thank you for helping me. I’m truly grateful, and I’m sending you love in whatever challenge your heart might currently be facing.
This morning, I’m feeling an inkling of hope, and a connection to life. I can feel a little bit of joy and gratitude and even a tiny spark of Christmas spirit in my body. I’m starting to feel alive again.
These last two weeks have been harrowing, in ways I never could have predicted. (I realize that “in ways I never could have predicted” is becoming the norm in my life. Another reason to stop trying to predict and control in the first place). But I’m thankful that none of us got emergency level sick and that Aunt Pat never got sick at all. I’m thankful that Justin is here with me and is in a place where he can support me and help hold me up in the same ways that I held him when he needed it.
I know my struggles with anxiety and fear aren’t over. This is a journey I will be always be navigating, with deep, haunting lows, but also some brighter horizons.
My faith has strengthened even more, just as it did during Justin’s episode. When you’re desperate and you cry out to God, and Spirit answers and holds you up, it changes you. I’ve talked so much about surrender and acceptance, and I realize that those are also journeys that I’ll never complete. All I can do is keep letting go, keeping moving forward, keep integrating all the love and all the muck that life gives to me.
Perhaps in some flash of intuition, right before all this happened, I wrote a letter to a friend Justin and I have known for decades, but hadn’t been in touch with the last few years. I wanted to tell them about Justin’s episode and everything that has happened and rekindle our friendship, which has meant so much to me over the years.
When the news of losing one friend arrived to us, the fact that I had reached out to another friend in love brought me reassurance. And while I was in the depths of being sick and feeling terrible, I received a wonderful and kind voicemail from that friend. Just the sound of their voice brought me such comfort and made me cry. What a gift it will be to catch up with them, and bring our hearts back together again.
Life is so tender and precious. I’ve felt that fragility acutely these past weeks. I can’t protect everyone, sometimes I can’t even save myself from faltering in the waves of despair. But one thing my Mom and Justin and others have said to me when I’m in panic always comes back to me. “This won’t last forever.”
No feeling, no circumstance, no tragedy. Life will go on, and I will keep moving forward hour by hour, moment by moment. I will keep grounding my feet on the earth and reaching out my hands to receive. I will not give up.