46: Self-Portrait in the Pause – Part I

I had a panic attack the afternoon of my 46th birthday. It was around 3pm. I was driving to pick up my son, after I had a lovely lunch with a loved one. The panic attack started during the lunch, but I wasn’t sure what was happening so I did my best to breathe through it.

At first, it was the sounds. My ears seemed to turn on to some super-hero level of hearing. I could hear birds breathing, fish swimming. There were big fans over our tables at the outdoor patio we were dining at. The shadows on the tabletop of the spinning fans felt like…like they were cutting into me. I couldn’t stop seeing them, my eyes trying to see each arm as it zoomed by. At one point, I stretched my arms out to try and break the connection with my eyes, to break the pattern of zipping shadows.

My guts churned. I had to run to the bathroom. A cold sweat lifted on my skin. I was dizzy, but fighting. I went to my friend’s house for a little visit there, and while we were talking, my hearing, once again, opened up. I could hear our syllables bouncing off the walls and ringing inside my head. I kept breathing deeply, trying to remain calm, but inside I was reeling. I had to go to the bathroom again.

So by the time we said our goodbyes and I was driving home, the panic escalated. I felt like a crowd of people were inside of me, my head felt gigantic. There were loud voices arguing about how to feel, what to think. I put on music to try to stop the voices, but that only added to the cacophony. It was almost painful to add more sound to the situation. Voices were screaming at me about everything from the way I was driving to body shaming to death. The extreme…aggression and some violent thoughts truly terrified me.

I kept my eyes on the road, gripped the steering wheel. I could see…but not really. It was taking all my energy to stay focused as these giant voices inside me that were tossing around my emotions like a hot potato. They were attacking my ‘self’ which was shrinking and hiding at all costs. The voice of my disappearing self was screaming HELP. HELP. HELP.

I practised four-part breathing: inhale – 2-3-4, hold-2-3-4, exhale – 2,3,4. That helped for a few minutes of respite. I kept trying to tell myself…the part of me that I know was ‘me’…that I was okay. That this was likely the onset of a panic attack, but I had to get to my destination safely before I could weep, which is what my body was telling me it needed to do.

I made it to my destination, and texted then phoned my husband. There was no response. This put me over the edge and I started gulping for breath. I did not want to go inside where he was because I was embarrassed about what was happening. I called another number, and got a hold of him…barely getting my words out for him to come outside. In the few seconds it took for him to reach me, I was sobbing, shaking and terrified.

He held me. I managed to get out some words…

“I’m going crazy. I can’t breathe. Something’s wrong. I can’t…I can’t…I can’t…”

(Just typing this out is making my heart pump extra hard – I can literally feel it thumping against my rib cage. Oh, how the body remembers…)

I tried to explain how I was feeling…but it was difficult. In those moments, I felt completely out of control, scared and helpless. I wanted to cancel/stop everything – cancel our birthday dinner celebration, quit work, go home and curl into a ball in bed for a very.long.time.

With the gentle care and calmness of my husband, more deep breathing, letting out several huge sobs, and searching inside the massive mess of voices in my brain, I was able to relocate my ‘self’, breathe, and be held.

After about 15 minutes, the panic attack subsided. But I was still shaken up. I had to drive home with my son. He was scared…having caught the tail end of the panic attack. I didn’t want him to see me…but I also didn’t want to hide. On the way home, just the two of us, we had a beautiful conversation about how I was feeling…lost, out of control, scared, like my entire sense of self was in a million pieces and I didn’t know how to put me back together. We agreed this was (is) an existential experience.

My son turned 18 on the same day I turned 46. We share a birthday, and clearly, we share a deep-rooted understanding of each other. That ride home helped me begin to reflect on what happened. Why I had the panic attack…and that, in fact, he and I felt similar things regarding sense of self (identity), change and motivation.

We arrived home safely and I rested for a time. My son and I walked our dogs. Being outside, inhaling the fresh air, watching the dogs be dogs, helped me calm down even more. I didn’t cancel dinner, but I let my mom know that I’d had a panic attack so my low-key-ness at dinner had a reason. She was concerned, but I told her I was okay. But damn, that experience was very, very hard and scary. I trembled for quite some time. My body calmed, and by the time we had to leave to go to the restaurant, I felt better, hungry even.

After dinner, I gathered some paper and a marker (red was the most fitting colour, both for love and aggression), and my husband and I went to our bedroom to talk. I told him I wanted to draw out, to diagram, what it feels like inside my body. And thus, the above image was created.

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I believe that my panic attack was a result of a confluence of Big Things.

1. My son turned 18. This seemed impossible to me. I’ve been witnessing him grow and change…in his mind and body. Rationally, I know that this is what’s so, that this is how life works. That he is strong, intelligent and fully capable of being this age, and continuing to grow. But at the same time, the mother in me, the space that held him as he grew inside me…my womb…my heart…these parts have been in constant grief.
2. Hormones. I was having some sort of hormonal excess…likely part of my pre-menstrual cycle, but these PMS symptoms are extremely heightened and unpredictable during peri-menopause. It seems like ‘hormones’ are new people/parts inside me. They are mean and aggressive. They are kind and peaceful. They are old and new. They have created a kind of Forest of Change inside me.
3. I turned 46. In a part of my brain, I don’t care at all about this number. I flip back and forth between feeling age 12 and age 15. But my life, my cells, my body, my narratives are all 46 years old…and, like it seemed impossible to me that my son was turning 18, it also felt impossible that I was turning 46.
4. Denial. A component of these life changes is rooted in denial. My rational self gets overpowered by the other parts that have blossomed since I started peri-menopause. My ability to deny actual, factual, logical truths and experiences has become like a Mother Tree in this Forest of Change. I can deny (another way of describing this is going numb) feelings/emotions/realities as a coping mechanism for the loss (grief) inherent in the changes in my life at this time. These changes are my own, and also those around me who I love. I could not deny the changes happening on that day, and the Mother Tree panicked…

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Part II…forthcoming…