Beyond Blue reader Larry Parker has written a brave, raw account of a recent panic attack. He has used his gift of language to describe for others exactly how it feels to be trapped by a brain's disease. To get to his journal entry, click here. Following is an excerpt:
And then I lost it. Completely.When I pointed out to my stepfather he didn't have to call me an idiot and moron for that, he said, "Yes, I do! You're so clumsy that's all I can do to remind you." I forget what I said in response, but it was angry and at the top of my lungs. To which he responded (rather dubiously, given what he had just said), "Hey, I don't have to treat you as an adult if you don't act like an adult." (A guy who, it must be said, blows his own stack every day or two on a routine basis.)
And then the chain reaction was complete, and the fuel rods disintegrated. And I just started screaming, "YOU HATE ME! YOU HATE ME! YOU HATE ME! YOU HATE ME!" at my mom, my stepdad, and probably half the neighborhood by that point.
And then I started hyperventilating, having heart flutters/palpitations, and basically a full-blown panic attack.
Bless my mother, she realized that even as wrong as I had been, something was seriously wrong with me. "Are you having a heart attack?" she asked, seriously. (She was also worried the same thing had happened to my stepdad, a veteran of four MI's.)
"No, I'm having a panic attack," I replied, truthfully. "Oh, and a brain attack as well."
Meanwhile, my stepdad; when I tried to apologize 15 minutes later (after I caught my breath at last), literally gave me the Fran Drescher "Talk to the hand" signal. Ugh.
So I gathered up all my courage and said, "If you're not going to talk to me, I need to speak my piece. And this is not about you -- I said I was wrong and I'm sorry -- this is about me."And here's what I said:
"When you see me have a temper tantrum like that -- and I'm not saying it's right, it's OK, it's fair, it's good or even that I have an excuse -- I want you to understand something. What you see is what my brain is like every single week, every single day, every single hour, every single minute, every single second. And that's with the best medicine I've ever taken, an excellent therapist, eating better and exercising more."
My mother, rising to the challenge, said, "This is why I keep telling you to see another therapist or get other medicine. It's not working.""No," I said resolutely, "IT'S BECAUSE I HAVE A DISEASE CALLED BIPOLAR DISORDER. And it's been worse in the past -- oh, yes it has."
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Hi, guys, and Happy New Year!!!
Mt own father's "instrument of choice was a leather belt split into two at one end. He called it the "dogstrap' because its original purpose was to imitate the sound of a gunshot while he was training his hinting dogs not to be gunshy. It hung on a pegboard near the back door, and we would be sent to "fetch it" (sometimes for use on ourselves. other times a sibling. I'm ghonestly not sure which was worse, the actual beating or the angst-filled walk to collect and deliver it! to this day I shudder when I har the crack of a whip on television. hadmany welts, but grew up in a time period like wisdum did; it was referred to as "being strict" and no one DARED to say the words "child abuse" today it would definitely meetthe criteria, back then i'm not sure there even WAS one! Parents we EXPECTED to "discipline" their children; it was the mark(No pun intended) of a good parent!
I was lucky that my dad didn't believe in beating kids including spanking (I think). Beatings don't have to be physical, though, and however administered kill part of a child. You may "become stronger" in some sense, but you have lost some of what it means to be you.
On this New Year's Eve, I regret that I did not understand my emotional state and damage earlier. My children, whom I love, paid a price and though we have talked about it and I have said many "mea culpa(s), you can't go back and start over. I was consumed with a rage I didn't understand and had to use all my strength to contain. I often failed. While my children are close and I know they love me, how wonderful it would have been had I gone for help earlier. How wonderful if I had never grown up in the atmosphere I did.
Larry, I think I've told you that my grandfather was an alky, my mom suffered from depression (untreated), my sister had OCD and deep depression, I've got my stuff, and one of my kids is diagnosed bi-polar (though I question whether she isn't uni-polar depression). As you know, my problems stem from my dad's treatment of me, so there must have been some bad things going on in his family. We can't change our history; just muddle through the best we can, asking for help when we need it.
Oh, my dad's family was American Gothic itself, Babs. The grandparents I adored as a child I now think of with a combination of pity and genuine terror.
My dad was not just physically or emotionally abused, as he did to me, but neglected and sexually abused as well. In retrospect, it's amazing he was "only" an alky, and a high-functioning one at that. Intellectually -- if not yet and perhaps never, emotionally, in my "inner child" -- I do accept and believe he did the best he could.
I don't think my mom's family was more dysfunctional than the average family, in contrast. (Except that she and her siblings have atrocious taste in spouses -- passed on to my and my sister and IMHO my cousins, alas.) I think they just have really bad genes.
You combine them, and what do you get? Me and my sister (who suffers a constantly life-threatening, incredibly severe case of Type I diabetes).
My sister, as BBers know, thinks she has it way worse than me and that I'm just a lazy loafer sitting on my @$$. I think we're pretty even-stevens with our health horrors myself.
I just do the best I can, one day at a time. And in Therese's spirit, while I constantly try for self-improvement, I'll try to think of January 1 no different than today.
(Though I wish everyone a wonderful 2008.)
... and thanks to everyone who left comments directly on my blog.
For those of you who don't "do" the Bnet social networking thing, here's what I wrote in reply:
"Everyone -- thanks for your good wishes.
"I'm really fine. Like most panic attacks, it was very situational and, though I would say my mood is still hypomanic/agitated, generally it's within the acceptable range, at least on the bipolar spectrum.
"As everyone has noted, it's a very difficult situation here. The key part to me isn't even the panic attack -- frightening though it was -- but what happened afterward.
"My parents really are trying to help me out (let's face it, I have nowhere else to go), but they have this resentment in the back of their minds, the same one my sister expresses openly -- that I'm just a lazy bum and my financial problems are my own fault.
"Sure, absolutely, when you consider I have to take responsibility for being downsized, using up savings, etc. But they do not want to comprehend -- correction, seem to have no capacity for comprehending -- the seriousness of this disease. And in my mother's case in particular, given her family history, the lack of understanding is quite willful.
"So I guess I have some resentments too I have to work on -- or at least boundaries I have to (re)set -- in the New Year. Larry"
Panic attacks are horrific and my heartfelt sympathy goes out to anyone that has to deal with them. There is help and hope. ____The only way to fully eliminate panic and anxiety attacks from your life is to rid yourself of the thoughts of having another one. Meditation exercises, techniques, diet, prescribed medications and alternative medicines are not permenant cures. This article points you towards a solution that can rid you of this horrific disorder forever. http://www.squidoo.com/panic-anxiety-attack-disorder-cure
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