(a throwback photo taken last summer 2017; I could not find any other more current photo to represent what I’m feeling right now.)
I’m sitting on my chair in my room, wondering how to do this.
Where to start.
What to write.
What’s been happening lately.
I’ll start with this–
Life hasn’t been too kind with me lately. This entire month has been full of ups and downs–the transition of the seasons, the end of the school semester, conferences for my program, career change, a fight with my mother, laptop malfunction, being unable to participate in a show, everything complied up and then–something major happened.
Last week, I had the scariest panic attack of my life.
I was getting out of conferences (as we usually do at the end of the year in my program). I remember collapsing on the floor. Too weak to get up. Paralyzed with fear. Unable to breathe.
Somehow people helped me up or carried me into a private office. An office administrator stayed with me to make sure I didn’t pass out. I couldn’t stop hyperventilating.
Overwhelmed.
I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed in a way I don’t remember ever sobbing before. I couldn’t feel my extremeties–I was tingly and I felt sick. I distinctly remember mourning unintelligibly something along the lines of “Oh Mary, I want to die I want to die I want to die…”
Suddenly there was a cool, icy touch on my hand and it gasped for air and brought my head forward from its tilted back position. Water. In a cup. A red, plastic cup. It brought me to the present for just a second; and I swear they would’ve needed to call the 911 if I hadn’t been brought out of that…storm with the water.
An hour and a half later, I was well enough to walk. I think, barely. Hollow and empty.
I was a ghost of what I was.
Who the hell was I anyway, anymore?
Who am I?
Speed forward to the future.
The residue of the shocking message left me in a state of frenzy and disarray for the next few days. Waves of anxiety crashed into me and sometimes they’d spin into attacks; other times they surrounded me like the deep end of a swimming pool; the water teasing to drown me; I was treading constantly, barely able to keep my chin above water; every gasp a close call. Only just making it out alive.
I spent multiple hours, days, weeks in bed, unhappy with being in bed but I also didn’t possess the strength to get up and face the world. No running, no yoga, no nothing. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. My heart is shattered, and I cannot seem to pick up the tiny broken pieces.
How am I now?
I feel like my heart’s been ripped out of my chest, squished like playdough, and thrusted back in my chest where it flutters and beats, dysfunctional.
Live with it, Linda.
I’ll perhaps disclose the exact details of the event in another post, but right now I’m not ready.
No, I’m not okay.
But I have faith I will be.
What I’m going through right now is really difficult and I honestly have no idea how long it’ll take for me to fully recover. I feel like it’s going to take too long and I’m going to be in this drought forever. It’s unbearable, but I know that I’m growing stronger everyday and sometimes I’ll have better days and sometimes I’ll have worst days, I’m just trying to ride out the wave right now, maybe apply some of the principles I’ve talked about how to deal with emotional despair in a past post.
Everything is broken. I feel like I’m living a nightmare.
Somebody shake me and tell me I’m dreaming.
Please god, please god, please god, please.
