PERFECT PLACES

Jonathan (1)

During my first one back in June, it felt like my heart was skipping beats and I started to get really worried I was about to have a heart attack. I felt a tingling in my hands and I was very, very dizzy. My parents were at work at the time and I thought I was going to die alone in my room with no one around to find me. I almost called an ambulance that day, but first I ended up calling my mom. She wasn't in a meeting when I called her, so she picked up and managed to calm me down.

After that first one, I started watching videos online from a professor who had written many books in his career about how to deal with them 'in the moment'. He talked about how they actually aren't dangerous. He talked about how you should try to stop resisting the frightening physiological sensations, to instead let them reach their peak and slowly pass on their own. I have had three more since the first one, but those videos helped a lot. I knew deep down I was going to be okay even as I could feel my heart jumping out of my chest.

I haven't had a panic attack in over a month. But today, I felt the familiar sensations again. It was thirty degrees outside at the orientation fair. The heat made me feel disgusting and I felt an incredible surge of anxiety come over me for no real reason at all. I had to walk home early, before having the chance to approach any of the booths or talk to anyone. As I walked home alone on the sidewalk, I kept my right hand pressed up against my neck to monitor how fast my heart was beating.

When I finally got inside, I felt the cool rush of air conditioning and went to go lay down on the couch. To try to calm myself down, I looked up SSRIs on Reddit on my phone. I have been thinking a lot lately about how SSRIs might be the solution, a pathway to living my life without experiencing constant anxiety. It isn't just panic that I struggle with; there is also an enduring feeling of tension that consumes me on most days. The top posts that came up on Reddit were about people dealing with the side effects of their SSRI medication. How it made them feel 'psychoactive effects', made them feel like they were 'emotionless', made them feel 'depersonalized'.

I still felt incredibly uncomfortable after reading about SSRIs for ten minutes, so I found another subreddit called Anxiety. I filtered to Top Posts of All Time and scrolled for another ten minutes. These posts calmed me down to a certain extent. Many of them were about people being unable to drive, unable to go to a job interview, unable to talk on the phone, all because of their debilitating anxiety. Others were inspirational quotes, about how to deal with panic symptoms, or how you should feel proud after accomplishing something small on days you're feeling uncontrollably anxious. Some users even visualized their feelings of anxiety with art.

After I scrolled on Reddit a bit more, I still felt slightly panicky. My heart couldn't seem to completely calm down. So I started typing in this document fourteen minutes ago to try to distract myself. Typing this all out has calmed me down a little more, because it's tiring to write and it's very distracting to concentrate on translating my thoughts into words. My heart rate has been slowing down and is almost back to normal. But even though it has helped my nerves to type out these few paragraphs, I know they aren't well written. They're pathetically dull. I feel so miserable for taking the time to write them. The writing isn't compelling at all. It's just describing my feelings using imprecise and uninteresting words. It's laughably bad and I've just wasted my time.

To be honest, I really want to be able to write a book. I've wanted to write one for the past few years, but it just isn't going to happen. I can barely get myself to write once every few days for even half an hour. That is so embarrassing. And yet I feel like I have so much to say. I feel like I have some creative and unique ideas. But then I finally start typing here, after having thought about doing it for the past three weeks, and I write complete shit. So yes, the writing has calmed me down, but it hasn't managed to make me feel better. Instead, I'm starting to feel pretty useless and embarrassed. I just don't know what is wrong with me. I fantasize all day about becoming a famous author, about someday writing something that everyone will enjoy reading. But the whole idea is really so pathetic. What a ridiculous fantasy.