My first signs of panic were in my senior year of college. I remember losing the ability to squeeze the muscles in my armpits. There was so much tension in my upper arms that they went numb. I was very concerned about what this could mean. I didn't allow myself to go to the doctor at that time, so there was no way to have it checked. I remember walking across the Quad thinking: please hold me together until graduation. Please don't let me die now.
My first full-on panic attack came in the summer of 1985 before I left for graduate school in California. During that summer, I worked as a summer intern for a computer company during the day, and then I worked at writing my own computer game at night. I stayed up until eleven each time typing furiously, fueled by caffeine. I was afraid I was not effective at my day job, and I was afraid that the game wasn't complete and fulfilling my high expectations for it. I came back to the house I was staying, one night in Aug and tried to get to sleep. I lay in bed and felt a kind of shock or shudder or jolt every few minutes. Just when I would start to doze I would be shocked awake. My heart was already racing from the caffeine and the concentration and racing thoughts. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I was afraid to go to sleep because something would happen. I would sit up in bed and wait for the shakes to stop. I was exhausted that next day. But I also became intolerant to caffeine: I couldn't drink any without feelings of fear and panic.
I'll go back to an earlier time to recall my feelings of anxiety. I think most of my anxiety is about not feeling safe. I have no family. I have no safety net. I live on a thin line that could break at any time. I am exposed to danger. Anything could go wrong and I'd have no recourse. There is no one to help me. I can only depend on myself
I think my earliest feelings of insecurity date back to 1974, when my parents divorce was final. My mother was institutionalized and we moved to New Hampshire with my father. My father was an educated man and a good provider and he was there for the children when he could. My siblings and I became latch-key children and bear responsibility at an early age. At that time, my father the doctor was only available through an answering service. As the oldest I was responsible for holding things together at home. If my younger siblings were fighting, I had no recourse but to settle it until my father could come home. I was anxious that our home-life would be all right and safe.
I have mentioned in another post that I was present in 1979 where my father lay dying on the basement couch and that I rode with our neighbor the doctor to the hospital. I think it was during that time that I again feared for whom would take care of me. My siblings and I were eventually taken in by father's sister, who we children did not know well at the time. But in that interval just after my father's death, I was unsure what was to become of us.
In the late summer of 1979 I was entering my junior year in high school. The setting was this: my father had passed away in August, my Aunt had three new kids to care for, her house was too small for her family and ours, the funds from our trust were not yet disbursed, we had only a month before school started, and our house needed to be made ready for sale. Being responsible, I made an audacious proposal: let me stay in the house on my own and take care of it. My sister, being the youngest, went back to my Aunt's home while my brother, the middle child, went to stay with a family nearby.
Looking back on that fall, it is what I don't remember that surprises me. I don't remember sleeping in that house. I don't remember eating there or shopping for food. I walked to school as always but I don't remember it. There was a neighbor who looked after me and fed me and washed my clothes. I don't know how I survived during that time. It was a lonely and deprived situation, but my physical needs were taken care of. I wasn't physically hurt. I recall that there was an estate sale for our belongings. I helped bag and tag the many items of my father's which we couldn't take. I lived alone there for two and one-half months.
Returning the late summer of 1985, I was nervous about graduate school in California, especially since I had gotten it in my head to drive myself across the country. I had purchased a used car for myself at the last minute and I didn't know its reliability. As I drove across the country on I-80, I remember lying awake in the hotel rooms wondering if I would survive the night. I would feel the same sort of jolting-awake shocks, and all I could do was to sit up, back to the wall, in the dark, and hope it would pass. I imagined dying in the hotel room, with no one to find me but the maid. I survived each day and made it to San Francisco without incident.
When I arrived at graduate school, I felt there was something terribly wrong with me. I was nervous and scared and had heart palpitations. I was truly afraid that I was going to need to be hospitalized. Although I never did go to the doctor's generally, I made an appointment at the campus clinic. The story I gave the doctor was a disorganized, guilt-ridden tale of how I must have had a bad lifestyle to hurt myself and I was afraid I was irreparably ill. The doctor gave me an EKG. When he saw it was normal, he sent me on my way.
My first full-on panic attack came in the summer of 1985 before I left for graduate school in California. During that summer, I worked as a summer intern for a computer company during the day, and then I worked at writing my own computer game at night. I stayed up until eleven each time typing furiously, fueled by caffeine. I was afraid I was not effective at my day job, and I was afraid that the game wasn't complete and fulfilling my high expectations for it. I came back to the house I was staying, one night in Aug and tried to get to sleep. I lay in bed and felt a kind of shock or shudder or jolt every few minutes. Just when I would start to doze I would be shocked awake. My heart was already racing from the caffeine and the concentration and racing thoughts. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I was afraid to go to sleep because something would happen. I would sit up in bed and wait for the shakes to stop. I was exhausted that next day. But I also became intolerant to caffeine: I couldn't drink any without feelings of fear and panic.
I'll go back to an earlier time to recall my feelings of anxiety. I think most of my anxiety is about not feeling safe. I have no family. I have no safety net. I live on a thin line that could break at any time. I am exposed to danger. Anything could go wrong and I'd have no recourse. There is no one to help me. I can only depend on myself
I think my earliest feelings of insecurity date back to 1974, when my parents divorce was final. My mother was institutionalized and we moved to New Hampshire with my father. My father was an educated man and a good provider and he was there for the children when he could. My siblings and I became latch-key children and bear responsibility at an early age. At that time, my father the doctor was only available through an answering service. As the oldest I was responsible for holding things together at home. If my younger siblings were fighting, I had no recourse but to settle it until my father could come home. I was anxious that our home-life would be all right and safe.
I have mentioned in another post that I was present in 1979 where my father lay dying on the basement couch and that I rode with our neighbor the doctor to the hospital. I think it was during that time that I again feared for whom would take care of me. My siblings and I were eventually taken in by father's sister, who we children did not know well at the time. But in that interval just after my father's death, I was unsure what was to become of us.
In the late summer of 1979 I was entering my junior year in high school. The setting was this: my father had passed away in August, my Aunt had three new kids to care for, her house was too small for her family and ours, the funds from our trust were not yet disbursed, we had only a month before school started, and our house needed to be made ready for sale. Being responsible, I made an audacious proposal: let me stay in the house on my own and take care of it. My sister, being the youngest, went back to my Aunt's home while my brother, the middle child, went to stay with a family nearby.
Looking back on that fall, it is what I don't remember that surprises me. I don't remember sleeping in that house. I don't remember eating there or shopping for food. I walked to school as always but I don't remember it. There was a neighbor who looked after me and fed me and washed my clothes. I don't know how I survived during that time. It was a lonely and deprived situation, but my physical needs were taken care of. I wasn't physically hurt. I recall that there was an estate sale for our belongings. I helped bag and tag the many items of my father's which we couldn't take. I lived alone there for two and one-half months.
Returning the late summer of 1985, I was nervous about graduate school in California, especially since I had gotten it in my head to drive myself across the country. I had purchased a used car for myself at the last minute and I didn't know its reliability. As I drove across the country on I-80, I remember lying awake in the hotel rooms wondering if I would survive the night. I would feel the same sort of jolting-awake shocks, and all I could do was to sit up, back to the wall, in the dark, and hope it would pass. I imagined dying in the hotel room, with no one to find me but the maid. I survived each day and made it to San Francisco without incident.
When I arrived at graduate school, I felt there was something terribly wrong with me. I was nervous and scared and had heart palpitations. I was truly afraid that I was going to need to be hospitalized. Although I never did go to the doctor's generally, I made an appointment at the campus clinic. The story I gave the doctor was a disorganized, guilt-ridden tale of how I must have had a bad lifestyle to hurt myself and I was afraid I was irreparably ill. The doctor gave me an EKG. When he saw it was normal, he sent me on my way.
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