Mental Health - Panic Attack

Sometimes I feel like my brain turns to jelly, and slides out of my ears into a puddle on the floor around my feet. So I’m left with a hollow coconut skull, slipping up on my own thoughts. This results in a complete inability to carry out every day tasks without freaking out massively, and making giant astral comets out of tiny little moon craters.

Sometimes I wake up in quicksand, and the struggle not to just let myself sink lower is half the battle, never mind getting out of bed! I look for branches or vines to help heave myself out. But now I grab those vines and they turn out to be snakes, which just fall, give a nasty hiss and slither away. I can see a tonne of other branches, but they seem so far away and out of reach.

I finally save myself from the underworld below the quicksand. I wash my face and make breakfast. Looking at the glorious deliciousness in front of me, and I feel guilty about eating it. What have I achieved? My body doesn’t deserve nourishment. Oh well, come on. Don’t get hung up over that, distract yourself you have so much work to do. Sit down, begin. It’s all going smoothly. But then uh oh. I can feel the jelly slipping out of my ears again and before I know it I’m trapped. Completely.

By invisible dragon-proof chains.

I can’t do anything.

Can’t work, can’t think.

Can’t even stand up to make a cup of tea to calm myself down.

I’m stuck in an invisible box.

Trapped, the panic takes over and suddenly I’m beside myself. Sometimes crying hysterically, sometimes not moving at all, just staring into space. I probably look calm but in my head there’s a whirling storm, the thunder getting louder. Imagine the biggest food fight ever. Hundreds of clones of myself, all with their own ideas and agendas, going crazy at each other. Inner torment. I don’t really know how long it lasts but when it’s happening it feels like it’s never going to end.

Drastic thoughts ensue. Which only nurtures the torment. A lot of the time, I can visualise everything calming down, but I just can’t get it to happen. Further frustration. And then it just stops. Either forced by an external occurrence. Or not. The next day I wake up on cloud nine. Literally in the sky. And I look down, but I’m not scared, because I really feel like I can fly. I’m weightless. Everything looks so small from up here. Ready to take on anything. So I do. As much as I can do. Who knows when things can change, so when I feel it’s presence, I add fuel to my forward momentum.

The thought even starts to enter my head, why I even worry about anything. Then with no prior warning, my weight returns to me, and I plummet. As if someone has just released an anchor attached to my waist. Or more like my neck. Because I choke. And as I’m falling, not even my eyes can make sense of what is around me. Its so blurry, everything whizzes past. I can just about make out my castle on the cloud but its disappearing into the distance at an alarming rate.

Sometimes I fall for what feels like forever. Days can go by without me being able to make sense of anything. All I can do is try to keep my body vertical and focus on not letting the airstream steal my breath. Then other times I hit the ground in an instant. Maybe hard. Maybe I land on my feet. The times when I don’t, it’s like landing in a humongous pool of sticky black tar. I try not to drown, wading to the side. And when I finally get there, I am presented with the issue of cleaning myself up and dusting myself off. But the tar is so thick and sticky, I try to free myself but it seems like an endless task. I leave gloopy footprints and grubby handprints all over, as I scramble for a bath of chemicals to wash myself clean with.

And I can continue.

For now.

Who knows what lies around the corner.