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This is your heart on stress.

When stress can cause a real-life heart attack.

By Katie FeingershPublished 4 years ago 9 min read
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Smiling and stressing less.

Stress is not just a state of mind; it can have an incredible impact on the body as well. I learned this firsthand, when I had a full-blown heart attack at the tender age of 32. My story serves as a cautionary tale: it is an urgent plea to seek help when you are overwhelmed, and a reminder to prioritize your self-care. It can literally mean the difference between life and death.

I have always been an anxious person. I am hardwired to become stressed out even by the little things. This is my own personal battle that I have been fighting most of my adult life. This particular story of stress begins around a year ago, when a culmination of life events resulted in me being particularly overwhelmed. I had put self-care on the back burner, choosing to worry about everything else besides my own mental health and wellbeing. And it all came back to bite me, hard.

To provide some context, my entire family was submerged in chaos: my parents, both of whom I am very close to, were divorcing after 45 years together. My mother was having a particularly rough time, and was teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown combined with major substance abuse. An intervention was looming on the horizon. I myself was recovering from a recent bout of addiction, and though I was maintaining sobriety, it was a hard daily struggle. I had also had a falling out with my best friend of 20 years, who chose to judge and shame me for my addiction rather than be there for me when I needed her most. Add to all of this the madness of graduate school, and I found my stress levels at an all-time high. I had papers to write for school, and a letter to write for my mother's intervention. I was so nervous, I could not stay asleep longer than an hour.

I was overwhelmed to the point where I had pretty much just shut down. I would try and read for school, and could not absorb a single sentence. It felt almost as if I were in shock. I would go to class, and feel as if I hadn't heard anything. I felt blank. I needed help, a break, time off, extra therapy sessions... but I didn't ask for any of that. I was being far too hard on myself, having negative thoughts such as "I should be able to handle this better" and "I shouldn't need so much therapy if I'm going to be a therapist" (the latter of which I now realize is SO wrong- therapists definitely need therapy, too!)

On the night it all began, I was alone at home and writing in my journal. I started to write about the falling out I'd had with my friend, and how much it hurt me. It felt worse than any heartbreak I'd ever endured- it really, truly hurt my heart. As I was writing this, my actual heart did start to hurt. It was around midnight that this happened, and by 5am I was still awake, sitting bolt upright, because of how terrible the pain in my chest had become.

It was as if a sword had been pushed through my breast plate and out my back. It was a sharp, burning pain that was so incredibly intense I couldn't even lie down. It was nothing short of excruciating. I kept having the internal argument with myself: do I need to go to the ER? On one hand, emergency room visits are so expensive, but on the other hand... what if something was truly wrong with my heart? "No," I told myself, "this is probably just a panic attack." As anyone with bad anxiety or panic disorder will tell you: these "mental" conditions are very physical as well! The "mind body" connection is incredibly real. In fact, it's less of a "connection" and more like they are one and the same. People often mistake their first panic attack for a heart attack. However, it had been years since I'd had a panic attack (thank you, therapy!) and the visceral pain was getting worse by the minute.

Finally, unable to move let alone drive, I called 911. They sent a special team devoted entirely to calls about chest pain. Before I knew it, my living room was teeming with paramedics, all standing in a semi-circle around me, sitting on the couch and clutching my chest. I saw the look in some of their faces- dubious. What is an apparently healthy young woman complaining of chest pain for? Surely they assumed I was just having a panic attack. After taking a brief history and running an EKG, they loaded me into the back of an ambulance and off we went to the nearest hospital.

As I did with the paramedics, the first thing I told the nurse once I was admitted was: "I am an addict in recovery". This truth is important, and crucial in a medical setting. I also wanted this honesty to serve as proof that I was not merely there to try to get drugs.

The doctor I finally saw however was much less kind than the paramedics had been. He asked me a few questions, never making eye contact with me. When I rated my pain a 9 out of 10 (a rating system which I have a whole host of opinions about, for another article at another time) he rolled his eyes. Without ever looking at me, he turned to the nurse and stated "Drug seeking. Do not start IV." Moments later a hospital admin came in with my discharge papers.

I was stunned. Why would I come to the hospital at 6am and immediately tell everybody that I was in recovery, if I was simply trying to score a fix? It made no sense to me. I was in so much pain I could hardly walk, and my tears were freely flowing. Shocked, angry, and sad, I slowly made my way down the long hallway to take a Lyft back home.

Disheartened, I sat in my living room as the sun rose, and sobbed. I still was in too much pain to lay down, so I now had not slept in almost 48 hours. I felt such shame, when what I should have been feeling was pride, both for getting myself sober and staying the course in recovery. I did the right thing by being honest, and I had asked for help when my deepest intuition told me that something was truly wrong. I cried, and cried, and cried.

Another full day passed in which I didn't move except to go to the bathroom once. I couldn't go to bed because I could not position my body horizontally without the pain doubling- and the pain was already bad enough. Later on the second day, I had an appointment with my therapist. She prefers I see her in the office, but I explained over the phone what was going on and told her I could in no way drive. She was stunned as well, and encouraged me to try and seek help one more time. Feeling such an overwhelming sense of shame, the last thing I wanted to do was seek help again only to get turned away for the "crime" of being an addict. Low on sleep, I was not thinking rationally. Luckily, I took my therapists advice.

I skipped the ambulance this time, managing to pack myself into a Lyft. I packed my stuffed animal and a blanket, in the hopes that this would be a real hospital visit. Upon arrival, I once again stated that I was an addict, adding the fact that "I'm not here for drugs. I'm here because something is really wrong with me". This time, they took me seriously, and started by running a few simple tests.

Afterward, the doctor entered my room with a puzzled look on his face. "I didn't believe these results, so I ran the test twice," he told me. "You're having a heart attack."

There was a moment of silence while I processed this information. I had known in my gut that something was indeed wrong with my physical body, but the words "heart attack" still carried quite a punch. "I'm... what?" Heart attacks were for old men, I thought. People who are out of shape, overweight. Not for 30 year olds! How could I possibly be having a heart attack?

The doctor explained that my blood test showed evidence of dead heart tissue, a telltale sign that someone recently had a major cardiac "event". He was apparently just as surprised by this as I was. All it took was a simple blood test to determine this; if the doctor at the first hospital had looked past the label of "addict" and bothered to start that IV, he might have discovered the same thing and I would have been able to start treatment a full 2 days earlier. But now was not the time to be mad. I had to get to the bottom of what was happening to me.

I was given a tiny pill of nitrates, which helps to expand your blood vessels and ease the heart attack. It began to work in mere minutes. The doctor explained what I already knew: I had none of the indications for heart attack, such as poor diet, old age, or obesity. Then he asked the question that hit the nail on the head: "have you been particularly stressed out lately?"

I actually laughed. Only for a second, because it hurt so much, but I laughed. "Stressed is a light way of putting it. My life is currently a nightmare." The doctor nodded. "Well we're going to do a few more tests and observe you for a couple days, but once you get discharged you need to take it easy, and address what's going on." He recommended I lighten my load of responsibilities, relax in any and every way that I can, and up my amount of therapy. I wholeheartedly agreed.

The next day they preformed an angiogram, which was awful but enlightening. For this procedure they insert a catheter through the vein in my wrist and thread it up to my heart. It was the weirdest and most uncomfortable medical procedure ever. It did, however, provide the smoking gun for my diagnosis. Although they saw my ventricles "spasming", one of the many forms of heart attack, they witnessed none of the other signs of heart disease such as buildup of plaque or dead tissue. That was a relief. It was determined that I had a heart attack related purely to the stress I'd been under lately.

It was incredibly scary to think that at only 32 years old, this could happen. But in a way, it was a blessing. It forced me to stop and take inventory of my life, namely how I was treating myself. It forced me to prioritize self care and do what was best for my mental health. In the end, your "mental health" is not only just as important as your physical health- but they are truly one and the same. Taking care of your stress can help your body, and taking care of your body can benefit your mental wellbeing.

What I went through was certainly no fun at all, but if my story can wake anyone up to the importance of the mind-body connection, and maybe treat themselves a little better, it will have been worth it. Please, take care of yourselves. There is nothing wrong with saying no. There is nothing wrong with asking for a little help, a bit more time, or some space to be alone. Don't be so hard on yourself, forgive yourself, and be good to yourself. Put yourself first- only then can you be good to others, and to the world.

selfcare
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About the Creator

Katie Feingersh

Katie is an avid writer, reader, and artist from the wonderfully weird city of Austin, Texas. A passionate advocate for mental wellness, she is currently a graduate student at St. Edward's University, studying to become an LPC.

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