Last night my husband was in a car accident, and I spent several hours with him sitting in a hospital emergency room hallway waiting for test results and waiting to speak with doctors. I felt horrible the entire time. I was worried about him, but in addition, hospitals trigger my panic attacks. As I tried to be there for him, I kept feeling these rushes of adrenaline into my system that caused painful and uncomfortable panic attack symptoms. My poor husband was lying there in pain and every nurse or aide was asking if I was okay instead of worrying about him because I was shaking, crying, and looked like I was in pain.
After the pandemic started, I made a decision to stop my anti-anxiety drugs. I didn’t have any last night and I wished I had something to help me. Yet at the same time, nights like the one I had last night are exactly why I stopped taking the drug.
I know that there were exactly three really strong waves that came over me. Each time it happened, instead of fighting the panic, I let it happen. I didn’t go crazy and let myself hyper ventilate or anything like that. I just let myself feel what I was going to feel. My body shook. I cried. I breathed quickly and had to concentrate to not breathe too quickly. The hospital workers helped and gave me some stuff that helped like a bag to breathe into and some ice. My point is that I saw it as something to go through. It was just something that was happening to my body and if I just let the symptoms occur, then I would get through it and get to the other side. I knew even in the thick of it that I would be okay somehow. That’s a huge difference than what I experienced before with panic attacks. I used to feel so bad I thought I was going to die or worse I feel so bad I thought the feeling was going to last forever and I wouldn’t ever die, and the pain wouldn’t ever end. Last night, I knew that it was just a sure of adrenaline in my system. I knew it wouldn’t last forever. I knew that I could feel it, get through it, and it would be okay. It’s something important. It’s something about faith.
When you are in pain and you don’t know how long it is going to last, it is much more difficult to deal with the stress of the pain. Panic attacks hurt a lot and they feel like they are going to last forever. I am so blessed to have enough faith to take that leap of faith and believe that I could take that pain and give it to God. I knew that if I could do that, then it would change everything. And it did. The panic attacks and the pain are the same. God is the same. Yet my faith has changed me. I now believe that I will be okay, and the pain won’t last forever. It will always be a struggle to get through a panic attack. It won’t ever be easy. The only difference is no matter how difficult it is, I’ll know with God at my side, I can get through it.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
