I went to my writer’s guild meeting today and right before I started to feel all the same feelings: shortness of breath, shaking hands, a rapid heart rate, and a pain in my chest. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought I was having a heart attack, but it was just an ordinary run of the mill panic attack. I asked my husband about it. I’d been coming to those meeting for months, and yet my body wasn’t getting used to it.
Then I realized, my body has an over-active nervous system. Any bit of stimulation for the rest of my life might set off all these panic attack symptoms. Having panic attacks is part of the trauma I lived through. I should accept that trauma as part of who I am. More importantly, I should embrace it. Feeling those symptoms allows me to recognize and acknowledge my life and what I have lived through. It’s only through knowing the trauma in my life and not avoiding it, will my body ever move through it. Then, I can become the person God intended me to be. I may always experience the symptoms but, if I live in God’s love and give my anxiety up to Him, I will always find the courage to do anything and I will never have a reason to be afraid.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
