I had a panic attack today. Not something to get too excited about. I could kind of feel it building, and it came on because of health anxiety. Something is going on and I can tell within my body. Could be something I’m fighting, a virus maybe? Could be my body just finally physically reacting to the stress of all the change. Either way I feel off. I went for a walk, tried to console myself. Layed on the couch. But there were things that needed to get done. Of course I Googled my symptoms and that had me spiraling even more.
I started to get images of when I was in the hospital, back in my early 20’s. I was there for 5 days. In the observation unit with a terrible infection that started in my face. My salvary gland to be exact, it was one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. But more than just the physical pain, the infection started spreading throughout my body. Shutting down my organs one by one slowly. At least thats what the doctors told me. So I went to the ER under the advice of my doctor, they took one look at me and got IV antibiotics and dilaudid in me (this was back when opiates were a thing – not sure if that would be the first course of action anymore). I remember being so sick and so scared. All alone. Every 15 minutes a doctor would check my vitals because that’s what happens when you are in the observation unit in the hospital. I remember I read the twilight books when I was there and it made it seem more tolerable. I did have a couple visitors throughout my stay, but for the most part I was alone and it was so incredibly scary.
For some reason today that came up for me. It’s probably because the symptoms I’m experiencing are similar but in no way as extreme as they were at this time. It sent me into a full blown panic attack that I had to work through, go to worst case scenario, and then come back. I hadn’t thought about that in such a long time until today. I hadn’t felt what that felt like, the fear I had in those moments until I had that panic attack earlier.
I wanted to write about it now so it no longer lives within me. That maybe this would be a good real life example of trauma processing. It comes up randomly. In waves. Unexpectedly. And you just have to ride it until it passes and you can breathe again.
The Girl Without A Face 