Feelings, Sensations that You Thought Were Dead, No Squealing, Remember (That it's All in Your Head)
So, I had my first panic attack last week. I didn’t know at the time what it was, but I knew it was not normal and I knew I did not want to experience it again. In case you’re wondering what constitutes the rattlesnake that is a panic attack (versus normal gardensnake variety anxiety), I can share a few symptoms from my encounter. First, you’ll experience a nice cold sweat. Perhaps the back of your neck and your forehead will suddenly dampen as your temperature drops. Next, you might feel a little queasy. Then you’ll feel a lot queasy, to the point where you’ll want to lie down, or start figuring out just where the closest place is that could accept your impending vomit, or making mental notes about which person nearest you won’t hand you an ass-whuppin’ if you happened to puke all over them. Then your hearing might get real fuzzy and you might hear a nice high-pitched ringing, the kind of incessant whistling ring that must piss off dogs and make them eat children. At this point, you may notice that your face is devoid of any color other than gray. Kind of like a dead person, except dead guys are usually dry (unless you’re Elvis Presley, who was so fat that he continued to sweat after death). What’s even better is that you won’t necessarily know what’s happening, why it is, or more importantly, how in the hell to make it stop. You might think you’re dying, that you’ve been drugged, or possibly both. Funny thing about those thoughts is that they tend to extend your trip to Panic Land rather than truncate it (Incidentally, I would like to create a nice postmodern board game for anxious children called “Panic Land.” Any ideas or offers of collaboration are welcome).
Well, as Paul Usul Muad'Dib Atreides was fond of saying, “fear is the mind killer.” I truly believe that. I think fear has turned much of the American people into gibbering morons so scared and confused by the realities of the 21st century that they follow any person or idea that offers respite against the fear they feel. Sometimes that means throwing away our rights, our money, our future or our children. Hmmm. I don’t normally like to be that heavy-handed in drawing parallels between my limited (though exceedingly important and fascinating) existence and the world at large, but there it is. The point, I guess, is that if I had reacted rationally and realized what was happening to me it would not have been as bad as it was. On the other hand, I don’t know for sure, and I hope I don’t have the chance to test my theory any time soon.
In other news, I suck. I did not go to the Veda show like I planned. It was more money than I wanted to pay, it was later than I like to be in OKC on a weeknight, and it was raining. So now I feel especially douchey since I said I would be there. Consequently, I’m not going to say that I’ll be at the Gourds show tomorrow at the Deli. I’m not going to say that it will rock.
I will say that I have way too much school work this week, and that it will probably be a long time before I take an entire weekend off from studying as I did this past week. It was worth it, though. I spent the weekend (or most of it) at my parents’ place in OKC. I had not been up for a month, and it was good to see my mom and dad again. And no, that’s not when I had the panic attack.
