Update

Sorry for barraging my reader(s?) with such long posts. I have a tendency to write a lot when I get to it. But as a reward, tonight's blog will be pretty short. Maybe I'll write a longer one tomorrow.

I just wanted to update a little bit. Earlier I wrote a post about recently being diagnosed with / treated for a panic disorder. I really hate calling it that since it conjures up images of geeky kids hyperventilating when the cute girl walks by them. I'll try to come up with a new name: really weird sensations similar to a heart attack, happening at random times, usually when trying to sleep, disorder.

Anyway, I had written about being in a haze from the medication I was taking, and wanting to quit. After some really lousy days and sleepless nights, I went to the doctor and got prescribed something much weaker (to the point where it is virtually nothing). Since then the haze has been lifted, and I'm experiencing things much more fully. Unfortunately, with that has also come withdrawal symptoms like massive headaches, nausea, and just a general sense of unease. Some days have been pure hell, and others have been great. Regardless, I'm happy to be myself again, even if that self isn't in premium condition. I'd rather feel everything, pain and all, than be drugged numb. Please keep me in your thoughts and/or prayers, since it's so unfathomably draining to feel like you're at war with yourself. I worry sometimes that things won't improve, and all my potential as a straight-A-student will crumble, because of some stupid physical ailment. Other times, I'm just angry: at God, at myself, at life in general, for throwing this at me. Call me emo, but I really have rolled up the windows in my car and yelled at the top of my lungs. Last night, for instance.

As a side note, it's really hard for me to write about something like this. It's embarrassing to show signs of weakness, especially when it's something that can so easily be perceived as pathetic or crazy. I've been considering deleting this (and the other post), but for the sake of that transparency I long for, I'll keep it. Honesty is cathartic.

Since it's sort of relevant, I think I'll throw in a short story which was previously posted on Facebook. It's a true account of what it felt like when the attacks first started, with my usual nerdy-analogy twist.

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Feedback
The room is dark. You are lying in bed, your eyes closed, your face pressed firmly against a black pillow. You are attempting to shut off your wandering mind. You are lost, speeding in motionless transit.

You are sitting in a red cushioned chair and it is twelve hours ago. You are exploring a replica, its blueprint a motion-blurred snapshot of an infinite sea of photons. You swim through the intricate model, bending and rearranging pieces into useful, meaningful shape. You are watching the professor, the pale blue of his slightly wrinkled shirt, tucked into ironed black slacks at a careless angle. In his right hand is a piece of chalk, pressed against a green chalkboard. As it glides across the dusty backdrop, there is a subtle motion in the air surrounding it. The tiny wave propagates through the air, colliding with a circle of black foam clipped to the collar. The motion of the foam begets a current. The current moves through a coil of wire, across the stage, into the wall, and up, up to the speaker above. The speaker pulsates, and like a cannon, fires the rhythm through the sea, into your ears. You recall the dull force with which it collided; the tap of chalk against board, the crisp scratch of gliding motion, the squeak of friction, the nearly silent echo. It bounces off of you, swims down the steps of the lecture hall, across the stage, up the ironed black slacks and slightly wrinkled pale blue shirt, to the circle of black foam clipped to the collar. The machine, having heard its own voice, is trapped in a cycle. The gentle vibration becomes a quiet low whir, becomes a loud boom, becomes a high pitched shriek, becomes a deafening screech in an endlessly rising crescendo, accelerating manically to infinity.

Your eyes open. You are aware of your breathing. It’s too shallow, too quick, irregular. Why? You try to pace it; deeper, slower, longer. You notice your heart. It is beating quickly, loudly. Had it always pulsed so loudly? How had you never felt it before? Uncertainty incites fear, and you take another breath. Too deep, too much; you are lightheaded and your heart is accelerating. You exhale slowly, calmly, but continue a moment too long, and end in a wheeze. You gasp; you are drowning; your room is filling with water and with every exhalation you are sinking. And your heart – no, your entire body – throbbing. You try to contain yourself. Nothing is happening. This is nothing. It is 2:38 in the morning, and you are lying in bed, and this is nothing. You tell yourself to calm down. Focus. Breathe. Remember to breathe. You cannot catch your breathing; it is teetering between shallow and deep, quick and slow. You are trying to balance a needle on its point, and every kick of your heart tips it further from equilibrium. Gasp, kick, gasp, kick. Your heart is a heavy ball, each bouncing thud louder and quicker than the one preceding it. Gravity is pulling it down and with each gasp you fight it, but the thud thud thud thud thudding heart shows no sign of slowing. Fear creates adrenaline, adrenaline quickens heartbeat, heartbeat induces hyperventilation, hyperventilation amplifies fear. Don’t be afraid. This is nothing. Don’t panic. Panicking is acceleration and you are overthinking. Stop thinking. Thinking is panicking and panicking is acceleration and you are trying to slow down. Try to stop thinking. But trying is thinking, and thinking is panicking and panicking is acceleration and you are moving much too fast. Try to stop trying. But trying is trying and trying is thinking, and thinking is panicking and panicking is acceleration and how much speed can an immobile body take? Try to stop trying to stop trying. But trying is trying and trying is trying and trying is thinking, and thinking is panicking and panicking is acceleration and you are buried under the weight of your thoughts and nearing critical mass. Try to stop trying to stop trying to stop tryingtostoptryingtostoptr

yingtostoptryingtostop—

The speaker cannot take the noise; it gives out, halts. The message is silenced; you and the room are shaken for only a brief moment, and the world again is still. The gaping infinite which threatened to engulf you has been subdued by the feeble machinery that encased it, leaving only a menacing growl. The professor resumes his writing. He is drawing a circuit; a battery, wires, resistors. Physics tells us, he explains, that if one end of the battery is fed into the other, an infinitely growing current will arise. Of course, batteries drain, wires break; all you will see is a spark, a momentary glimpse of the power of the ideal.

—tryingtostoptryingtostoptryingtostop trying to stop trying to. Stop. Relief. You are fine. Your heartbeat is steady, your breathing effortless. You look at the clock. 2:38. You are in the same room, same bed, your face pressed firmly against the same black pillow. Something has happened, but nothing has changed. What was it? Just a fluke, you suppose, the mind playing a dirty trick on the senses. Nothing to lose sleep over. You’ll tell someone about it in the morning. Maybe write a story about it. You smile uneasily to yourself and drift back to sleep, your feeble machinery subduing the growl of an ideal soul which has seen its reflection.