#tw panic attack

There’s this therapist I whent to 3 times. She was treating me for: adhd, depression, anxiety, clinical empahthisim (not a real diagnosis but basically my brian has exess mirror neurons. Best explanation; it’s a form of synesthesia where I feel other people’s feelings and also steal their memories sometimes.)

First session: I told her about my adhd, depression, anxiety, and “habit of stealing other people’s feelings and memories” (which was how my mom described it to me)

She said great! Let’s get to know each other! What clubs are you in!

So I told her about robotics and GSA. She said “oh! You’re in Girl Scouts?” I got to explain to her what a GSA (gay club) was. Her response: wrinkled her nose and disappointedly said “oh”

End of session she asked me to meditate. Here’s the thing: when I meditate I loose all feeling in my limbs and body. Which freakes me out and triggers a panic attack. Which I told her. And she told me to try anyway. So I did. And you’ll never guess what happened. Or what she made soo much worse with her comments (I don’t remember what those comments were)

Session 2: she decided that panic attacks when meditating was her #1 priority. Why? Because her “best” tool for dealing with anxiety was meditation. So she had me meditate again. And I did. And you’ll never guess what happened.

Here’s the thing: when I have a panic attack, I can’t speak. BUT! I know baby asl bc I had a foster brother who couldn’t talk. So when I panic attack I revert to baby asl (also apparently I learned baby asl when I was a baby) the Thing is, my therapist didn’t know baby asl (fair, not everyone does) so I tried to pantomime telling her I couldn’t speak. She tells me to “just tell her what’s wrong” fifteen times, making it so much worse (I don’t like being told to do something i physically cannot do. It freaks me out. Making the panic attack worse) by the end of the session I manage to clam down enough to tell her “when I have a panic attack I go nonverbal” to which she responded “no you don’t you just need to try” which ???? She had just spent a whole hour seeing me try every form of communication with her INCLUDING SPEECH and she concluded??? That I wasn’t trying?????

Anyway end of that session I told my mom all about it and she said that if the next session didn’t go well we could look for a different therapist.

Session 3: she opens by suggesting we try meditation again. I ask her if she has a different strategy so I don’t freak out again. She said she wanted to understand why I freaked out so she wanted to try it again. I told her I couldn’t speak tell her why, I definitely remember. She said “no, with your memory issues it’s best to just try again”. So I did. And let me tell you. At the end of the season she had to go get my mom bc I was STILL NON VERBAL and it took until we left the office for me to tell my mom to never ever take me to that therapist again. So I didn’t.

Ian knew the power of words.

Written or spoken, they could change things. Words could bring people together or tear them apart, couldn't make a person feel like they can accomplish anything or make all those hopes and dreams collapse in an instant. They were powerful, and they had to be very carefully used.

It was a message he had carried through his stint as a motivational speaker. Although he had never assumed he'd end up in that role after publishing his first novel featuring a main character navigating through a fantasy quest while coping with the highs and lows of intense anxiety, and then the follow-up companion piece self-help book? He ended up falling into the role.

A short book tour ended up being something else, and Ian discovered that the more he talked to people, the more he found ways to encourage them to look past those stigmas of how anxiety could hold back life, the more he discovered it was where he wanted to be.

He was very fortunate that his husband supported his gradually shifting career choices the past year, but even he could admit it was time for a vacation when the idea of a family trip back to the States was in order.

Still fresh off the excitement of the past year, it all felt like a whirlwind to Ian and a chance to reconnect. Just what he needed to catch his breath.

But then everything collapsed and Ian forgot how to breathe again. The panic, the noise, the sound and everything moving too fast, too much. Ian barely remembered the crash. It felt like something he was watching from a distance rather than living through it.

Because it couldn't be real, he couldn't have actually woken up with the sun shining in an open, impossibly blue sky above him, hearing the roll of waves around him like it was a perfect day.

The deep, throbbing pain in his side, relentless, argued that nothing was right. The way his vision was fuzzy at the edges, his chest so agonizingly tight, the unspoken plea for the people who could remind him what was real.

He could see.

Sky. Clouds. Dark hair hanging across his eye. A bird weaving across the blue above.

He could feel.

Sand under his fingers. The dampness of the shirt clinging to his skin. The ache of his ribs. The stickiness of his dry lips.

He could hear.

People shouting. Crashing waves. His own sharp inhale and exhale.

He could smell.

The twang of spilled oil. Salt in the air.

He could taste.

A hint of coffee from earlier that morning.