Looking out...

In the beginning...
I still remember when I had my first panic attack. I was 19. I was lying in bed, drifting of to sleep... and all of a sudden the blackness of the room felt suffocating. I started breathing heavy and I felt my heart start to pound. I didnt know what was happening to me, but I was scared to death of either dying or going mad. I never went to the doctor, I was terrified he would tell me I was insane. I just delt with it day by day.. after a while the PA's stopped and life went on as usual.

Then about 12 months later I was driving home from work and sitting in traffic in my car waiting for the traffic to stop so I could turn right. A really bad PA hit me, so much so, I had to pull over to the side of the road. I completely lost it... I even kinda forgot how to get home. After a little while the panic subsided and I managed to drive home. I was boarding at a ladies house at the time and so I just went up to my room and sat there not really knowing what had just gone on. Once again I got over that episode and life went on as normal... but from then on I did feel uneasy in traffic, but it never stopped me going anywhere.

I still didnt have a name for what was happening to me, but in the back of my mind I was terrified that I was gradually going insane. Then one day I was reading some womans magazine that I had picked up at the supermarket. There was an article about a woman who had been dealing with anxiety. The things she went through sounded very like what was hapening to me. I left it at that.

Over the next 13 years I got married to a soldier, lived in Darwin so was flying between Melbourne and Darwin a few times a year, had a daughter, got divorced and moved back to my home town with my daughter who was then 3. I occassionally felt anxious in that time, but it was nothing debilitating.

I then bought a computer and got hooked up to the internet. It was through the net that I worked out what had been going on inside my head. I hadnt had a PA for a long time and I was free to do whatever I wanted and go wherever I wanted.... freedom.

I then moved to a small country city. Here I met my fiancee and we had a son who is now 5. He was a dreadful sleeper and I barely got more than 3 straight hours of sleep for the first 2 years of his life. I felt constantly tired from the time he was born. When he was about 1 1/2 I put him in the pram and went for a walk to the corner shop, about a 10 minute walk away. I had my first PA in about 10 years walking to that shop. It was so aweful and frightening, worse than anything I had experienced before. I made it to the shop but I dont know how, my brain was screaming at me to go straight home.

My life really changed from that time. I felt uncomfortable driving, I had certain roads I could drive on. I took the exact same route to the places I had to go each week. I could not walk anywhere. I did not go anywhere other than to the school to pick up my daughter, the real estate to pay my rent, the post office to pay bills and to the one and only shopping centre where I felt comfortable. My life was boxed in and horrible. One day I felt like crying.... and I couldnt stop. It was then that both myself and Jarrod knew I needed help. I went to the doctor... and cried and cried. I felt ridiculous. I didnt know why I was cryng. My doctor told me that I was depressed and I had probably been suffering with post natal depression because of the lack of sleep once Zac was born. He put me on Zoloft and told me to go to the Agoraphobia help group. The Zoloft worked well and in a few weeks the blackness lifted and I stopped crying. I stayed on the Zoloft for 12 months and then came of it. The crying didnt return and I felt pretty good. We went on holidays to Lakes Entrance, went to my girlfriends wedding in Melbourne.. and once again I was free.

Then a year ago I started waking up in the middle of the night with PA's. I would be asleep one minute then awake with a pounding jack hammer heart the next. I had never had sleep PA's before and I didnt think it was anxiety, I thought I was having heart troubles. They were terrifying and would last for up to 2 hours. I would be walking around the house rubbing my face with ice and feeling my pounding heart, wondering if I should go to the hospital. I went back to the doctors and he told me they were PA's and that I had to go back on the Zoloft again.

So here I am. I still get occassional sleep PA's, but I know what they are now.. and I can relax enough to make them go away. But I still go to bed every night with a glass of ice beside my bed. I can drive around my area as much as I want, I can go out with friends and enjoy myself, I had a part time job for most of this year and my anxiety didnt cause me any work troubles.

I can live and enjoy my life..... as long as I dont have to leave this city. I havent been more than 20 minutes from home for 3 years. As long as I know I am close to home I am free. But I know I am not really free. Not really.

I never did go to that Agoraphobia group......

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