No Exits for this Ride.

Imagine a bright, shiny happy day…

Tralala…

OK, so I’ve never tralala’ed in my life, I admit. This was my last night which was fine, really. I felt moderately normal – just an average day. Nothing much going on. I climb a few mental mountains and discover they’re molehills. I do a bit of yoga. I work on the computer… then bang. Shoot me up, buttercup, don’t bring me down.

You know you’re having a panic attack when the world slides out from beneath you when you’re sitting still. I imagine the hand of a preacher reaching down from above to bestow the speaking in tongues upon me because for sure I’m rapidly reduced to total incoherence.

My hands are sweaty as a schoolboy’s on his first date. At least he knows there’s a slim chance he’s going to get laid. I just know I’m thoroughly screwed.

My heart is beating to the tune of a very different drum – think reggae on speed.

Breathe, I tell myself. Just breathe.

Oh no, says every other fibre of my being. Just wait for it. Wait for it, Kid. This is radio city with the lights on high. Get out the big guns because you’ve just won a no holes barred, pull all the stops out ride to Panic Disorder Central.

The world suddenly looks distant. My hands are impossibly far away, and no longer part of me. They seem like gangly tentacles over which I have no control as the tremors that started in my shivering core take them over. They fumble and flutter, which would be OK if I were actually trying to undo the buttons on the blouse of some hot chick. I’m not, though. Just trying to open my damn childproof bottle of pills.

Oh shit. I’ve done it. This is it. I’m having a heart attack, I know it.

It builds inside me, wave upon wave of gut punching nausea. Look Ma, no hands to ride this bull.

Please. Oh, please.

Oh, no.

Oh, fuck me. I lay down and let the hand of some raging god crush me. Breathe through it, they say. Don’t panic, they say. What would you do exactly if you felt like someone had vacuum sucked the air out of your lungs and replaced it with glue? Am I supposed to be happy about that?

Where are my goddamn drugs? I need a Xanax like it’s my last meal. Bless me Father for I have sinned. Repeatedly, and with great vigor but could you please not kill me now anyway?

No Xanax. Oh good. Lucky me.

Ativan. That I have. I pop an Ativan with some beta blockers in the hope that I won’t actually pass out.

Merciful Zeus! I swear I’ll remember not to piss you off again if you just let me calm the hell down.

I manage to fight through the congee that is what’s left of my brain and put on my relaxation Mp3. I roll over in a foetal ball and try really hard to hear something other than the pounding of my heart. It sounds like it’s trying to break out of my ribcage using a jackhammer. Feels about the same, too.

I focus on Mp3 Guy’s voice while I try and block out the need to run screaming from the room. He may as well be reading numbers off a spreadsheet for all the information I’m taking in but he’s placid. So placid you’d think he’d been lobotomised, in fact.

Anyone feel like being really kind and lobotomising me? I’d really consider you a pal if you would. I’m sure there are bits of brain I don’t really need.

I took some more drugs, and listened to that Mp3 until I passed out. I woke up feeling like someone had hit me over the head with a 2 by 4 but this was in fact a vast improvement. Disoriented but relatively calm. That much I can live with.