You and Me

I was in my early twenties when I experienced my first full­ blown panic attack. I was in school and we were learning how to draw blood that day. I loved this part of my schooling. I was good at it. I had a hard time with the math, but other than that, all was coming along nicely. I was drawing blood from a friend when the vein rolled. I was about to take the needle out and start over, my instructor told me to leave the needle in and fish for the vein. I tried, and the needle went through the vein. Blood squirted out onto my friend, the carpet and me.

I dropped everything and ran into the dark hallway. I couldn’t breathe very well; my throat felt like it was swelling up. I was sure that I was dying. My fingers and toes started going numb from hyperventilating, although at the time I did not realize it. I was sure I’d pass out, hit the floor, and that would be the end. I felt like I was in a dark abyss and could not get out. I felt an overwhelming doom. Something was very wrong. I started to get very dizzy, my breathing was out of control, and I was alone and very scared.

I may have passed out, though I don’t remember too much until the class ended and my friend came to find me. She asked me if I was okay. I didn’t know. The panic attack had stopped, but derealization and depersonalization had settled in. I felt completely lost and disoriented. I had no idea what I had just experienced or what it was called. My friend got me home and I slept the rest of the day.

Over the next few weeks I took my final exams. I passed anatomy, biology, hematology–everything from the endocrine system to the cardiovascular system. I had one exam left. I went to take it and I froze. I started to panic again. I did not want that to happen so I left and went home. And I never went back.

I never graduated. Everything just stopped. I didn’t want to leave my house. I lost a lot of friends and I felt stupid for not finishing school. I was now experiencing 20 to 30 panic attacks a day. It was just too much to be anywhere but home.

I slowly became agoraphobic; occasionally leaving the house to get groceries when a family member couldn’t go get them for me. Once, on a rare trip to the store, my mom was with me and I had all my groceries in the cart, ready to check out. She looked at my five items and said, “Five things. Five. That’s not enough to keep you alive.” I had become phobic about food. Phobic that I was going to be allergic to everything I ate except those five items. If they changed the ingredients or packaging I couldn’t eat it. It had to be the exact same item. My grocery list slowly got smaller as companies changed their items. Everything had to be the same: the store, the cart, the lady checking out, etc. It was so difficult. It took hours to finish that trip, my mom pleading with me to just get checked out and leave, to go back home where everything was the same. And yet, I’d have even a more daunting task once home. Those groceries were full of germs. I spent hours sanitizing them before I could put them away.

I was by then underweight and very ill. My mom helped me voluntarily check into a place for change, a place of renewal and hope. A place to get a diagnosis, proper medication and therapy. A mental hospital. I was in a mental hospital, but I was alive, and I was okay being where I was. For the first time in years I had hope. I had eye­-opening experiences. I found people there, living their lives just like me. I wasn’t alone.

Doctors gave me the first initial diagnosis of generalized anxiety, with phobias and obsessive compulsive disorder soon to follow. I was put on medication. I was not happy about it, but I knew it was necessary. I had some unwanted side effects, so they switched medications until they found a few that I could tolerate. Slowly I began to heal. I had lost my husband through all of this. He didn’t know how to deal with the panic. He became abusive. I was in a women’s shelter more than once. I had a two-year-old who needed me. I wasn’t going to let her down.

I decided it wasn’t good enough to just heal. I had to fight; fight hard every single day, hour and minute to live. It was and is a never-ending battle. I love NAMI. It has helped me to have hope. Hope for the future, hope for the next generation. That together we will be fighting for life, for equality, for understanding, and most importantly, for empathy for all who struggle each and every day to live with mental illness. Hope for you and me.