"DO NOT PUSH THE PANIC BUTTON"
A friend gave me this gentle advice today, and it really helped me to laugh and calm down. I pride myself on being at least somewhat rational and laid back but the past few weeks have really wound me up. Here are some of the things currently giving me palpitations ~
- A few new autoimmune symptoms have popped up, despite my rigorous healing protocol
- My son has a fever which spiked at 104 degrees F last night
- My daughter just got over pneumonia
- Funds are tight
- We've just signed off on a move to a new neighborhood, house, schools, etc.
- I have to get my house fully boxed and ready to move in 21 days, while still caring for my 3 kids and writing content for my husband's company
- I am woefully behind on content writing at the moment because when I have a free hour to write, I prefer to use it for this blog!
- A fourth grade girl in our neighborhood got hit by a car this morning while riding her bike to school. The schools sent us a message to explain what happened and I started to cry, especially when the email noted that her mother had gone with her in the ambulance to Children's Hospital. I don't ever want to understand what it felt like to be that mother today.
- One of my best friends has recently been diagnosed with cancer. I believe she will be okay after the surgery but have been praying for her 24/7 anyway. She is such an incredible woman and mother. I don't want to lose yet another friend to cancer.
- My thyroiditis is really flaring which causes anxiety by itself. The doc wants to wait a month before treating it though, so I can work on building my adrenals first. So, biology is working against me.
I imagine that many people in my community, city and country are feeling panicked today. I'm sure it isn't just me, sitting here at the kitchen table, stressing out. Our friend posted on Facebook yesterday that 150 people had been laid off at his company. Those folks have got to be feeling pretty darn panicked today as they look for new employment and try to figure out how they're going to keep groceries in the fridge and the heat on until they find a new job.
This afternoon I saw a huge group of parents surrounding our local elementary school waiting for a status update on the little girl's condition. They looked quite panicked as well. Whomever had the bad luck to be driving the car that hit her must also be horribly panicked. I wonder if they are in jail right now, for reckless driving, or if it was another parent who had just dropped his/her child off at school.
I imagine that Barack Obama feels panicked about what will happen if nations like China decide to suddenly call in their marker for the 40 cents they collectively own out of every one US $dollar$. For that matter, I'm pretty sure that Sarah Palin regrets using the whole target map when discussing elected politicians like Gabby Giffords. Career politicians probably panic as much as the rest of us, just secretly.
What is the biological role of panic?
I recognize that it is in some way attached to "Fight or Flight"... and that when I begin to panic it is usually my body giving me the signal that it may be time to self-protect.
I've also read that there may be environmental cues that cause folks like me to panic. For instance, I probably noticed too well when my over-protective father panicked frequently while I was growing up. Unwittingly he may have modeled his anxious parental behavior for me, and without meaning to I may have internalized the lesson. Dad was quite the worry wart, especially when it came to the health or welfare of his wife and daughter.
Other things thought to provoke a panic disorder:
- overprotective parenting ( check! )
- High levels of stress in the home ( check! Boys, please stop fighting!)
- Hypersensitivity to harmless physical sensations or changes, with the notion that they represent danger ( check! )
- Major stressful life events ( check! )
How does one avert or soothe a panic attack?
Beyond what I covered previously in my article about waiting, I think just knowing that we are all going through it together really helps.
Maybe panic is really just our individual or collective fear of the unknown.
If I knew for sure that we were going to be happy in our new house, I would give or throw away our jumble of furniture and clothing with ease and even joy... because as long as we are together and happy, that is all that matters. If I knew for certain that my best friend would be healthy and strong for the rest of her life after going through surgery, I would relax about her newly discovered cancer. If I could see with certainty that by tomorrow night my son would be fever-free and ready to return to school on Monday, I would probably be able to focus more on cleaning, packing and laundry.
My husband would probably say that we should just act, as if... also known as the Fake It 'Til You Can Make It principle. "Act as if everything is going to be okay, and it will be okay," he reminds me. He believes that if you operate under the assumption that everything is going to be fine, it probably will be.
There's something very beautiful about living with that kind of faith. Which reminds me that panic is probably the opposite of having true faith.
Perhaps then the best antidote to panic is to think about all of the miracles we have each personally experienced or witnessed in our lives which have given us reason to believe.
I'm going to take a moment now to re-center and remember the miracles from my own 35 years on Earth, and write them as they pop into my mind:
MIRACLES
(1) When I was 26 a skateboarder going too fast down a hill actually skated right into the side of my car as I was driving down the perpendicular street. To stop himself at impact he actually ripped the side view mirror right off my car. I felt the force of his hit, and stopped the car mid-street right away. As I got out of that car, I remember my heart felt like it was beating in my ears and my shoes -- I was so convinced there would be a body laying on the ground next to my truck.
Imagine my surprise when there was no-one and nothing on the ground. I was still scanning the street when I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. Turning around I saw the early-twenties skater holding his board in one hand and my side view mirror in the other. "Sorry!" he said as he handed it to me. He then jumped on his board and skated away.
I was so grateful that he was okay, I actually didn't care at all about the side view mirror. Material things can be replaced.
(2) About a decade ago I left the apartment I absolutely loved (that I'd inhabited for 18 months) to attend graduate school in a different part of the state. I wept as I left it, because it had become such an integral part of my identity as an independent adult.
Graduate school did not turn out to be what I was looking for at that time, at least not that particular grad school. Within a month of arrival I was 100% sure that it was not the city or school for me (I left behind an awesome roommate though) and I headed down to Los Angeles to try to break into A&R... the branch of the music business that signs bands. It was a heady, exciting time and I was young and full of magic. Yet despite 4 months of diligent temping, taking interviews and going through my life savings, I never found a job. I grew steadily more despondent and prayed for help.
One day out of the blue, I received an email from an old professor in my hometown saying that she had just heard I had dropped out of grad school and would I ever consider coming to join her credential program again. She said based on my transcript and her prior experience with me in the classroom she could arrange a fellowship to pay for part of my tuition and fees.
My mom always tells me to walk through the open doors. The doors in Los Angeles were shut tightly... but the doors in my hometown were wide open. "Where will I live?" I wondered, and I decided to call my old landlord to see if any of his cronies had a vacancy.
"Well," he answered slowly, "It's odd but your apartment is actually available again. The guy I rented it to after you left just gave me his notice yesterday."
What a joy to return home! I hugged the walls and even the camelia bushes outside the front door. Sometimes life gives you second chances in the most unlikely of ways. I remained in that house for another three and a half years, until my darling husband came along and brought me into his world of lofts, fixers and urban living.
(3) I'm here.
In 1975 when my 37 year old mother was just over 30 weeks along with her pregnancy, I kicked a hole in her bag of waters. My mother began to leak amniotic fluid and went to the hospital, where they told her that I needed to stay inside as long as possible to keep developing. They sent her home to sit on towels with the hope that the sac would re-seal. My mother did the best she could to take it easy while taking care of four other children, but there came a point when she cooked dinner, put on her makeup and announced, "Take me to the hospital, I'm having the baby tonight. Don't worry, we're BOTH going to be fine."
Talk about living "as if"! If my mother was faking her confidence and faith, she never let on. This took place in the mid-70s... long before the giving of steroid shots for infant's lungs or specialized hospital equipment for neonatal wards. They assured my laboring mother that we might both die. My father paced anxiously in the waiting room and wondered if he would lose both wife and child in a single evening. But that tough, determined, spiritual lady gave birth to me - DRY - in a grueling labor.
35 years later, we're both still here ~ each of us with our fair share of white hair. I've gone on (weirdly) to deliver my own six-week premature daughter by c-section who ended up in the NICU for two weeks... just exactly as I myself lived in the NICU for three weeks when I was born. A strange, strange symmetry with two miraculous endings.
***
I feel so much better after remembering and recounting these three distinct miracles from my own experience. The panic has abated and been replaced by a sense that life is rich with miracles and blessings. Maybe the sensation of panic is really just a divine way of reminding us physically that we have much to be grateful for in this beautiful world.
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