Stress

I don't talk about personal things very much on this blog, or really at all. I'm geeky and introverted, and just not very touchy feely, so it just doesn't come naturally to me to come out and talk about deeply emotional personal subjects. However, I have always known that for most things of this nature it really helps to talk about them, and for some things it may even be therapeutic to publish them to the world. Sort of a very extroverted way of exorcising one's demons. It seems to work for some people anyway.

Something happened to me recently that I feel compelled to talk about. A couple of days ago I had a real, honest to goodness anxiety attack. I was sitting in a meeting at work, and I was already feeling a bit nervous and unsure of myself for some reason. It was toward the end of the meeting, and I had just started to talk about something, and I felt myself falter. I kept talking but then I stuttered a little and my voice cracked. I took a breath and tried to talk some more but my throat was constricting, and my voice began to waver more. I became aware that everyone in the room was looking at me. My heart started to race, my skin became hot, my eyes teared up, and my throat constricted further until I was completely unable to speak. My emotions began to spiral out of control. I put my chin on my chest, instinctively put my hand over my mouth, and tried to gather myself while everyone looked on. My mind was raging with fear and doubt. I was in full "fight or flight" mode, and I was leaning heavily toward flight. I literally wanted to get up and run out of the room, or just burst into a wailing, screaming, crying mess. Just a few seconds passed, but they were eternally long seconds, endured in complete silence. Finally, after a few more labored breaths and about 5,872 heartbeats, I managed to croak out a few more words to finish what was left of my original thought. To my great relief, the others began to talk and ask questions like nothing had happened. And just like that, it passed.

Now, I'm sure if there were a logarithmic scale that rated the severity of anxiety attacks my episode would rate a 1.5, but in my experience it was the equivalent of a Grand Mal seizure. It completely freaked me out. It was all I could think about the rest of the day. It was such a shock to suddenly lose control and have a complete, albeit temporary, emotional breakdown for no discernable reason. I also realized that I had a couple of similar, but much more mild episodes in the recent past. It seemed that this had been building up for a while. The difference was that the previous occurrences happened in situations that were already a bit emotionally charged, so it wasn't completely unexpected to be upset. The symptoms were less severe too. A bit out of the ordinary, to be sure, but not enough to make me realize there was a systemic problem.

When I got home I talked to Stephanie about it. She was concerned, supportive, and completely unsurprised. We talked for a long time, of course, and consulted the all knowing, all seeing god of the internets: Google. The respectable sites that we found cautioned against self diagnosis, but in my case one conclusion seemed fairly obvious: too much stress. In a way, I'm kind of relieved and even a little excited that this happened. My engineering instincts have kicked in, and I now realize there's something going on that is at least treatable, if not completely fixable. So, in the meantime I've set about removing stressful things from my life. Of course, I've only barely started, but one of the first things I did was delete all of my non-work related favorites from my web browser at work. Especially all the links to political blogs. I've decided I just don't need to know how badly George Bush is fucking up the country. When I can do something about it I'm sure Howard Dean and the DNC will let me know. I'm also to going to keep up the exercise. I've been doing pretty well, but it has been slipping a bit lately. The therapy option has come up too, but that just scares me more right now.

There much more to say about this, of course, but another thing I need to do is get some rest. To bed with me. Honestly, I have to say it feels strangely reassuring to get up here and say, "Hey everybody, I'm a complete fucking spaz!" Thanks for listening.

Comments

[Stephanie]

You're not a spaz and I'm extremely proud of you for revealing something so important to you so publicly.
I love you very, very much. :)

[DAD]

Tony, it took a lot of courage to talk about this in a public forum. YOU ARE DEFINETLY NOT A SPAZ, JUST HUMAN. I recently experienced such an episode at a Quarterly Review at P&G. I'll give you a call and tell you what happened during and after the meeting................Love, Dad

[hollyjean]

Methinks this is related to early February also. It gets the body all screwed around like a wind up toy getting ready for spring. If you didn't have Steph there, I'd be concerned about you, but she's the best doctor a friend can be. And of course then there's the fact that there's nobody she loves more than you, so you'll be fine. Which you already are.
Good for you on the exercise. Too bad it's not a prettier season to climb Yosemite. You might try Lake Chabot. Or you could take a vacation and live in Wisconsin for awhile. When is your spring break? You could visit Annie!

[carolyn]

Ugh, anxiety attacks. I used to get them multiple times a week for about 7 years (until I finally wised up and went on a low dosage of Paxil).

My answer for anything is always "screw work and go riding!". ;) Anyone want to go to Alice's for lunch today or tomorrow? ;)

[tony]

Thanks for the supportive comments. It really means a lot to me. Thankfully I'm feeling much better. The following day I felt a bit wobbly and unsure, but now I think I feel a bit stronger than I did before this happened. It such a relief the know there's an actual treatable problem here.

So yeah, Alice's tomorrow, wooo!

[Ed]

Amazing how one finds how much love and support there is when one really needs it.

Reading about what happened to you, I am reminded of a road trip you and I and Wilson took to Chicago a long time ago.

On the way home, as you might recall, I had a few moments of particularly strong expression :) over our route heading out of Indianapolis. Remember that?

Well, you were the very picture of calm through the whole thing.

Take it from a rather explosive personality, it helps a great deal to let it out. Hard as that can be on everyone else.

Also: that your conscience causes you stress is something I would call a quality, not a weak spot. Too many people are simply numb.

[Jennifer]

Speaking as one of the medicated -- and I *know* that's a last-resort option -- you might want to check out Buspar (aka buspirone). I spent a lot of time last year freaking out for absolutely *no* *reason* & it's helped a lot.

Of course, when I say "check out," I'm fully aware that you'll come across lists that say,

May Cause:
drowsiness or insomnia
constipation or diarrhea
low blood pressure or high blood pressure

as they will with just about *any* medication, fer cryin' out loud. All I can say is that it's helped me.

With the exception of "Multiple dosing" (I take 5mg at bedtime) and that it does make me drowsy, this pretty much covers it:

"Strictly an antianxiety medication, but with a different chemical structure than benzodiasepines. Research indicates that it may be just as effective as benzo's, but with fewer side effects, and is not known to be addictive. The benefits of the drug include no sedation, no memory loss, does not impair coordination, no withdrawl syndrome, no alcohol interaction, and few subjective side effects. The down side is that it takes two to three weeks to produce antianxiety effects, has no muscle relaxant properties, and requires multiple daily dosing."

-CompleteFuckingSpazJen

[Uncle]

You know I love you, but your a SPAZ !! Just kidding.