This is a narration of my personal struggle with panic disorder. To hear more narratives about mental health please join the Colby Community on Thursday November 19 at 7:30 in Ostrove Auditorium.

"There is a moment. A distinct moment when you know. When I know. So maybe you don’t know. Maybe you haven’t the slightest clue, but inside I am slowly dying. Dying by the life I live. Or the life I am afraid of living. I should have nothing to fear. I am a college student. I have a home. I am safe. Yet when that distinct moment, that switch happens. Everything becomes feared. The physical changes can be hard to see from an outsider’s perspective. Inside, I am acutely aware.

At this point you are probably saying what the hell is she talking about? Panic. That is what I am talking about. There is nothing slow or gradual about it. When I start to feel anxious or panicked I know that very instant. And in that very instant my world changes. All I can think about is what will come next: Fear. Panic Attack. Seizure. Sadness. Anger. Tears. Embarrassment. Guilt. In that order. When you read that string of words attaching themselves to nothing but your heart, you probably feel something. Or maybe you feel nothing. After everything is said and done I often feel nothing. Numbness takes over and I think nothing could give me love or hate or pain, even though just moments ago I felt all of those previous emotions.

So let me bring you inside my personal hell. Panic attacks that lead into seizures. I will do my best to describe my personal experience with Panic Disorder. Everyone who has panic disorder has different experiences and I do not claim that my experience is representative of the disorder. My story is exactly that. My story.

Here we go. A trigger usually sets me off, but not always. I am hypersensitive to my triggers when I am sick, menstruating, or anticipating medicine changes. My triggers are loud noises and things that startle me. Doctors have told me that I have a heightened flight-or-fight response. Just to be clear I flight not fight. Why I have this sensitivity remains unclear. I have struggled with this since I was twelve years old. Seizures did not come into the picture into late high school and early in college.

Once I have been triggered my heart starts racing faster than I think is humanly possible. My eyes they ache to roll back in my head. My breathing becomes rapid. I start to moan. I start to scream. I start to cry. And I am almost outside of my body. It feels as though I am at the top of a roller coaster, but there’s no seat belt and I am plummeting to my death. My hand and legs start to tangle in ways that shouldn’t be possible. At this point I am reaching for a way to get to the ground. I am trying to talk to keep talking trying to say out-loud that I am okay. But I am not. Once I am on the ground my eyes do get their satisfaction and I start moving to my right. I lay on the ground rolling over and over myself. Screaming. Within a few moments I know I will go unconscious. Or at least I will be in state where I won’t remember. Each time just before this next transitory state my world goes black. I see outlines of whoever or whatever is around me. I can hear myself talking to them, yet nothing is coming out. “Call 911. Call 911. Wait no you don’t need to call 911.” That is the dialogue I have almost every time in my head.

I start to talk. I don’t make sense. Sometimes my jaw shakes. Sometimes I am still shaking, but the worst of it is over physically. The pain is not as intense. My body is exhausted. My ribs hurt. My back hurts. My hands and legs hurt. Shortly I will be welcoming a headache that will only be cured by at least three ibuprofen. Once I start to come around, as they say, I usually cry or talk more than I should to try to explain to the people around me what just happened. The thing is they can’t understand. No one can understand, because it is my experience. My explanations usually include an “I’m sorry you had to see that,” “It must have been hard to watch/witness.” I try to console them when I am the one falling apart inside.

Next the anger sets in. “I could have prevented this. I should have prevented this, but I didn’t. I am weak. I am a failure. I deserve the pain it caused me.” These are all phrases that go through my mind for the next few hours and days. That anger settles from anger at myself to anger at my disorder. Usually I have a pity party for myself in the comfort of my room by myself in the fetal position. I cry tears of sadness and distrust. All of this turns into a guilt I carry until the next attack.

I am guilty of hurting the people I care about. I am guilty of putting people in positions they are not equipped to handle. I am guilty of hating every part of who I am.

This sometimes will be severe for a few hours, a few days or a few weeks. It is my instant thought anytime I think there is potential for an attack.

Progress. Progress is a funny word that people try to tell you about. They will say you are making progress or that an attack is a temporary setback. I despise it. How dare anyone judge whether or not I am making “progress.” You are not inside my body going through my thoughts and having my feelings. You are not able to tell if this attack was a temporary setback or a catastrophe in my mind. It is not your job or duty or even your responsibility to measure and monitor my progress. At this point in my life, I feel that I have indeed made progress, but that I am on the verge of falling apart almost every day. Some people might not call that progress.

Each and every day when I wake up I think about my panic level. Each and every day when I fall asleep I think about it to. Whenever I get in my car to drive it goes through my mind. Whenever I try to make my way across campus during the icy winter it crosses my mind. Whenever I am alone it crosses my mind. Whenever I am around children it crosses my mind. I think about how quickly I can get away in the 10-15 seconds I have before a full blown attack. I am always aware of what is around me. If something unexpected happens I am almost certain to feel my heart stop.

Every person feels a sense of panic or anxiety at some point in their life. My sense is just heightened and acute. The reaction my mind and body has is different than other people who are diagnosed with panic disorders but I think there are some similarities to remember. We are all human. We all have insecurities. We all deal with those insecurities differently. And most importantly we all need support in differing ways."