My journey to.........ME (part 2)

I can remember being very young, and playing with my brother in my room, and BOOM! being overcome with the most overwhelming fear you can possibly imagine, but WHY?? I had NO idea, and often wondered what the HELL was wrong with me! Throughout my childhood this would happen to me often. I would feel like I was just going to die right there on the spot...I was convinced of it! Obviously, that never happened, but it sure felt like it was going to.

There was never any rhyme or reason for these episodes, they would just come...and go, each one leaving me emotionally exhausted., and anticipating the next one. For those of you who have never had a panic attack, let me try to  explain what it feels like. Imagine something that would scare the crap out of you.....I mean, REALLY SCARE you, now magnify that by about A MILLION! NO, I'm NOT kidding...it's is the most horrible feeling you can ever experience, and don't forget the fact that they can sometimes just come out of NO WHERE...sounds fun, right? Yeah, I don't think so either! and the symptoms that come along with an attack..oh boy! Even more fun! For me it usually starts with my heart beating so hard that it literally feels like it will beat right out of my chest, and then the tightness in my chest, it feels like I can't catch my breath, and then the tingling in my fingers, then my hands, then my arms...it's a lack of oxygen from hyperventilation...are we having fun yet?? Visit this link for a more "professional" description : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_attacks


Sometimes the panic attack would be short lived (I prefer those of course, hahaha) and then other times...they would last for quite a while, now when I say quite a while...in reality, it was probably about  10-15 minutes, because the body can only sustain such a high level of fear for short periods of time, but let me tell you...just a few SECONDS of these things are more than enough, let alone....10-15 MINUTES OF IT!

Growing up with this always made me feel different, weird, strange and all that good stuff because nobody else that I knew had this problem, and if I did mention it to any of my friends they would look at me like I was crazy. For many years, I thought I WAS crazy! If I would have sleep overs at my friends houses, I would always have a panic attack at night, I think it's because I was out of my "comfort zone". There were many times when I would have to have my parents come and get me in the middle of the night....geez, I was TONS of fun as a kid!

My parents got divorced when I was around 7, and I can remember having attacks a lot right after the divorce. I always seemed to be scared...of what? Anything, and Everything. After the divorce my Dad, Brother, and Myself moved in with my grandparents ( my dads parents) and my mom moved to her own apartment. Talk about going from bad to worse............