Panic Stations: Major Anxiety Attack on a Train and How I Coped (or didn't...)

Hey Guys, thanks for stopping by. Firstly, thanks for all the kind works and support of my poetry, I've never posted any before so it's really cool that people have got behind it and encouraged me. I've needed it. It's been a tough two weeks since I last touched base, tougher than I care to publicly admit to friends. When last I wrote I had been taking Mirtazapine for about four weeks, on my doctor's insistence, and was still waiting for the benefits which, I was assured, would be felt at around week six.  Since I started taking them in mid-August, there's been a lot of up-n-down days, one or two positive one's but sadly, most of them still featured both morning and matinee showings of "The Causeless Panic Attacks Show", featuring yours truly as the leading role.  On and off, these spontaneous, seeming unprovoked waves of fear and utter terror have been blighting me for a few years now, but since starting up again with a vengance in July (after loosing my job), they have been a source of daily irritation and upset. They still scare the living shit out of me for the first five seconds, as pain bursts through my heart centre and radiates out into every muscle in my chest, often causing me to involuntarily double over, but nowadays, by focusing on taking long, deep, slow breaths through puckered lips, I can usually stabilise within 10 minutes. I've developed this counter-measure to help me 'breathe around' the pain and fear, creating a kind, gentle and non-judgemental space in which it may reside until it dissipates.  A nifty trick if you can pull it off. Sometime though, I can't. 

Last week was my sixth on Mirtazapine. Like English 'Marmite' - a savoury molasses spread of an inconceivably tar-like viscosity - most people seem to either love it or hate it. I couldn't work it out. I didn't really feel....anything. I still had the sudden mood drops, the suicide ideation, and the slow-sinking, gut-wrenching lows. The Mirtazapine test was, in short, not a conclusive one, and I've decided to speak to my doctor about alternative medications. When it comes down to it, they were just not dealing with the anxiety. This is what prompted my decision.

During the week I suffered a major panic attack on an evening commuter train, causing a complete meltdown upon alighting at Piccadilly station. It was so horrible, I struggle to identify with the person I was that night. I wonder if anyone else experiences this trauma induced dissociation?

Another question is what triggered it? How important is it for one to know the underlying causes? Furthermore, how important is it to share it with you? This is one of the rare occasions whereby I can attribute a conscious thought or stimuli as the root cause of the innitial anxiety attack, so I share, but with the following caveat: This issue is waaay bigger than any one person's experience. This blog is neither a vanity project nor a soapbox from which I can force upon the world my unsolicited opinions. Opinions are like arse-holes; everybody's got one! Interestingly, we find that a high percentage of arse-holes love their opinions! It's uncanny, huh? My entirely subjective opinions have no place here; it's my experiences and reactions that interest me, and on this occasion it was a shocking picture in a newspaper that set me off. 

I shall never forget it. Tattooed indelibly onto my retinas is the haunting image of a western hostage seconds before having his head sawn off by a religious fundamentalist of middle-eastern descent, feeling every hateful slice, slowly and manually, with little more than a large kitchen knife. He knew how this was going to end... He knew he was fucked. And he knew that this was about to happen to HIM. He KNEW that HE was about to die, and in about the most public and horrific, degrading ways as it's conceivable. Being a Buddhist is usually seen as a positive thing, but with the medication and my poor mental health of late, I am sometime left over-sensitive to certain things, and my reactions often end up completely disproportionate. I've always been a sensitive chap, emotionally articulate and never that squeamish, but on this occasion hideously graphic images, feelings and thoughts spawned and proliferated newer, even more disturbing ones faster than I could stop them...

"That's someone's HUSBAND! Someone's SON! Someone's DAD OR BROTHER! What if it had been my own father, or my little brother in that orange shirt? With that same look of utter defeat and terror as he kneels there weeping openly, pleading for his life? And this is ok to show in newspapers now? To make money off a man's final moments? Is nothing sacred any more? It's all about money and deluded human greed. This is the world we live in, and it's only gonna get worse... Oh shit, I think I'm gonna puke!"

My head started to swim and suddenly I felt very hot, nauseous and dizzy. So severe was the experience that my body and mind went into shock. I struggled to form sentences, and those few I managed were fractures and disjointed. I was frozen stiff on a warm Indian Summer's night, and everything felt distant, disconnected, unreal. My entire face was numb, I couldn't lift my head up and my thick tongue lay heavy and impotent. I was literally lost for words. My friend and I were en route to a gig together, for the first time exposing myself to the frenetic energy of the city centre in months, and this was the one thing I didn't want to happen. Coincidence that it did? Probably not. I can't really remember what happened after that... All I recall of the rest of the journey was the constant battle of man vs. his desire to explosively vomit in a lavish and irredeemable fashion over railway carriage and it's startled inhabitants. Next thing I know, my companion and I are jolting into Piccadilly station, our terminus. 

It was all so surreal. I remember coming round on a set steps away from the main crowds, aware of a uncomfortable sensation across my buttocks. Clearly, this fire escape was not build for weary legs or those of unsteady footing, but I couldn't feel anything else, and at least the pain kept me grounded in my body. At points, the discomfort felt like the only thing that would stop me floating off into the night sky or blacking out. I was confused, mumbling to my friend, who by this point had been stoiclly waiting in the cold for half an hour. She is wearing a frown of concern and a new dress. She says something, but I can't follow it. I feel like I'm trying to listen underwater. "Call the guys and explain what's happened" she gently urges again. "They will understand, they know you are not well, and I'll get you back home on the train safely, don't worry, it's all going to be ok". She really is an angel! 

Eventually, and with shaking hands, I managed to make the call, but could hold back neither pain nor fear, and as I spoke, hot salty tears of bitter disappointment ran freely over my flushed and trembling cheeks. I felt awful, like I'd failed in my 'mission' to have a normal night out. I couldn't shake the fear of what our friend might think of me. Would he tell others about my melt down? I felt I was letting him down, the band down and my companion down. All I do is ruin things! Negative thoughts and numbness kept me frozen to the steps. Just the thought of getting up and walking back onto the train was completely overwhelming. I just stare at then floor and counted the discarded, yellowed cigaret butts, trying to maintain some kind of focus. The night a write-off, there was nothing to do but go home and try and rest up. 

I have a fear of having major panic attacks in crowded busy environments, it's happened before, so re-entering the very hub of Manchester's sprawling rail nexus posed a formidable challenge. I took several deep breaths, told my self that I just had to stand up. Nothing more at this stage. By sheer force of effort, I slowly willed myself to my feet. Once fully erect (as it were), all I now had to do was to keep my head down and make it onto our waiting train, due to depart any minute now. All I'd need to do then is wait quietly with my eyes closed for half an hour. After that, a gentle downhill stroll to the main road, and so on. I half closed my eyes, mumbled "fuck it!" between gritted teeth, and went for it.

Thus my journey was broken up from a pulsating, overwhelming ball of "I can't do this" to much smaller, more achievable and discernibly less daunting sections or stages. I just took it in "baby-steps", one at a time, to quote Bill Murray in the hilarious "What About Bob?" (a wonderfully uplifting film about mental health).  A famous Zen Buddhist teacher, Tich Nat Han, once asked of a pupil "How do you eat an orange?" One segment at a time was the answer. We can get so caught up contemplating something as ostensibly straightforward as a night out, we forget that actually it is composed of many small journeys and manageable interactions. We can deal with these far more calmly. We don't have to paint masterpieces, just focus on each brush stroke, remaining fluid and flexible. Life just seems less daunting when you take each day, each hour, each moment as it arrises in our experience. 

All events are ultimately made by, filtered through and manifested in our minds. If we speak or act with a tangled, messy, agitated mind, then the dark clouds hanging over our head will never lift. Our salvation lies in the fact that speaking or acting with a gentle, compassionate mind brings untold happiness, like a shadow or a friend that never departs. It takes time to accept that we have a mental health condition; it took me an awful lot longer, years in fact, to accept that I am responsible for creating the conditions in my life that support optimum mental health. If we can work to create conditions which are conducive to inner peace, then that's half the battle already won. If breaking overwhelming challenges up into less terrifying smaller tasks worked for me, then I know it can work for you. I know you have it in yourself to take a look in the mirror, and be honest with yourself about the role you play in your own mental wellbeing - intake of caffeine, late nights, booze, nicotine, crappy diet, lack of exercise, recreational drugs etc. I think you owe it to yourself too. 

We can't control everything that happens to us, but we can learn to slowly take increasing responsibility for our mental health and our reactions to life's ups and downs. We can begin to notice our reactionary ways, and instead strengthen our resolve to lead more authentically creative lives, rather than simply responding unthinkingly, lurching violently in tears from one cranial crisis to another. In this way, it can be said, we can start to live more authentically human lives. Besides, it's always sensible to have a plan in case of emergency, an emotional parachute if you will. In this way I am reminded of the thousand different things every day I can work on and my own habitual responses to them.  By trying to sleep more, eat better etc, I can help my body to help my mind. But that is another topic for another time.

May you be well,

May you be happy,

May you prosper in peace.

Your friend, 

The Dharma Farmer xx