So much for all those years of therapy paying off.

Today something stressful happened to me, and I had a huge panic attack. For once, the thing that set me off would have even upset a normal person. I actually had a reason to feel distressed. Of course, I didn't just feel distressed. I had a huge fucking panic attack.

I totally freaked out. I couldn't breathe, my heart was trying to beat itself out of my chest, my blood pressure rocketed to the moon and my head felt like it would explode. And while I was going through all of this, I had to try and fix the problem that had caused this panic attack in the first place. Which meant dealing with people.

As you know, even when I'm at my best, I don't deal with people all that well. I really tried to not let my panic attack affect my communication with the people I needed to talk to to fix the problem, but I'm afraid I wasn't completely successful. I ended up yelling at someone over the phone and sent some emails that maybe weren't completely polite.

Fortunately, the situation was resolved very quickly. And I really appreciate how helpful and competent the people were who fixed things. Even though to me, every moment that I was waiting for things to be resolved felt like hours.

After the problem was corrected, and I had checked over the emails that I had sent and determined that although they were a bit abrupt, they weren't all that bad, I was still in really bad shape.

I went out back and spent time with my critters, which can usually calm me down. It helped, but nothing was going to stop my body from the physiological over-reaction it was engaged in.

For several hours after everything was resolved, my heart was still pounding, my blood pressure was still spiking, I was still having trouble breathing and I had the most intense stress headache. I was also crying uncontrollably. Not huge wracking sobs or anything like that, just tears dripping from my eyes and the occasional sad gasp.

And in case you've never understood why women love their cats so much. As I was laying on my bed crying, several of my cats came and rubbed up against me or curled up next to me. One even licked the tears from my face.

I know that though the thing that happened did deserve an emotional response, it did not deserve this extreme anxiety reaction. I knew that even as I was panicking. But did it help? No.

This is my life. Even when I know that my reactions are far beyond what they should be, that doesn't change what is going on. Knowing that you are over-reacting and not being able to stop it, just makes things even worse.

This is why I am a recluse. I am incapable of dealing with the everyday stresses that normal people encounter in their every day lives.

I thought that limiting my interaction with the outside world by creating an online identity or two that only dealt with the rest of the world through cyberspace would protect me from these kinds of stresses. It does limit them, but apparently, it cannot completely prevent them.

The Edge of Death

This post was copied from an old blog that I no longer keep up. It was originally published on November 6, 2008 and originally titled, “Dying is Easy, Living is Hard”.

I was 27 the last time I tried to commit suicide. It was my first night home from the hospital after giving birth and giving my child up for adoption. I'd gotten home to discover my roommate, Alex, had moved out while I was in the hospital. At the time I thought the child was his. I later found out through DNA testing(paid for by the adopting couple) that the father was a friend of his that we'd had a three way with. I didn't have any other friends at the time. I've never had very many friends, but at that point all the supposed friends that I'd had, had disappeared as the pregnancy progressed. I was completely alone. I called Alex and begged him to talk to me, but he couldn't be bothered. He'd stayed with me long enough to drive me to the hospital when I went into labor. As far as he was concerned, his responsibility to me was over. I told him I couldn't survive without someone to help me. He just said, "goodbye".

I took an overdose of the pain pills that the doctors had sent me home with. It hadn't been an easy birth. Twenty-seven hours of labor, severe tearing from the vulva to the rectum and my right hip was partially dislocated because of the size of the baby's head. I was in a lot of physical pain as well as emotional pain. After I took the pills, it was so peaceful. I lay on my bed feeling the pain fade and my thoughts float away. My cats, KC and Arafel, jumped up on the bed and curled up next to me like they did whenever I went to sleep. Their presence was very comforting. But it reminded me that if I died, they would be stuck in the house with no one to care for them for who knows how long. It could be weeks or months before anyone discovered that I was dead, and they could die without water or food. So I called an ex-roommate (just a roommate, not a relationship) to ask him to take care of the cats. My brain was already pretty messed up by the pain pills, and I guess I wasn't very coherent. The ex-roommate somehow figured out what was happening and called 911.

I lay there in bed and gradually everything just faded away. By the time the paramedics showed up, I couldn't feel or see anything anymore. I could still hear though. And I could hear them talking about me. I know they checked my eyes, but I couldn't see the light that they shone in them. I could tell from the sounds that they had put me on a gurney and rolled me out to the ambulance, but I couldn't feel any of it happening. I could only hear. At one point I heard a female voice yell,"We're losing her! We're losing her!" I could somehow sense my life force leave my extremities and gather in my chest in a very specific spot between my heart and my throat. I felt warm and peaceful. Like being held in the arms of someone who loves you. And something told me I had to make a choice. That if I wanted to, I could let go and I would die. But that if I didn't really want to die, then I had to accept the pain in order to remain in the world of the living. I didn't want to accept the pain, but I didn't really want to die either. I just wanted the pain to stop.

I don't know why in that moment, I made the choice I made. I think part of me must have still had hope that I could find some happiness in life. And I have had happy moments since then. But there are times when I wonder what it would have been like to have made the other choice. I remember how warm and peaceful it felt on the edge of death. And, at times, I long to feel that warmth and peace again.