day fifty-seven - panic attack

Edvard Munch, The Scream, detail of lithograph, 1895

Panic attack. Two words rarely employed independently in good situations, and together, can be enough to trigger their namesake. I had my first proper panic attack as an adult. It was quite an innocuous situation that ordinarily, I’d have been able to deal with well, but this was anything but ordinary.

I was teaching at a local school and went to the staff room to see where a missing student might be. I was informed that I would have to got across to the other side of the school, find their class, bring them back, and commence the lesson. Not only was this different to what usually happened, I had all of my teaching gear in a studio with no way of locking it. Irrespective of that, by the time we’d return to the room, instrument at the ready, we’d probably only have 10 minutes at best.

I didn’t know this was about to happen next. I’d experienced anxiety regularly, and thought I’d had panic attacks, but they were nothing like what was to come. It’s a bit like when you have a really bad headache and call it a migraine, but if you happen to get a proper diagnosable migraine, it feels an unimaginable world apart.

My heart started to race, fair beating out of my chest. I felt weak and lightheaded., as though the oxygen had been sucked out of the room, and I had to fight for every breath. My mouth instantly dried up and I found it difficult to speak, as if each word may cause me to pass out. My chest tightened, and then seemingly every muscle and sinew in my body. I was sweating like I’d run a marathon in cling wrap (not that I have any quantifiable experience of the latter). All of this happened within seconds, and with seemingly every eye in the room looking at me, waiting for me to burst like a ballon floating into a cactus.

I was asked if I was ok, which was very kind. I think I said I was, and got out of there as quickly as I could without feeling like even more of a freak. As I got back to my room, the worst of it was over and I was able to work on breathing more steadily. Luckily, the student, who was my last of the day, was absent, so I was able to get home.

For the rest of the day, and for a while after, I was spent. Completely and utterly exhausted. My muscles ached everywhere, I had a blunt headache and felt like I’d been awake for days. In retrospect, the sheer physical reaction was quite incredible. More than my energy, it sapped my confidence, and I became worried that they’d happen more frequently. I was embarrassed that it happened in the first place, and felt sorry for my colleagues who witnessed it.

Thankfully, this was the worst panic attack I’ve ever experienced. I really don’t want another… please.

26.3% of Australians aged 16 to 85 have experienced an anxiety disorder. This is equivalent to 4.96 million people today.

ABS National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing: Summary of Results, 2007 (2008),

Kilt of the day - Campbell of Argyle tartan

Soundtrack of the day - Panic! At The Disco: I Write Sins Not Tragedies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc6vs-l5dkc

Link of the day - Current Diagnosis and Treatment of Anxiety Disorders (2013) - Alexander Bystritsky, MD, PhD, Sahib S. Khalsa, MD, PhD, Michael E. Cameron, PhD, and Jason Schiffman, MD, MA, MBA

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3628173/

10 things you may not know about The Scream - British Museum Blog

https://blog.britishmuseum.org/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-scream/