Just a short post today- another super cheery topic! (I'm full of them) This is about watching someone I'm close to have a panic attack, about a year before I realised that that was what I was suffering from myself. I knew she had them and had often heard her being ill from them behind closed doors, but I had never seen her have one.
Bizzarely, I managed to calm her down by talking to her about my own panic attacks, although I didn't realise that that was what they were and I didn't put two and two together until almost a year later. This sounds inplausible, but at the time I was studying for my MA dissertation and I was in a world so full of stress and anxiety that I couldn't tell my arse from my elbow.
At the time it was very upsetting to see her like that and initally not doing what to do or how to help her. I remember feeling so angry as I walked down the street to get my bus, that she should be reduced to such a pale imitation of the person I know and love.
I haven't seen anyone have a panic attack so a long time now, I've only experienced them myself. I'm still not sure what's more scary: witnessing them and feeling completely out of control- or having them and feeling much the same.
Perhaps you could let me know in the comments below?
Cognizance
Blurry morning uni lecture
crap I’m late
three flights of stairs
creak and splinter
then an unfamiliar clamour
at the bottom of the soft stair
Choking, sobbing, clogging
heart ceases to beat
someone is deceased
she’s trapped, she’s wounded
behind the living room door
Enflamed face, misty eyes
terror grasping the muscles of her face
clawed hands, eyes wide
stooped on the sofa
swaying back, rocking forth
I gawp and ask what’s wrong
Gasping, faltering,
breathbreathbreath
words stumble forth
‘I have panic attacks,
‘I’m well, please don’t be upset’
despite her state
her first concern is me
And softly
so as not to spook the
scared cat, ensnared animal
I stay calm, ‘I’m not upset’
and in due course
speaking to me quells her terror
She exhales reprieve
rubs her grey, fatigued expression
‘Are you done with the bathroom?’
I fib and say yes
but I haven’t brushed my teeth
‘Good, I’m going to go
and retch for the next hour’
so matter of fact as
she makes her way
back up the carpeted steps
and as I march down the street
I can’t stop myself
bursting into tears
so wrong, so harsh, injust
a person I love so much
an anxious, fretful ghost
and far along, almost a year later
the penny drops.
