A Panic Attack

I’m up writing at 2.43am when, by now, I am usually unconscious after taking my medication. It’s an unconsciousness I hate, not a real sleep. I have bizarre dreams. The activating antidepressant jostles with the sedating antipsychotic, leading to a jittery, frantic unrest. I always wake up feeling bruised. Today, I woke up with a large scratch across my foot. I have no idea how it got there.

I’m listening to P.J Harvey, Mercury Rev, Tindersticks, Sigur Ros, Vivian Stanshall’s sonorous, marvellous voice, calming sounds. I listened to “Failed Old Singer” by Babybird and “Falling” by Julee Cruise and both shook me. I’m listening to “Changing Trains” by Luxembourg just because Rob sings on it and his voice comforts me. I have been reading about extinct animals: the Arctic Fox, the Irish Elk; posting on the Mood Garden in the hope of life, and reading Stephen Fry’s blog, feeling, as I always do, an odd affinity with him and sometimes wishing that he was a friend, not because he is famous, but because he sees so clearly and I want to talk to somebody. It is an odd place that confidences can be found; very bizarre, famous people blogging. It makes you feel too close to them. Because we have things in common; manic depression, adoration of the Bonzos, Stanshall, Donleavy, there is a false affinity there. I do not know him. It is uncomfortable.

I am afraid to turn off the light and go to bed. I need light and sound right now, I am afraid of silence or inactivity. If I don’t fill every moment between now and unconsciousness with thoughts and actions, I will panic. If there are gaps in my mind, then they will be filled with horrible images, so I need to be busy until I simply can’t be awake anymore.

Earlier today, I met Tony, a friend that I have acquired from this blog. Anxiety had set in before I left the house; I don’t know why. He doesn’t make me anxious. He is as crazy as I am and I don’t need to hide anything from him. I am comfortable in his company. He is affable and humourous but I found myself stammering and stuttering. When I left him and returned home, which was only a few doors away, I felt unreal and dizzy. I made a cup of tea and had a cigarette. I went to the bathroom and picked up the mirror that somebody has left on the cistern. It was a startingly clear reflection that I saw. I don’t have mirrors in my room and I generally avoid them as much as possible. I apply make-up with small, deliberately smudged hand mirrors. I’m not sure that I even know what I look like.

But this mirror was spotless and the bathroom light was bright. I don’t know who left it there, and I am not sure why I picked it up. Seeing my face was a shock; a geniune shock. I have extremely bright and large blue eyes, long, mascara caked eyelashes and was wearing a colour of eyeshadow I don’t normally wear. My eyes looked really afraid and I was just looking at myself. I held the mirror at a distance so it was angled towards the ceiling then pulled it closer again, with my face emerging like some terrible cloud. My skin is pale, I have scars on my face from cutting it. They’re barely noticeable, but they are there in unforgiving light. The scars on my body are very noticable indeed.

It is grotesquely self obsessed to find yourself in a bathroom just staring at yourself. But I never look at myself. I barely look at the photos of myself because I don’t actually look like that. They are like paintings, I create the image, I manipulate the image. I was there for about twenty minutes and then I put the mirror back abruptly, feeling almost insulted. I don’t look like I am. I look feminine and soft. Everything about my appearance is soft. I have a soft, round face, my body is curvy and soft. Under all the clothes is an array of scars, I feel almost defiant about them. They are a testiment to my not being soft, not being a pushover, not being weak.

Upstairs, back in my room, I turned on music, skipping lots of songs, trying to find something I could settle on. The dizziness persisted and then chest pains came. I got up and paced around, feeling petrified, I could hardly breathe. My hands started to shake and I thought, “I am having a heart attack, I have cancer, I am going to die” and I began to really freak out. I felt like something was sticking in my throat and took my jumper off, feeling like I was being choked. I was shaking like mad and I had to run to the toilet.

I know it was a panic attack but panic attacks petrify me. I have problems with anxiety that comes with the manic depressive territory. I have panic attacks less often these days: at one point, I was having about four or five a day. Anxiety still dogs me. I feel quite often like I am crawling out of my own skin. Panic, though, I can’t handle panic. I resist the urge to ring anybody because I know I will sound like a mad man. I just can’t breathe, it really feels like I am dying and it scares the hell out of me.

I still feel very bad, and I am afraid to lie down because I will start thinking again. The thing is, I keep believing that I have a terminal illness and don’t know it yet. I was supposed to go to an ovarian scan today but I was too afraid. I wanted someone to come with me but I was too afraid to ask anybody. I am terrified they’ll find something. I am absolutely stricken with fear about anybody I love becoming ill. My dad just died so quickly.

I am still having trouble breathing.

The thing is now, I want something warm and alive. I desperately need some closeness, a hug or a kiss or more. This horrible prickling skin feeling I cannot bear. I don’t feel entirely here and I need something to bring me back to life. The world feels surreal and distant but hyper real at the same time. I can hear every single note of music with such clarity that it is unsettling.

It is like after funerals, all you want to do is have sex or feel live, warm arms around you. So close to death, you want to affirm life.

I wish I had never, ever seen a dead body. They do not look like they are sleeping; that is a romantic falsehood. They look dead. Waxen, wrong. They aren’t breathing, and seem so small. So small, as animals are when they die, they make the smallest package of themselves possible. Think of a bird, with its feet turned inwards, its clasped, secretive wings. The dust around them seems so vast and inconquerable.

When I saw my dad, oh god, I can hardly think of it. I can’t believe that was the last time I will ever see him. I wish I had never seen him. His chest not rising and falling, his eyes closed. I remember a horrible hallucination I had when I was younger. Everything, myself, my hands, everything I saw, turn to maggots and rot. I was so scared.

Can you see why I am such a handful? Who would want to discuss these awful things at four in the morning?

I am almost afraid to stop typing. These thoughts in my head are so much more fearful than the thoughts I can write down.

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