Quarterlife Diaries: ‘No one can tell by looking at me that a rollercoaster of panic is coursing through my body’
In Quarterlife Diaries, I take you weekly through all the things I, as an almost 30-year-old, run into. Mainly to get my heart out, but also to give everyone who is in the Quarterlife boat with me a helping hand. After all, you are definitely not alone. This week: panic attacks.
I am writing this in the tail end of a panic attack. Mostly to distract myself, but also because to the rest of the people in this city, I look like I am diligently typing on my phone. Uninterested almost. But far from it, I am hyper-alert to everything around me. It just overwhelmed me on the bus, this all-crippling fear of nothing. By the way, that doesn't look like in the film, me hyperventilating in the corner breathing into a bag. No, that panic monster in me shuts down all my functions and all I can do at that moment is stare in front of me and hide very hard that at that moment a rollercoaster of nerves is coursing through my body.
It is one of my greatest talents, disguising such a panic attack. They say you're a pro at it when you've done something a thousand times. Maybe that's true. No one sees it on me, that invisible backpack of panic I carry. So these days I know how to pretty much over-shout myself. Still, I am startled when someone screams in the street. I look up and feel tears shoot into my eyes, so heavy is that backpack now. Oh well, maybe she is over-shouting herself too. I exhale slowly: this always passes, I know that by now. The moment I see my sister (with whom I go for a drink) I feel my rucksack becoming a little less heavy.
I don't know better than that this is in me. I remember my first encounter with a panic attack very well. I didn't know then that it was a panic attack, I just knew that I often felt nervous and went to the doctor countless times because of unexplained abdominal pain and nausea. Of course, I was just healthy and it was that panic monster in my stomach that was causing all those vague symptoms.
I still carry that panic monster with me. I have noticed that she only screams louder when I resist it (I am assuming for a moment that it is a woman, men don't scream that loud). I do call her my panic friend these days. I see her as a hyperactive companion who just wants me to be okay and tries to protect me from things that are not there. Instead of shouting back, I now thank her for being attentive and then ask her to quietly step back. I got this, really. And this is how we move through life hand in hand these days. After all, she is quite sociable if she keeps her mouth shut once in a while.
The moment I walk with my sister to our favourite café, I catch a glimpse of myself in an outside mirror. You see nothing of the internal struggle that has just taken place. It makes me think about what else you can't see on the outside and that you therefore never know what someone is walking around with. In such a situation, I used to think that all people were having the time of their lives except me. Now I know better. As I look around the terrace, I wonder who else is waging an inner war that nobody knows about. Probably almost everyone. Not that I can do anything for them in the moment, but a smile of recognition might already help. After all, being a bit nice to each other has never been a luxury. And if things really don't work out, they can always borrow my panicking friend.
