Fear(less)

I haven't had a panic attack for a year and a half. 

Until last night, that is.

Panic attacks are insidious things. One minute, I'm blithely going though the day in my head while I lie there waiting for sleep to overtake me, then next I'm soaked in sweat, gasping for breath, and am living in literal terror. For me, it's as if Shel Silverstein's What-If's have taken over my head and every conceivable mishap, error in judgement, accident involving extreme pain or death are all happening at once. They crowd me in on all sides, while next to me, The Bear Snores On, blissfully unaware that his wife is frozen, unable to think straight.

It's about as fun as it sounds.

In Season 5 of Charmed, Piper Halliwell suffers from panic, so much that she is unable to save her sister from a baddie. She locks herself in the attic, terrified that she will hurt her unborn child by trying to fight evil, and eventually, she comes up with this spell:

Fearless spell
Locked in, boxed in, full of fear,
my panic grows manic, till I can't hear.
In need of reprieve, so I can breathe,
remove my fear, please, make it leave.

The spell has predictable results, she kicks some major butt, saves her sister, nearly dying herself in the effort. She's effectively cut off her fear response, but to the point that she cannot distinguish the difference between an irrational fear and a real one. The lesson being that to be utterly fearless is to become something not quite human anymore; fear guides us to survival.

Every time I watch that episode, I somewhat envy Piper's ability to take four lines of poetry and turn it into a charm against panic. I have tried medication, which just makes me a sleepy dope, and I have tried therapy, which helped (at least until now). The nasty trick that panic attacks play on you is that every time you have one, your brain creates this super-highway rut straight and true, so that it becomes even easier to follow that rut again. Meditation and exercise (and sex...mustn't forget that) helps break those ruts up, makes them harder to find, because of the lovely endorphins swimming around in your brain. So the nasty trick you play back on panic is to create so many good short term memories, that your brain links up to the memory of  those awesome endorphin highs, and effectively blocks what panic creates. 

My lifelong assignment is to be busy, creating good clean endorphins so that my days and nights are panic-free. Now for a word from my friend and yours, Rudyard Kipling:

If

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

I think Rudyard knew panic, and knew that to meet it head on and not let it get the best of you, regardless of the situation or peril life threw to you, was to be the best you could be. That's what I strive for.