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| #TimetoTalk |
To make things even more interesting (!), I will present them in the form of a Friends episode, e.g., 'The One Where...'
This series of blogs will hopefully add to my personal #TimetoTalk campaign about speaking out about mental health.
The One On Holiday With My First Known Panic Attack
I didn't say the titles would be catchy.
I will start with the first time I recalled that I truly was different to everyone else that I knew. This was in 1996, when I was only 10 years old. As we did every year, I went on holiday with my parents for a week over the summer holidays. The location this particular year was Kingsbridge, Devon, and we stayed in an apartment literally a stone's throw from the sea. On the day we arrived, we'd unpacked and I was sitting in my bedroom 'wondering what that noise was,' but not thinking anything of it. I don't know what I was doing but it probably centred around reading a comic or making up a game for us to play lest it rain later in the holiday.
What happened next was ironic on all sorts of levels. My mum popped her head round the door and said 'can you hear the thunder?' That noise I'd been wondering about was actually thunder, and back in those days I was terrified of thunder. Weather was one of the few subjects I knew a fair bit about and I knew that a thunderstorm could cause fire, death and destruction if it was in the mood. Even though it was 'just God moving his furniture.' I believed such fallacies for most things at that age, but my early interest in weather meant that I knew what thunder and lightning was, and what it did.
The irony? Well, for a start, these days I seek out storms when they come so I can watch them. Secondly, my job centres around preparing for severe weather. Thirdly, that game I may have been making for a rainy day... I didn't finish it quickly enough.
Because it wasn't until my mum told me that it suddenly dawned on me that 'that noise' was thunder, the feeling of dread and fear came over me very quickly. At least had I immediately twigged that thunder was approaching, I could have mentally prepared myself, sought out my parents and probably cried to let out the emotions so that I could cope with it if it came overhead.
Of course, not only did this suddenness cause problems, but so did the location. I was somewhere unfamiliar; not only were we in a place I didn't know, we'd only been there a couple of hours so I'd barely had chance to breathe before the thunder came. And boy, did it come, from what I remember.
And so a panic attack ensued. At the time I didn't know that it was a panic attack, of course, and to my parents I probably just came across like a blubbering wimp. But it was only after this that we probably all realised something was wrong. I could barely function for the rest of the holiday. I couldn't eat and was sick a couple of times. I kept crying and feeling nervous, and not knowing why. I think I put it down to 'what if there's another thunderstorm,' but I reality I was feeling nervous and ill because I didn't know why I was feeling nervous and ill. I was basically fluctuating in and out of a panic state for 48 hours...
...after which we had to go home early. The most vivid memory of mine, though, is of what happened when we arrived back to our then home. My dad went out to buy fish and chips a couple of hours after we got back because of course no food was in the house. I, again, struggled to eat anything, even though we were back home. Clear as day, I remember my dad saying to my mum (thinking I was out of earshot I assume) "what's wrong with him now? We came back home didn't we?"
My first counselling took place early-ish the following year, in 1997, during my final year of primary school. Whether this holiday was the start or the onset of requiring counselling I can't be certain, but this was definitely the first time I remember having periods of utter panic and anxiety. And so it began.
I'm sure you're all wondering what caused this to happen? OK so I was scared of thunderstorms, especially ones that came about suddenly in a strange location, but surely this wouldn't have caused days and possibly a lifetime of anxious suffering? No, I don't buy that either. Am I just unfortunate? Am I prone? Had a significant event, like a family death, happened not long before that was fresh in the memory? Was I being bullied in school at that time and/or was I (without knowing it at such a young age) suffering from loneliness? Possibly a combination thereof? Have I mentally blocked out something horrific? For anyone able to turn into me and go back 17 years, please let me know what you find out.
All I do know is that this represents two things:
1) This event may have started it all off... everything that I've been through may have started from this one thunderstorm.
2) Anxiety and panic can happen at a young age. As this proves, I've been there. It can also become chronic from a young age, as this also proves. I'm 26 now and only in the last year or two have I learnt about anxiety and panic in terms of exactly what it involves and how it affects your wider mental health, and your life. How on earth, as a 10 year old, was I to know what to do and what may happen in future?
Food for thought. More sharing experiences to come over the next few weeks.
#TimetoTalk
Best wishes
Al
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