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Recently in Salon Health & Body

Urge
Feel his guns?
Have straight guys finally transcended their queer fear, or is their flirtation just another version of homophobia?
By Greg Nott
[08/03/99]

Long and short of it
The search for the "inner penis" can involve botched surgery, dangling weights and pain.
By Michael Easterbrook
[08/02/99]

Urge
Episode 7: New business?
A call from a mysterious stranger drives her straight to Allison's secret book.
By Tracy Quan
[08/02/99]

Urge
Urge: Pinups & Playmates Comic
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Carol Lay
[07/31/99]

Column
Probed in space
Alien medical-exam waiting rooms don't even have magazines.  
By Mary Roach
[07/30/99]

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My heart accelerates, my eyes dart. I pretend I'm not in danger, but my body betrays me. I'm trying to catch my breath, but the thing is, I'm not out of breath.

Stay calm, I think to myself; it isn't real.

Or is it?

I'm not sure.

I step hard on the gas trying to get away from it, but it hits me anyway. I pull off the road the first chance I get. I know there's no damage. There never is. I lean my head against the steering wheel at the hopelessness I've come to.

Anxiety attacks hit you like an oncoming car you can't swerve away from; you're nothing but pavement to them. Rapid breathing, heart palpitations, odd chest pains, crippling weak spells, obsessive thinking patterns -- because there's nothing causing the symptoms, you're convinced of a pending psychotic break. In fact, the fear of going insane is one of the most common symptoms of anxiety disorder.

Therapy helped, but it was a little like coming through surgery without truly recovering. Major life issues got resolved, but the anxieties kept popping up anyway. People say if you get at the root of a psychological problem, it'll go away. They're wrong. Thousands of dollars and reams of insurance forms later, I learned what every amateur gardener learns the first week on the job: Pulling weeds out by the root doesn't get rid of them permanently.

I took up meditation. It worked in the dubious way low-fat cookies help with sugar cravings. Sometimes you end up doing more damage than the damage you tried to avoid. Meditation or relaxation exercises would often be an open invitation to the family of dysfunction living inside me, my sisters of seizure. Often, I'd lie on my couch trying to relax, but would literally seize up as the sisters climbed on me with little pickaxes. I'd writhe and thrash, but it was no good; I couldn't get them out of me. Sometimes flushing them out helped. They'd ride the tears all the way down, until all I could feel was their absence.

The sisters of seizure understood etiquette, sparing me the embarrassment of panic attacks, chest pains and weak spells when other people were around. I lived under the rule of a polite pathology.

In full roar, my obsessive thinking took me over completely. I didn't so much think during those times as I was thought upon. The ending of any relationship would bring the obsessive thinking to gale-force proportions. Gradually, my anxiety demons tired of my romantic failures and began to focus on something they could ride whether I was single, married or in between: time. I became overwhelmed by my perceived lack of it. For years I thought I was just experiencing the normal time crunch of the overextended. But I never felt the corrosive obsession stronger than when I got laid off and had nothing but time on my hands. I simply couldn't derail my thoughts off the clock. Women hear biological clocks ticking; I heard psychological timers going off every few minutes to warn me that I didn't have time to do whatever I was doing.

Soon I was canceling dates, outings, sporting events and family get-togethers. Never mind my unemployment, I was out of time. Little by little I left my house less and less. I got a lot done, but I couldn't begin to tell you what. The sisters of seizure, tugging at my sleeves for most of my life, became increasingly convinced they owned the shirt.

I couldn't sleep. I was in a stable relationship, in a satisfying job, making lots of money, but I couldn't sleep. It made no sense. The calmer my circumstances became, the louder my anxiety attacks clanged. I fell into a pattern -- one night I couldn't sleep, the next night I slept 16 hours. Over and over the pattern repeated until, exhausted, I crawled to my family doctor. He gave me Halcyon, a sleeping pill. It worked, but within days I needed higher and higher doses. He switched me to Ambien. The third night on it I collapsed onto my bathroom floor, passed out for hours. I woke up, climbed into bed and slept it off. The next day my doctor dispensed with sleeping pills altogether and pressed a prescription for Klonipin into my hand. It's the brand name for Clonazepam, a class of drugs called benzodiazepines, which slow down the nervous system. They're used mainly to treat epileptic seizures, but doctors often prescribe them for anxiety.

Trying all these pills actually added to my anxiety. I hate pills; I grew up believing aspirin was a cheap way out of pain. But I was too far gone to stand on ceremony. Beliefs tend to fly out the window when a crisis walks in the door.

Next page | Stevie Nicks ended up in rehab after becoming addicted to the pills I was taking