About My Anxiety Disorder

I think it began in high school. When I was a senior in high school I had my first anxiety attack. I believe that first attack was the precursor to my overall anxiety disorder. The attack began in the evening and I was alone, both were probably factors that brought it on. I don’t know what specifically provoked it. As I have said in this blog before somewhere; the attack was as though I were awake but in a nightmare. It was horrific. Since it was my first anxiety attack, I didn’t know what was going on, and that made it a particularly frightening event. And since I did not know what was going on, I did not know how to ease myself out of it. In many ways these were the most dangerous few moments of my anxiety disorder because after about fifteen or twenty minutes consumed by the attack, I considered suicide, just to end the terror. I don’t know if I would have ever been able to do it, but before I came to that point the attack began to ebb.

I had several more panic attacks over the following eight or ten months, then one day I was in a car with a college roommate, bound for home on a highway, when we had a near-accident. It triggered an immediate psychological aberration within my brain and I began to imagine the car I was in colliding with one of the oncoming vehicle rushing by the opposite direction. The vision of such a gruesome thing sparked a tremendous anxiety rush. In effect, my anxiety disorder was coming into full bloom right there in that passenger seat. By the time we arrive at my parent’s house, I was an anxiety-ridden mess. For the next four or five days the anxiety was nonstop, and seemed to go into overdrive when anything I had once feared became involved. Heights were one of the worst culprits. I could not look down a stairwell. Even looking out of a glass, second story window proved difficult. And of course riding in a moving vehicle was utterly horrifying.

To anyone who is unfamiliar with these mental disorders, such things as I have described seem absolutely bizarre. Even to me they seem bizarre, and yet they have been a part of me for eight years now.

After four or five days of being in the throes of ceaseless anxiety, it was obvious that I needed professional help. I could not drive to the psychologist, so my brother drove me. Since I could not tolerate riding in a vehicle, it was not a pleasant trip for either of us. The psychologist knew after a thirty second examination that I had what is called a general anxiety disorder. I was the right age for the onset of such a thing, and all the symptoms were there, including examples of obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is also classified as an anxiety disorder.

The psychologist told me that none of my fears were rational and if I could face the causes I would eventually defeat the actual fears. It is called exposure therapy. I was also given medication from my family doctor. Ironically, the medication worsened my anxiety; a possibility to which I had been forewarned. To beat my disorder I was going to have to rely on cognitive therapy in general, and the exposure therapy in particular.

The first full session with the psychologist was not easy, but by its end I knew I was on the right track. It began in the stairway of the psychologist's office building, just gazing down at the floor twenty feet below. At first my stomach was in knots and my knees were weakened by the anxiety, but as ten, then fifteen, then twenty minutes passed by, the dreaded squeeze of anxiety subsided and I began to relax.

This process was repeated over the next several visits. One such test came upon a parking garage rooftop. These were not pleasant exercises, but I knew I had to do them.

Several weeks later I rode around in a car for an hour. At first I was terrorized, but by the end of the hour I felt an easing of the anxiety. A few days later, during my next session, the psychologist pulled over to the side of the road and told me it was time for me to drive for a while. I had not been able to drive a car in about a month. Now the psychologist insisted I do just that. She reminded me that my fears were not rational, and if I could drive a car a month earlier, I could drive a car now. So, reluctantly, I took the wheel. It was the most stressful driving I had done since my driver’s license examination, and I certainly did not attempt any fancy maneuvers, but I did drive.

Now, about eight years later, I still have occasional trouble dealing with heights. And driving long distances can also be a problem. But when the anxiety resurfaces, it helps to remind myself that my fears are not rational.

I feel lucky in that my anxiety disorder is relatively mild compared to others. Severe anxiety disorders can be disabling. I have to tell people that I have an anxiety disorder because it is impossible to see it just by looking at either me, or my behavior.

As for the anxiety attacks; I still suffer from them and average about one every three weeks or so. Sometimes these monsters come several days in a row, and sometimes I am free of them for months. But when I get an anxiety attack I know how to handle it, and I know it will pass.

I will probably always have the anxiety disorder. I consider it a part of me, just like my smile. But thanks to cognitive therapy, I am able to smile a lot.