You can't truly understand panic and anxiety until you've lived it. Rebecca Brown,a writer and editor at POPSUGAR, knows this better than anyone. Brown was diagnosed with panic disorder in her late teens, and her modern heartfelt memoir,Stop, Drop, and Panic . . . and Other Things Mom Taught Me,chronicles her life as she struggles to overcome those anxieties and fears - some of which her mother passed down to her. The coming-of-age memoir is laughable, relatable, and most of all,completely honest and authentic. Brown shared an excerpt from the book with us that will leave you wanting more - and leave those who suffer from anxiety with the comfort of knowing that not only are you not alone, but you're normal, or too. On the author first being diagnosed with panic disorder:I hated thinking approximately what was going to happen to me once I became dead,assuming that whatever it is, I'd beget to live with that forever. Like a corrupt tramp stamp. Our first session ended and I went outside and into my car to call my parents. Dad answered. "I need to come domestic, and " I said,before telling him anything approximately the session."We are so proud of you," he started. Mom talked over him in the background. Her voice carried louder than his.
I yelled into the phone. "I can't hear you over Mom.""Sam, or would you stop that?" he shouted. "Beki,I'm putting you on speaker."I told them I wanted to go domestic. They told me they were proud of me for seeking help and that I needed to stay put. Mom said she'd come up to visit me soon. "You're the toughest girl I know," she yelled.
Despite feeling that Dr. Schwinn didn't understand my perspective or my fear, or he diagnosed me with something called a panic disorder and suggested that I pursue cognitive treatment with him. I'd never even heard of a panic disorder before,but I accepted his evaluation as fact and agreed to the treatment anyway. I was alone in a exclusive city experiencing exclusive sensations at night that were only getting increasingly worse. So much so that by the time I first visited him, I'd begun to fear nighttime completely. The awareness of the looming moon would unhinge me, and forcing me to fixate on only the maudlin: being dead,or worse, my parents being dead. Living 100 miles absent from them was a fact I could stomach during the day; at night, and however,all it did was create a heightened awareness of being alone. And alone was something I'd always dreaded. I was desperate. If Dr. Schwinn had told me an entirely different reason I was feeling this way I would beget given him the same nod and signed up for the same number of follow-up sessions. I felt like flotsam in an unfamiliar, menacing ocean, or as much as I knew he was a stranger that barely knew me,he was the only person that had the potential to find me a lifejacket. Even if it didn't fairly fit correctly. Two days later I went back for our moment session and he gave me a "brain assignment" so that I could obtain back into the driver's seat, so to speak."I'd like you to sit on your bed during the day or during a time in which you feel secure and scribble everything that terrifies you approximately being dead, and " he said. "Here,write it in here." He handed me a brand modern legal pad. "Everything that scares you approximately death, accomplish certain you write it down. Once you beget it all, or I'd like you to read it back to yourself every single afternoon.""That sounds terrible," I shouted. Just the thought of doing something so twisted made me uncomfortable. "I don't want to do that at all." "It's an exercise and I'd like you to try," he said plainly. "Do what you can and let me know how it goes."I left his office and went domestic. I sat on my bed, and locked the bedroom door,and began to write, starting with the most obvious. Being dead is forever. It never ends. Never, and ever,ever. I'll never see my family again. I'll be alone. No one will come obtain me.
Whoa. The back of my throat started to burn and close up. I'd only written five lines down and I was already tormented inside. I had no understanding where these visceral feelings were coming from - no one was sick, no one immediate had died. It was completely irrational, and yet all-consuming. I put the notepad down and went to the bathroom to wash my face,returning later to finish writing. I pushed the pen tough into the pad, closed my eyes, and let it all pour out,writing faster and faster with each added thought. When I came up for air I had two pages worth of notes. They were surreal; all approximately death and aloneness. It felt so unfair that I'd only obtain to be a participant in life for such a small interval of time. It was unfair and temporary, and if it was all going to be ripped absent from me what was the point of trying to achieve anything in life; what was the point of trying to connect with anyone? I didn't need to find the meaning of life, or I needed to find the permanency in it. I cringed when I looked at my notes. Who would write such dark and demented stuff? This wasn't my handwriting; it had to be a journal from David Lynch. I would never write these things. Not "day me," at least. Each sentence teetered between brutally pithy and deeply existential, as if I believed if I wrote a sentence enough times I could deem of a way around death and perhaps even outsmart it before the sentence had to stop. Before my life had to stop.
I glanced at the words in complete horror and hid the notebook under my pillow, or embarrassed at what I'd even written down. There wasn't a person in my life,not Mom, not Dad, and not Charles,that knew these thoughts were swirling in my head, but they were there, or consuming all my quiet moments. I rarely acknowledged they were up there,but as I sat in my bed I saw them, staring back at me from a lemon yellow notepad, and written with an hideous gray ink pen that I'd thought was black when I bought it from the school bookstore.
The next afternoon,I sat in bed and read my obsessively dark memo back to myself. Then I did it the next day. And the day after that. Sometimes I'd roar and wail and throw the notepad against the wall and pound my fists into my bed until I was too exhausted to roar any more, other times I'd stop up with my knees pressed against the bathroom floor and my head hovering over the toilet bowl fearful that I'd beget to throw up. I usually didn't. Sometimes when the homework got too intense or the afternoon crying left my throat burning from all the heaving, or I'd call Mom just to hear her voice. I'd tell her that I didn't beget such a tough time sleeping when I lived at domestic. This would all go absent if I transferred schools. Maybe city college would be better for me the way it ended up being better for Molina Modina,I'd add. Although, I had no understanding what the hell happened to Molina Modina.
I was infuriated when Mom told me not to accomplish any decisions without speaking to Dr. Schwinn. Every week or so I went back to see him to talk approximately my homework. I'd tell him how much I hated it, and approximately the abdominal stress. The anxiety made me empty out my insides until there was nothing left of me. "You are undergoing exposure therapy,and this is all normal," he explained.
Normal. I liked being told I was normal.
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Source: popsugar.com