I suffer a lot with anxiety and depression. The first panic attack that I can remember was outside a lecture theatre, I was 17 years old. I am sure there were other incidents that I don’t recall as a child, but this one stood out because of the overwhelming feeling of what I call BIG small. It is hard to describe, for me it is an actual physical feeling whereby I feel big in the space that I am occupying and yet so small that I could fit in the palm of your hand. As I said it is very hard to verbalise the BIG small feeling. Along with that weirdness I have the usual panic attack symptoms coupled with bouts of depression. I don’t always get panic attacks and I am not always depressed, these things ebb and flow depending on situations and other shit that I am not always aware of.
I rarely talk about this stuff, except with my sestra because she’s got my back. But I felt it necessary to talk about it now because of the frequency at which I am experiencing panic attacks and how I can no longer hide them from my children. I am now faced with situations here where I can’t always run away and hide under my blanket (mostly because it is too damned hot!), but because I don’t have a choice but to push on through. The Mother’s Day walk up Mt Vaea is one example of said pushing on through. Another example is when I went out to dinner with a friend of mine here in Samoa. It was a girls’ night out, and I had to drive in the dark to a restaurant that I have never been before. Even in Australia I didn’t like driving at night time because of night blindness, but in Australia there were street lights to help and street signs. In the dark everything looks different and it is easy to get turned around and disorientated. That’s what happened to me that night and after going around and around in circles, driving down side streets with no lighting and getting turned around, I parked the car and struggled to breathe. I know it’s not that big of a deal, nothing to lose your shit about but I came so close to driving home and calling my friend, telling her some stupid excuse about why I didn’t make it that night. I didn’t, because I knew I couldn’t do that – it was only me and her and I think she would have noticed an empty seat at the table. The night turned out to be fun, with good food, drinks and many laughs. But pushing through is exhausting. And sometimes I just can’t. And that is when I see the look in my children’s eyes. During the school holidays we decided to go to the Mailelani soap factory. They have a café so we would have a bit of lunch, watch a demonstration and maybe buy some locally made products. Sounded like a good plan and it was! But ..... it started to rain and not just a little bit of a drizzle it was a massive downpour. That’s ok I thought to myself it’s only rain, I have driven in rain before and it’s not far, literally down the road, it will be fine. It wasn’t fine. The rain was lashing against the windscreen, wipers were at full tilt, struggling to battle the torrents of water and as we reached the turn off to Mailelan. I read the sign “Mailelani Soap Factory 400m Downhill”. Hmmmm downhill, I wonder... The rain eased up a little and we drove down the one-way road, it was kind of sweet. There were chickens and baby chicks feeding, cats hunkered under bushes trying to avoid the rain and pigs snuffling about in gardens in search of tasty morsels. Then we got to the ‘downhill’ bit of the road and the road turned into a more than single gravel track and downhill doesn’t adequately describe the angle at which the track was plunging. Ok, it may have been my panic attack that surged, causing reality to distort and transform the world around me, but I froze. Car idling in the pouring rain. Mummy what are you doing? I ... I can’t ... I’m sorry ... I can’t do this. What’s wrong Mummy? I’m sorry, we have to go home. I can’t drive down there, I’m scared. Ok Mummy. I reversed the car, did a gazillion point turn, glad that there weren’t any cars coming behind or in front of me and drove home. I’m really sorry girls, Mummy sometimes has these things called panic attacks and I just didn’t feel comfortable driving down that steep track in the pouring rain. I’m really sorry girls. That’s ok Mummy, maybe we can go when it isn’t raining. Yeah, when it’s not raining. ... We haven’t been back ... yet.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorExplorer of words and worlds. Categories
All
Archives
February 2021
|