Panic Much???

Ever had a panic attack?

It's been years since I had one and now I have had a couple over the last few days. They all happen at night or early morning and rouse me out of a deep sleep.

If you have never experiences this...feel very lucky. I feel like a child with night terrors and I hate it! At least most children who experience them don't waken, they simply ease back into a restful sleep. It's worse on the parents.

As an adult, I awaken with immediate terror but having no recollection of a dream that may have caused it. My heart is pounding and I am immediately overwhelmed emotionally and feel as if the weight of the world is resting on the chest. It aches to breathe but not in a physical way, as if I were having a heart attack or even heartburn. It is an emotional tension, as if my soul wants nothing more than to escape the confines of my body. The tears come and they are sobs and finally, the ache is released but there remains this complete confusion as to why. Then, like any self-respecting female, I must analyze and try to figure out why this has occurred. I take the spaghetti strand that is the terror and follow it back, unraveling it from other strands, seeing what and where it touches, paying close attention to what stressful areas are tangled with it. This, of course, reveals nothing.

You know, on a blog you throw out things like this and wait for people you know to say things like "are you depressed?" "Maybe you're not getting enough rest!" "Julie, you are too stressed, that's what causes these things!" To all you wonderful and concerned friends, I thank you. As someone who deals with depression daily, I am extremely aware of my mental and emotional states and monitor them closely. I am no more depressed these last days than I was last week, before these still things popped up. I am no more stressed this week than last week or last month. As for sleep, as a migraine sufferer whose bouts are exacerbated by lack of sleep, trust me, I work VERY hard to get my 8 hours...anything to avoid the pain!

So...one has to wonder what makes the mind do what it does? There must be something sitting way far, in the back of my mental classroom. That kid who always sits in the back? The one with the tats, dressed in black who gives you a bit of the willies? It's like he's trying to get my attention but for good or for ill, I have no idea. All I know is he keeps waking me up in the middle of the night with a pounding heart, an ache in my soul, and an overwhelming need to cry until I fall back to sleep.

The human mind is an amazing thing. Even with these, I marvel at our capacity to respond so overtly to the complexities we don't even understand. I must laugh at those who say there is no God. Where would these profound and complicated mental processes come from if not from some supremely intelligent being who understood that we humans would require complex physiological and mental processes?

To be honest, I also like the fact that as I panic, I can pray. And God hears. And I calm more quickly. That's the awesome part...