Barcelona

I went to Barcelona after graduating high school in 1995. Going to college in the U.S. wasn't going to be far enough away. The first couple of months went well. I was 17 and turned 18 while I was there. I played a lot of soccer. There was this bar called La Bolsa. Drinks were all listed on a computer screens. The prices of the drinks went up and down over the course of the night. It was like the stock market and every night the market would crash and the prices of drinks would all drop. It was fun.

In the beginning of December, I got what felt like a cold. I stopped attending classes at the language school I was enrolled in. Dorotea Blanco, the older woman whose flat I lived in kept trying to get me out of the house. She didn't like having her boarders in the house during the day. After a couple days of feeling mildly sick, I started to feel worse. It had been a week and horrible thoughts were inhabiting my brain. It didn't help that during this time I was reading For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, which is all about a man, death, and Spain.

At sunset I would become terrified. As the day ended and night began, I would often attempt to call my parents from the one telephone in the flat, a flat shared by four boarders including myself, Dorotea Blanco and her thirty-something son. I would call my parents wanting to start balling, just let the fear and terror transform into tears. But the placement of the phone in the living room didn't allow for the space to do that.

I went to a doctor and attempted to explain my situation in Spanish. If memory serves, he said that something was wrong with my head and I was homesick but not sick in the "you have the flu" sense. I was sure I had mono or AIDS. I was sure I was going to die. I would lie in bed and visualize a planet billions and billions and billions of light years from Earth. A planet all alone in black space. Only I lived on this planet.

These were the first panic attacks I experienced in my life. I didn't know it then. Sadly, they wouldn't be the last. My mom had to come and rescue me. She stayed in a hotel not far from my flat. I went to her room and cried until I couldn't breathe. We went out where she loved the city all decorated for Christmas. It was hard for me to pay attention, I stared off into space a lot during those few days. They call that disaffectation or severe lack of emotional awareness. I hurt everywhere but felt numb.

I decided to go home with my mom, spend a few weeks with my family, and then come back. The day before I was to return I was filled with such fear, such poignant and precise fear, I couldn't go back. It felt too sickening. This was a difficult time in my life. But I learned. I learned what a panic attack is. I learned that they suck. That's all. Panic attacks suck.

With so much love,
Anthony

Anxiety, Depression and Panic Attacks

Over the last two years things have been getting progressively better with my anxiety, depression and panic attacks.  There are many reasons: Abbey, new psychiatrist, change in meds, continued support from my two therapists (one wasn't enough), primary care doctor, love and support from my family and close friends, and lots of hard work, to name a few.  Also on this list is the absence of chest pains.  From 2008, after my pulmonary embolism, to let's say mid 2010, I frequently experienced terrifying chest pains.   During this time when the chest pains were frequent, I went to the ER around 9 times thinking I was either having another pulmonary embolism or a heart attack.  Each time I had an EKG and blood tests and the results always came back normal.  I was not going to die.

Since mid-2010 the chest  pains have become less and less frequent.  In fact, over the last year I can't remember a time when I had the terrifying type of chest pains I had in the years previous.

Yesterday, I had a little moment, let's say.  It was about 3:15pm and I was at my desk at work.  I started to feel pressure in my chest in the region around my heart.  The pressure got stronger and I was feeling something akin to compression.  At the same moment, I started to feel pain and pressure in my jaw.  I have gotten infinitely better at remaining somewhat calm during these chest pain attacks.  I have learned to tell myself, "this is anxiety or a panic attack, and I'm not going to die," because that's really what terrifies me is that the chest pains are the precursor to swift death, the kind you don't come back from, the kind that leaves your body physically wherever you fell, even if it's just in some building at UC Berkeley for your co-workers to find.  But I have learned to feel the chest pains and not exacerbate the chest pains by panicking and ending up in the ER.  Since I've experienced the chest pains maybe a hundred times now and haven't died, I finally believe I won't die the next time.  But yesterday was different, the jaw pain was different and of course being the diligent person/hypochondriac I am, I immediately googled "chest pain and jaw pain" (always seems like the best idea but is the worst) and the first page that came up was Angina, which is like a heart attack but not a heart attack, but I started freaking out because of this new combination: crushing chest pain and jaw pain, and started to think I was having a heart attack.

This pain is terrifying because the physical sensation is real.  I felt strong chest pain, strong painful pressure in my chest near my heart and I felt this weird, strong jaw pain.  And since this was the first time I had ever felt both together at the same time my anxiety spiked and I started to get dizzy.  I had to take off my glasses, rub my eyes, walk out of the office, get some water, worried I might fall over and die at any second, but trying to employ the techniques I've learned to calm myself.  I immediately took a klonopin (like xanex) because I carry them with me wherever I go.

I wasn't sure what to do.  Fortunately, the pain subsided after about 5 minutes.  But I was still really shaken.  I have been through this so many times, I didn't want to call a doctor and have them tell me to go to the ER, but I also didn't want to be the boy who cried wolf and finally hit the jackpot and have some serious heart condition and not do anything about it and die. I had therapy last night, so I decided to wait and discuss the whole situation with my therapist at 6pm, assuming the chest and jaw pain didn't return.  Fortunately it didn't, I went to therapy, then went home and just let myself feel the terror and sadness that comes from the physical sensations and also from the constant struggle with anxiety, depression and panic.  I was able to cry for a short time.  Abbey was golden, like always in helping me to put the incident in the context of my day and my recent struggles.  Her love and support is invaluable.

The reason I write about this tonight is because the chest and jaw pain and subsequent panic I felt yesterday was a return to a place I did not want to re-visit.  But this is how it goes for those of us who deal with anxiety, depression and panic attacks.  Every day is a challenge, some days a struggle, some days a war, and some days a violent upheaval and a blow to your gut, safety and equilibrium.  There is so much suffering.

There are so many other people who have it much worse than me, suffering from debilitating bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses in various combinations. But if you suffer from mental health issues at all, I guess this post is for you.  I want you to know that I go through this shit and the next day still feel like shit.

If you are going through some shit and you don't have anyone to talk to, please email me or don't email me, but take one small step in a direction you know is good for you.  You'll need to build a team, but it starts by reaching out to one person and being open to change.  And it can change, things do improve.  In fact, things improve more amazingly than you can possibly imagine.  If you're at a place where you look into the tunnel and you don't see the light at the end, I just want to tell you that there is light, you just can't see it.  You can feel so depressed and sick that you are sure you are a fool, an idiot, that you have nothing to offer anyone, you have no reason to live; you can feel like you are flawed at a genetic level and that this flaw is penetrating and raw and more real than any possible hope, but it can change and the shape of your thoughts can change and you begin to start feeling good, really good about yourself, about your life.

These last few days, up to right now in this moment, have been rough and a reminder of how shitty things can feel, how uncertain and vulnerable.  But there is music and there is writing and there is love. The things you feel and the thoughts in your head can change.  You must know this.  If you are suffering right now in this moment, know that I love you, as a fellow being, alive and feeling.  I have felt pain and will continue to feel pain.  I have never felt and will never feel your pain, but I have felt pain and things have improved, exponentially.  This is possible for you. I believe this.

with love in the face of shit and mud and hopelessness, with love,
Anthony

wholehearted

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

In my last post I attempted to connect with you out there struggling mightily with some form of severe emotional distress: depression, anxiety, panic attacks, bi-polar, schizophrenia, addiction, to name a few.  I didn't offer any suggestions in my last post.  I purposefully did not offer any ideas for what to do because of something very true: I don't presume to know what will help lift you out of the mud.  On the other hand, in providing no resource I felt like I did not offer any support.  I know when I was in the throws of severe emotional distress, as much I hated anybody or anything that attempted to provide Advice, I desperately needed support.  So tonight, with this link, I offer a possibility, just one thing in forty billion.  However, if a video about worthiness, shame and vulnerability doesn't sound like your cup of tea, or if a video about worthiness, shame and vulnerability makes you want to vomit, by all means, leave it alone, let someone else walk down that path.

The link above takes you to a talk titled, "The Power of Vulnerability."  The gist is that human beings, bottom line, crave connection with other human beings; and allowing yourself to be vulnerable with other people actually allows you to connect more and better.  The talk is counter-intuitive and brilliant although it is unlikely to solve your problem.  It's just one stone on a path through a Japanese pond.  Of course, you may not like Koi.

with love,
Anthony