Yet Again

  "He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; for He will rescue you from every trap and protect you from deadly disease." Psalm 91:2-3

  Another round of med reduction was finished a week ago. It's the one for anxiety that can potentially cause permanent neurological damage. My doctor is on board which is wonderful. There's only one more round to go before I am off it completely. That will have to wait for spring because this round of reductions has been difficult.

  Lowering the dose is the easy part. The body adapting to it is what is kicking up a storm.

  It was all I could do to get through church. Being on worship meant an early start to get set up and practice: organized and noisy chaos. 

  In the brief time between practice and the service, I avoided going into the crowd who were gathered for morning coffee and conversations. The anxiety was gathering momentum. Up on stage, right before the service started, the tears and shakes started. 

  Hyper vigilance mode was full on which means the smallest of noises gets amplified, the slightest movement has the ole body gearing up to flee the tiger. There's a lot of noise and movement in a gathering of people. And even though I knew there was no real threat, when the automatic brain gets going, it rarely listens to reason.

  On stage, there was no way to escape. I grabbed my music stand as a grounding object, focusing on the cool, smooth metal. I stopped looking at the crowd. Playing helped, too, as a focus other than the rising panic. There was lots of counting involved.

  It took a while to pack up everything before being able to grab my kit and get out of there. I know I talked to a couple of people but I have no idea what was said. It's hard to concentrate over the inner screaming of "RUN!"

  In hindsight, I could have left the packing up to others and maybe that's something I need to pray about because I am sure it would have been just fine to have done so.

  It was a long drive home. The six minutes felt like hours. A car passing the opposite direction would create a startle reflex. Good thing there was a road in front of me to focus on. Good thing I live in the country where there weren't that many cars.

  It took the rest of the day to recover and figure out why this had happened. The day before had been busy. We had gone shopping to numerous stores. While I enjoyed it at the time, I need to be mindful of not doing so much in a day. The primal brain gets overstimulated. 

  I also hadn't slept very well and woke to a world that was slightly surreal and loud. Yah...yellow alert had been ordered from someone else in command.

  Sunday was the overload point.

  My friend says I am terribly hard on myself about the panic attacks. What I think happens in the aftermath is a massive wave of grief sweeps over my heart. I am angry. I want to deny I have a problem. The bargaining, acceptance and depression are there, too. It's a lot of emotion to contend with at once.

  The rest of Sunday was spent in recovery mode to give my mind and body a chance to calm down. By bed time, the world wasn't quite so loud. 

  I had a good sleep last night: nearly ten hours. This sort of thing is exhausting. However, the body still isn't ready to turn off the high gear. The hum of the fridge sounds like a freight train! 

  Waking up again in yellow alert mode had me panicking about being late to eat breakfast. Yah...when there are no tigers, the mind will create them. Just in case there are some hiding in the long grass. 

  I sat on the side of the bed and prayed:

  "God is with me. Jesus is with me. The Holy Spirit is with me."

  That's way better than holding on to a music stand for dear life.