Pan and Panic
Sitting here in the hospital and as I write this the code red siren and lights go off in the waiting room. It’s an emergency on the first floor. Some poor soul for sure. I notice everyone else here quickly shifts their eyes to the flashing light on the ceiling. What are they thinking about? Why do we react like this? I am thinking about driving ambulances, sitting in ER waiting rooms in hospitals–how many times I have seen this. I am also thinking about emergencies in general–the sweaty palms, white faces, shocked looks, and wide eyes. This condition is called Panic.
Panic is defined as:
–To be overcome by a sudden frear
–an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety
–cause sudden fear in or fill with sudden panic
–sudden mass fear and anxiety of anticipated events
Go through this for months, and you need to slow down for a while. People look at you like normal and you look at them with glazed eyes and try hard to respond to what they say. There are many ways to deal with this. The best way, if you can, is rest, healthy eating, and exercise. The psych med route does exist, but don’t jump the gun–you don’t want to mess with your neurotransmitters unless you really have to. Wait it out for a while if you can–you might be surprised about how your mind works through things by itself with the right combination of different strategies. There is no quick fix or cure-all for trauma. Things change, and many times you do come out the other side. It’s good most of the time for you to feel the aftermath of the events you went through, as long as you can take it. If you start doubting your ability to understand what you went through, there are many ways to receive help.
The pain lasts for a long time. The dread stops, but it takes a while. You aren’t your normal self, even if you try to be. People you love will find you frustrating because you will either seem more distant or an emotional mess. Every little inconsistency in your life becomes amplified. Things feel like they happen to you and you have no control over them. Make sure you ask for support from the right people. Not everyone has the patience to deal with what you have to go through, but there is always some that do. Make sure they really know and love who you are. If you don’t have these people in your life, see a therapist or someone who will listen to you and validate what you say.
Some people go on psych medicines, but watch out if you choose this root. You might get stuck inside the medical-industrial complex and never return to yourself completely. Make sure to do all the research you can about the drugs any doctor prescribes for you. Western medicine is notorious for over-prescribing, prescribing the wrong thing, or misdiagnosing what is going on. In a situation where you feel you have been traumatized, seek many opinions. Most importantly, spend some time sitting and thinking what you need for yourself to be alright. You might be surprised at the answers that come. Drink many cups of chamomile tea and research herbs for your nervous system. These things act in lighter way on your body and mind.
When you are in a complete state of panic that lasts for a long time, your panic becomes normalized. This state is most diagnosed as post traumatic stress syndrome, or PTSD. This mostly happens to people who have been through a seriously traumatic experience, usually a war. Other things that cause this condition are going through a traumatic medical incident, watching someone you love going through something traumatic and feeling powerless, someone you love hurting you in an extreme way, serious car accidents, etc. After going through something like this, the feeling that something horrible will happen at any given moment becomes a central theme in your life, and your body starts shutting down to protect you. Pre-existing medical conditions may become more apparent when you have been diagnosed with PTSD. This goes for physical medical conditions as well as ones of the mind.
Remember that if you are diagnosed with something like this, it is the doctor’s interpretation of what you are experiencing or have experienced, according to a set of diagnostic criteria written by a certain group of people that never met you and do not know who you are. How you perceive what you are going through is more important than this diagnosis. There is a reason why you went to a doctor–you wanted help. But remember that it is your search for help which contains the impetus for you getting better, not the power of a diagnosis. The power lies with you, for better or worse, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need help along the way. And by “along the way” I am referring to the often forgotten fact that everything changes, including you. Remember this at all times.
Help comes in many different ways (look at my other post on this blog–’the lessons’), and solidarity from people you are close to and who care about your freedom is much more important in the long run than paternalistic medical concern which defines you as your illness, taking the power away from you to define your life as you see fit. Doctors are trained to objectify very subjective experiences. Remember it is an interpretation, and that reality is much more fluid than most will tell you. They need to diagnose you in order for them to feel sane and to reassure themselves that they live in a sane society. This also does not discount the fact that you might need help, but that at all times it is important to be wary of those who think they know what is going on with you and who come to quick conclusions about the way you are. Find out where their interests lie.
What I am pointing out is that power moves through bodies and we live in a society hell bent on social control. This complicates things very much. This is the political and social dimension of medicine that makes people uncomfortable on all sides of the political spectrum.
When traumatized, everyone will have a different interpretation of what is going on with you, and many of these people have their own interests in mind–not yours. Just remember you are the one, at the end of the day, who gets over it, whether you are diagnosed or not. Think about your own history and try to spend time, by yourself or with friends, retracing the events that led to where you are. Many times you will find what happened to you made sense, and that you need time and space rather than drugs or doctors. Other times not, but remember it’s your decision, even if it’s a hard one.
Life is never easy for most people, and going through trauma makes it much harder. Talk to your friends, let them take care of you. If you reach a point like this in your life, the best thing to do is slow everything down as much as you can while focusing on the smaller things that you have control over. You just went through a complete life change and it takes a while figure out what happened. Make sure you get the story as straight as you can in a way that enables you to move on with your life. Don’t come to too many conclusions about the way you are, or internalize other people’s conceptions of you. You are different right now.
People change, and it is normal to be very upset, to feel like you are having a spiritual crisis, or to think you are going insane. Listen to your mind–see how busy it is, and recognize it. Things return to ‘normal’, but it can take a while. Remember where your feet are, slow down your life, think about what is important and focus on it. Exercise, eat well, and keep good company.
One of the biggest problems in American society is a lack of support systems for folks. Take a look in any big city in this country and you can see what happens when people are not taken care of when they should have been at some point in their lives. Related to this problem is the problem of time. When going through the long and drawn out after effects of something traumatic, you need a lot of time to recover. This is usually apparent. It is easy to deny that something happened until you go work and realize you cannot do your job. You might also find that the activities you once loved to do, like playing music or making art, do not seem important to you anymore. Focus becomes impossible. The past keeps cutting into the present, panic attacks hit you one after the other. If you don’t have medical insurance, money in your bank account, and you cannot keep your job, all of the sudden everything becomes more complicated.
Unless you do not pay rent and have no bills, taking time to recover becomes a problem. It seems at first glance that only two choices are offered: either get over it or become a patient in some sort of hospital where you will be taken care of. This is not true. Go to the unemployment office, use your diagnosis to get money from the government, ask your friends and family to help you out. There is an old american saying: “If you want a helping hand, look at the one attached to your arm.” As far as figuring out what you want to do in life or dealing with many of life’s trivial difficulties, this might be true. But it is definitely not when you have been traumatized. Ask the right people for help. Be wary of folks who think they know what’s best for you. Sometimes, a person’s intentions to ‘help’ actually worsen what you are going through. The best thing a friend or a lover can do for a traumatized person is to sit, listen, and validate their experience. Everyone finds their own way.
It is easy to end up really down and out because your life changed so rapidly. People get blamed for not ‘getting it together’, as if there is a quick fix for dealing with something which really hit you hard. There is not.
Remember everyone moves at their own speed. Move at yours and do not compare yourself to others. If you are not a mainstream person, chances are you already do not have much in common with many people in this society anyway. Remember that things get serious because serious things happen in life sometimes. Take the time you need, even if you have to completely change your life. Go with it. And remember panic is a natural reaction which saves you from complete meltdown. It is your body’s way of protecting itself. Remember that you do have to deal with it, but not all at once, and not faster than you can move without compromising yourself. Slow down, walk in the woods. Give thanks to Pan and his flute of reeds.