widespread panic

the shower tiles are yellow and they’re slippery this morning. this morning of unbalance. when i wake up dizzy at 6am i think it’s lack of sleep and blame the cat. blame blame, that’s my game. i think it’s the ungodly hour and blame daylight savings. i stagger to the shower because it always makes me feel better. i’m conscious of my breathing when i put my hand on the tiles to steady myself. i am breathing deeply. my phone is on the counter just a foot away but i wish it could be glued to my hand. i wish i could never lose my grip.

and it starts to fade. i sit down and breath hard. i dont’ want to lose my grip. my son is in his bed asleep in new pajamas. ironically he slept through the night while my cat kept me awake all night. i don’t want to slip and crash his world. the visions come of me in the shower, of him finding me, of him being so little so scared so young and needing to be so brave so mature. it’s too much. the shower is not helping at all.

he wakes up crying and says he couldn’t move his legs. “it wasn’t a dream momma” he insists. he couldn’t move his legs and i wonder how will i do this. how am i doing this? this is too much and i’m too alone and he’s too young and i’m too close to hyperventilating or fainting and i blame it on blood sugar and ignore the nausea to shove protein into my system. cram it in. perk me up. please. this feeling has to go away.

i’m on my living room floor and he’s putting on his shoes. he’s wearing his new orange socks. they are long and he pulls them up way past his knees and tells me upon standing “these will protect me” because he’s wearing his firetruck shirt and he must be a firefighter with protective gear.

how am i doing this? how will i get through my day without breaking? i gotta drive. i gotta make it to the car.

and it flashes back to me, the need to drive. to be away and out in public. just like after his birth. safety in numbers. safety behind the wheel with thousands of other motorists on the roads around me. i am never alone when i’m driving through town. i’m safest in my car.

we step outside and it’s dark. i think it’s a joke. like i’m in a funhouse. it’s 7am and i understand it’s daylight savings. i am an intelligent woman. but it’s like the wires are crossed in my brain this morning. i’m completely disoriented like when i was in high school and found myself in the shower at 3am thinking i was late for school. only i was young then and laughed and went back to bed. i’m not so young anymore.

i stand and blink at the bottom of the stairs for a good two minutes. i look around and then fumble for my phone. i call the director at my school. “hey, what time is it? it’s 7am right?” i start walking. one foot infront of the other. she laughs on the phone. she knows me and my voice is off and i’m happy to be on the phone and just five minutes away. “i feel disoriented and all fucked up…”

ten minutes later i am sitting with two kids eating yogurt. certainly it must be the protein not the panic attack. certainly it can be fixed with food. it can be shoved down and dealt with later.

at 8am i head to the art studio to gather supplies for the day. i am alone and it feels like when the windows are open and unbalanced on the highway. when the wind makes a vibration that turns the car into a drum “woh woh woh” it’s too much for your head so you roll up the windows and the pressure is released and the buzzing stops.

it’s kinda like that. but i am alone in the studio and i need to sit down. i feel my feet in my shoes. i am on this earth. i lean forward and breath so deep my lungs hurt. this is just like how it was nearly four years ago. i am frozen in the vision. the vision is creating a physical and emotional state in my body. four years ago it was the vision of him as the four month old crying near my limp body, him not able to crawl but needing to nurse, needing nourishment and care during our sixteen hour days at home alone so far away from any other people and neighbors.

it’s not like the windows are down on the highway and i’m driving too fast. it’s more like the seven seconds that follow sucking down a shiny pink nitrous balloon. cold lips and hot ears that pound and echo “wah wah wah” when your peripherial vision begins to fade into a tunnel and you lay down to spin. but i’m not 23 i’m 33 and alot has changed over this decade. i am not who i thought i was. and i am scared.

i hold my head in my hands and cry. there is no containing it. and somewhere in me, in my logical brain i know that i am here right now. i know that i just read a book where she described a panic attack and i have a name for what i’m feeling. it is very real. and that is somehow empowering. i am not crazy as i was once made to think i was.

this is real and i pull from my resources between deep breaths, that book described her state and the advice she was given if it were to ever happen again. “go with it” move forward with the panic. see your body in the shower unconscious. see your son find you there. see his face. the look of confusion. hear the words you think he’d say “momma, why are you laying down? momma get up!” see the age leave him as he’s forced to become much older than he is. see it all and feel that sadness. go through it to become not frozen in it anymore. he would be so scared. he would be crying. he would shake me and get wet and maybe turn off the water. he would unlock the double locks and go outside? he would find a neighbor? does he know any neighbors? can i trust my neighbors? he would not know how to use the phone. he would be so scared and i am his mother and i have to be here for him. for always. to protect him from my own weaknesses.

i feel my feet are grounded in this art studio and my tears are hot behind my glasses. i move through it and see where i am right now. i’m at work. he might not be able to use the phone but they would call. they would come looking for me. this is more real than my vision.

i called my director from next door. i heard her phone ring through the wall. “i need a few minutes. but can i talk to you later?” we hang up and i sit and feel so much better. the nausea is still clinging and it will all day, to act as the reminder to take better care of myself, to make good on all those promises i make when i’m scared out of my mind.

later i talk to her and she understands. she hears me and shares her story from years ago. i find comfort in that. and she says the very thing that pulled me through. “if you didn’t show up to work i would know something was wrong and i’d come find you. you’d be okay and so would river because we’d be looking for you.” and i know this is the truth. and like a cloud of smoke… poof, it dissipates and i’m left with bleary eyes and a red nose. but i’m smiling.

it’s like a blur, this day. i’m tired, i’m spent. i broil a steak for dinner because i crave the red meat. and i begin the dinner conversation. “hey, remember on your firetruck movie what they tell you to do incase of an emergency? who do you call?” and we go through the motions with the houseline. i am empowering him as i am myself. he shows me the numbers. the 9-1-1. it’s a conversation that is smiling with curiousity yet it carries a serious undertone and he knows it. he knows it’s important.

seeing now, these past few weeks… i had felt it creep up on me. like a constant nag. getting through river’s sickness, i had said aloud “i’m the only adult in the house” it was the same ugly old nag that couldn’t be put to rest. it was rearing its head from four years ago.

after river’s birth a conversation began from the evening news. another dead bloated baby found buckled safely in the backseat of the car, forgotten in the texas heat all day long.

river was three months old.

he told me between drags on his cigarette, “shit mere.” he was so scattered. he was admitting. confessing, he knew it and i knew it. “i shouldn’t be left alone with him. what if my phone rings and i forget he’s there?” you never ever want to tell a new mother this. that was our first mistake.

i felt him hand it to me. cold hard and heavy, it was the weight of responsibility; of sole responsibility. it felt like a lead weight in my hands. it dropped me to the floor. and i struggled to carry it alone.

i was in the thrift store the other day and saw a shirt that said “i make my own money” and it made me smile.

i struggled to carry it alone for all those years and i may still be struggling. but i’m not alone. i know this much is true.