A list of things that have made me cry/lose it as I try to reintegrate into work:
- watching a Fleetwood Mac video
- watching a Tyler Childers video
- watching Alicia Keys opening the Grammys
- watching a colleague look at a router
- having to edit a story about a nurse who poisoned newborns with morphine
- discussing the need for victims of the Wuhan virus to get breathing machines and then realizing I have one at home
- being asked by a colleague to do an assignment
Before anyone starts – I was doing a lot of repetitive work in November and December, so I had Youtube on in the background a lot, hence the video watching.
This was all I was going to write. Because, you know, I’m a writer, and I thought a short list – the kids call them listicles – would make a nice point.
Then I had my first panic attack of my life. And it happened to be yesterday at work. Which is not making me rethink my plan to go back to work, but it is making me realize that I might need to rework my coping strategies for lots of things.
To summarize radically, the primary chores of the shift I had yesterday were to do Job A and to do Job B. I was doing Job B and a colleague asked if I could do Job A instead. There was, obviously, more to it than that, but I’m not going to bore anyone with the details of running a news wire. The point is, I went into a full blown panic/anxiety attack.
Having never had one before, I can’t tell you if this was a bad one or a mild one. Honestly, it’s not as if I didn’t believe in panic attacks before yesterday, but it was – much like childhood cancer used to be for me – something that happened to other people. But, after disagreeing with the colleague about the need for A or B, I went back to my desk and realized I couldn’t really work because my eyes weren’t focused, my breathing was difficult, my arms felt heavy and, although it wasn’t quite tunnel vision, it was the next best thing. I told the others at the desk what was going on, but I don’t think any of them really had much of an idea about what to do either, so I just kind of rode it out. By the time it was suggested that maybe I should go home or lie down, I had already pulled myself together to get a glass of water.
As luck would have it – and here I am again, having a problem with the whole concept of “good luck” – I had a therapy appointment that afternoon and then a session with the bereaved Dad’s group at the hospice in the evening. My therapist did a good job of explaining the situation to me: Your fight or flight instinct is triggered, you can’t do anything about, and then all that energy stays inside you and burns you up. He told me that trying to control my breathing was about the best thing I could have done and, basically, said now that I’ve had one I should, hopefully, be readier for the next one. Like it’s a new fun activity to plan into my day.
That’s not fair to my therapist. That’s just me being mad at the world.
The men’s session was less useful. There were three new members. I knew I’d stop being the new guy at some point, but it never dawned on me that it would take only four months. But we spent most of the night learning their stories, so it wasn’t much about me, which was fine. I suppose, in many ways, the men’s group is calming just because I learn that there are lots of people doing this and handling it either worse or differently than me. I don’t know why that would make things better, but there we are.