Binderama60for60

I have long been a mighty warrior. Damn autocorrect! A mighty worrier. I am a mighty worrier.

Back in some middle school health class, the busywork assignment for the day was to list 100 things we did with our time (e.g., play soccer, read comic books, mow the lawn.) I was a pretty active kid, but after I got through about 50 things, I was running dry. The remaining lines I filled with “plan for the future,” “think about the future” and “worry about the future,” perhaps even repeating these phrases to fulfill the assignment, a la a young Jack Torrance.

It seems obvious to me today that the teacher never actually reviewed these responses. I was clearly expressing a healthy dose of anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorder (or behavior) or even paranoia. Probably a good thing I was never sent to see the school psychiatrist (I don’t think we even had one back then). If I had, I might have been assigned a place on the spectrum and shot up with all sorts of meds. Redrum anyone?

I learned to channel my worry into plenty of distractive and destructive habits over the years, tamping down the outward exhibition of worry. I kept it in. Not always, but largely.

And then, it escaped.

On a Sunday back in the 90s when I lived in New York, I was on the phone chatting with my parents. All of a sudden my heart started racing, I got dizzy. I begged off the call as gracefully as possible. I sat for a bit, hoping the sensation would subside but instead it became like torrents washing over me. Intense nausea sent me to the bathroom where I braced over the toilet. And then signals went off warning me to sit instead. Then back on my feet. My head was churning with visions of monsters and dread and chaos. Is this a stroke? A heart attack? Was I actually going mad?

In time, I walked unsteadily around the block to the emergency room at Beth-Israel Hospital on East End Avenue. I tried my best to explain to the desk attendant what I was feeling; I can’t imagine what I actually said. She was dubious, “Have you been taking drugs?” “No!”

She gave me a clipboard with forms to fill out but my head was going a million miles and my hands were visibly trembling. I took a seat and waited and waited. At least I was in a hospital where, if this was a stroke or a heart attack or if I was just losing my effing mind, I’d be in a good place.

Once I was seen, the ER doctor was concise: You’re having a panic attack. He gave me a small Ativan pill to let dissolve under my tongue and soon my symptoms subsided as I laid on the gurney. Why was this happening, I asked. He didn’t have an answer but he assured me it would likely happen again. It will be a new normal. “What’s a normal day for you, Doug?” “I panic, I lose my shit, I have visions.”

The attacks did continue, including several aftershocks the following week when I was traveling for business. I might be in a meeting or on the highway or having breakfast, and the symptoms would start rolling over me. I had Ativan on hand to quell the onslaught (and I still carry a store with me, just in case).

The more important matter was figuring out why they were happening and how to manage it. I practiced exercises like breathing, visualizing and rationalizing. I went to therapy, eventually agreeing to the requisite admission that my parents were to blame for everything. Word of advice: If you ever enter therapy, just accept that it’s all your parents’ fault and you’ll save a lot of time and money.

No cause was ever diagnosed, but the attacks became fewer and fewer over the years. I still feel one coming on every few months, and most often there appears to be no reason, no inordinate stress or impending event to correlate with. I face it, manage it and move on.

It Never Goes Away

Like many of us at some point in our lives, things plunge into disarray. I was living in California paradise on 6th and Montana, five blocks from the Pacific in Santa Monica. An idyllic existence of barefooted beach days and evenings of mild California canoodling.

One morning I had a health scare that scared me enough to change things up. But not clean up. Instead I acted up. I got into some bad romances, drank too much, continued my pack and a half a day smoking, got sucked into internet gambling. I was ashamed of it all. Seems like all this was the cause of my funk or depression, anxiety, dread and some things more sinister. Who knows?

In talking with my latest therapist (after we agreed my parents were to blame for everything), I mentioned that I didn’t feel I’d hit rock bottom. That’s the place where one usually finds religion, 12-step programs or seeks out intervention. I continued, explaining that I’d never lost a house or a wife or a family because of these issues, like others I’d met who struggled. His response: Well, you’ve never had a house or a wife. You can’t lose them because you never had them. Maybe you never had them because you had all these issues. Holy fuck, Clarence, you’re right!

So, did I repent and repair? No, I escaped, again. I got the hell out of LA just like I got out of Las Vegas before, as though a fresh zip code would make a difference. I credit my now-wife Mary with helping me get back on track, but it wasn’t without some tough chapters.

Since then I’ve suffered periods of what one therapist called “rational anxiety.” These were times of relative strife, like the great recession that had me up nights on end, wracked with worry and dread. I was also popping a few Ativans around my Father’s death. Both rational reactions, I suppose.

I’ve Been Lucky

There are folks out there with mental issues so much more volatile and dangerous than mine. I know a few who simply inherited some lousy genes or got a mutant that took them out of their own lives. Many of them have gotten to a place of near normalcy, thank God. Others weren’t so lucky.

All of this brings me back to the simplest advice, which I’ve doled out to many friends and colleagues: if you need it or think you might need it, get help. There is no shame in having mental instability, anxiety and depression. These demons are incredibly powerful, insidious, clever and relentless. They control you, believe it. You probably won’t ever conquer them but you will be able to manage them, with some help.

And congrats, you have baggage like the rest of us.

What, Me Worry?

As I say probably too often in this 60|60 series: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

After all, I am a mighty warrior.