This is a public service announcement. Or something. What it isn't is your author bragging about some mental disorder. I promise.

I had an anxiety attack today - my first in a couple years. I was grocery shopping and had an overwhelming, all-encompassing, and utterly irrational urge to stock up on paper plates immediately. "If you don't purchase paper plates right now," my brain explained, "everything is gonna fall apart. Lives will be ruined, the time-space continuum will shatter, Limp Bizkit will release another album." This was serious. I was fixated, I was in a loop, and the only prescription was more paper plates. 
​

                                  This guy knows what I'm talkin' about.

I put several packages of paper plates in my cart and strolled over to the tea aisle, figuring that was the end of that. But while searching for Red Zinger, I realized I my pulse was racing and my breathing shallow - I was as tense as an unarmed Ted Nugent on a Disney Animal Kingdom safari ride. Now Red Zinger can be tough to find, but it's hardly worth that much stress. That's when it hit me. "Holy cow," I thought, as I'm apparently a character in 50 Shades of Gray. "I'm having a freakin' anxiety attack. Where the hell did that come from?"

At first, the I found the dichotomy hilarious - after at least 18 episode-free months, here I am panicking in the Safeway! I texted Jill "xtingu" Knapp to let her know what was going on, but she didn't have her phone handy, so she didn't get the message (if she had, she would have immediately walked to the supermarket and driven me home over my objections, because she's Jill). So I stuck to my task of buying up our snow n' ice storm supplies, even as the supermarket started to take on a nightmarish (but still amusing) funhouse-type atmosphere. "I'm buying butter during an anxiety attack," I thought. "I'm buying Fruit Loops, honey, Peppermint Patties, Bugles, and James Dean Pancake Batter-Wrapped sausages while I'm having an anxiety attack. This is kind of punk rock."*

But soon, it was more GG Allin than The Ramones. Consternation replaced my good humor. The tension in my spine, my quickening pulse, my utterly distracted mind, and my rising apprehension made shopping - and especially being around people - more and more impossible. This wasn't funny anymore. I finally stashed my cart in the corner where no one goes (where they store things like raisins, Lunchables, and balut**) and ran out to my car, where I listened to 50s doo-wop for 30 minutes or so and breathed deeply, desperately trying to bring my epinephrine levels down.

Okay, this post is gonna get even duller if I stay on this "and then I..." path. Suffice to say, the Diamonds and the Five Satins calmed me enough to get back in the store and finish shopping (ice cream > panic), check out (thank Cthulhu for those self-scan checkout stations!), and drive home. I unloaded the groceries, hung up my new sports jacket***, and said hi to Jill, who took one look at me and said "To the bed. Right now."​

            She still hadn't seen my text, but this is pretty much what Jill saw.

A dose of Xanax later, I thought I was doing on the mend. I was still physically tense - it was a struggle to get myself out of the fetal position - but my mind was calmer and perspective was returning. I was having rational conversations (for me, anyway) and joking about the whole paper-plates-as-mashed-potatoes-in-Close Encounters fiasco. Plus, a couple hours had passed, so I smiled and sat up - 

- and then came the waterworks. Uncontrollable shaking and crying. 

Bottom line: four hours passed between that first text to Jill and the last of my tears. A short time after that I was perfectly fine (as fine as I get, anyway), ready to conquer great viewings of YouTube and maybe scratch out another verse in a new song probably I'll never finish. But four hours is my longest attack yet - they used to be 90 minutes, tops. 

I don't care for morals (clearly), but if there is a moral, it's this: these things happen, and it's not shameful or necessarily tied to unhappiness. Something misfires in the brain and next thing you know you're stashing your cart and running out to your car in the rain. Granted, these attacks first started when I was unhappy, when my life was a mess and getting messier and my attempts to find happiness were becoming increasingly damaging - they were outlets for emotions I refused to deal with. And when I finally did start dealing with them and tried to get my life back on track (with many stumbles and mistakes, of course), the attacks grew less frequent. And now? I'm deleriously happy. I'm not sublimating, I'm not swallowing, and while not everything is perfect, I'm living a wonderful life, and I'm madly, deeply, hopelessly in love with someone who brings me more joy than I ever thought possible. Sure, I have problems and issues, mostly (but not all) health-related, but the good far outweighs the bad. Shouldn't these episodes be in the past?

Nope. That's not how it works. Today, there it was: a tough little anxiety attack waiting to absolutely blindside me with a poke to my brain.

I swear I'm not trying to aggrandize myself as a courageous figure who must carry a monumental burden. Not even close. My worst attacks are quite mild compared to what many people experience - for them, panic feels like massive, paralyzing, terrifying heart attacks. In my case, it's a more of a glitch, a little misfire, a mini-zap to the brain that finds me no matter what my state of mind. It's no one's fault, and according to many informal surveys, it doesn't make me deep and interesting. ("Hey, am I deep and interesting because I -" "No." "Can I even finish the question?" "No.") But it sure can add a little excitement to a mundane day. 

If this has ever happened to you, please, please tell doctor. When these episodes began, I hid them for months before finally, reluctantly, shamefully admitting to my doctor's PA that I was too weak to face these attacks down and probably needed therapy and pharmaceutical help. She said something wonderful: "Stop beating yourself up. People get sad, they get overwhelmed. You're a human being with emotions, and it isn't a weakness to feel emotions. It's a strength." I do my best to remember that when I need to. Life is beautiful, but sometimes it's a lot harder than it should be, and if a tiny dose of Alprazolam and a good cry can help you through the rocky moments, make it so. And let yourself marvel at what a piece of work is the brain and the body.

By the way, if anyone can use a few paper plates, we've got enough to cater a Duggers' family reunion. (Which I will never, never do, because fuck those guys. I hope they never get to experience anxiety attacks.)

* QUIT JUDGING OUR SHOPPING LIST. It's...for the homeless, okay?

** If you're having a fine day, do not Google "balut." All will be lost. 

*** What, your supermarket doesn't have a Men's Clothiers section? Right next to Haberdashery and Shepstery? Weird.