There are very few phrases more reviled, and defended, than "trigger warning."

And without making it a thing (because that's not what this post is about), I see both sides of the argument. Yes, most of us did survive not only years of higher learning but decades of internet-plundering-and-discovery without the need to be "warned" that a piece of reading or information might "trigger" us to recall, or even relive, a past trauma. And trying to predict what those triggers might be is a terribly daunting task; ya never know, in other words, what might set somebody off. But for Jared Leto's sake, what is the harm of warning somebody that material potentially perilous for those who have suffered trauma or even PTSD lies ahead? Sure, we didn't do this in the past, but we also wore wool in the summer and enslaved people in the past*. What is the harm of briefly warning readers that the following material discusses subjects that some might find disturbing on a personal level?

So that's my position - I won't judge anyone for using trigger warnings, and I won't judge if you don't. But again, that's not really what this post is about. It's about my recent experience being "triggered," and what it says about my specific anxiety issues.

I've written about anxiety and panic a few times on OPW, and I'm grateful for the opportunity. It's a tricky subject for me - I love having a semi-public outlet in which to share some of my experiences with panic attacks, but I'm painfully aware "anxiety" is becoming, to many, one of those buzzwords that, like "chronic lyme," "chronic fatigue," and "fibromylagia," causes certain eyes to roll. After all, there's no test for anxiety, and like "chronic lyme," anxiety produces no antibodies; when someone says they have debilitating anxiety, we pretty much have to take them at their word. Lately I'm becoming hyperaware that, while few people doubt anxiety attacks exist, some are starting to think it's one of those too-easy diagnoses people give themselves to explain, or allow, the little breakdowns that come when life is a bit overwhelming. And geez, who among us hasn't been overwhelmed?

(NOTE: I embedded a video from SNL above. But it might not show up on a mobile phone - if not, click here.)

Funny bit, yes? I laughed at a lot of it - even the barely audible sigh of contempt from the narrator as he claims the high-maintenance girl "quote has...anxiety." Yep, I laughed - right through the pit in my stomach. 

I know it happens. I know some people raise their eyebrows at the idea that "anxiety" is really anything more than the feeling they get before a test, or a job interview, or taking a tricky pool shot with $5 on the line. To them, it's a 21st-century excuse, a make-believe affliction. "We all have anxiety sometimes," they say. "Some of us just know how to deal with it."

Or that's what they wanna say, anyway.

Look, I get it. I do. If I didn't know first-hand what it feels like when your fight-or-flight mechanism goes on overload, how it compromises my hearing and balance, how my muscles shake uncontrollably while a very strange kind of fear grips my throat, how my heart rate increases and, more alarming, feels like my heart is pushing against my ribcage, how tears stream down my cheeks like they need to escape my eyes - and how all of that happens while I remain aware (on some level) that I'm actually fine, nothing is wrong, no one is trying to hurt me - maybe I'd suspect sufferers of anxiety are making mountains out of molehills, or wanting the kind of attention that comes with affliction. There have been a few instances (see: above buzzwords) when I've thought specific people were (are), at best, mistaking - perhaps deliberately - their conversion disorder or muscle pain for an invasive disease. 

But, of course, this attitude doesn't help. As a good friend told me recently, "keeping it to yourself because you're afraid of the eye-rolls behind your back is a great path to depression and agoraphobia." So that's partially why you're lucky enough to be reading this post. :) Because I suspect all of the above factors into why I was triggered into a pretty severe bout of anxiety while in the safest place I know from the description of a years-old online video: 

Reporter Discusses How an On-Air Panic Attack Improved His Life

I didn't see the video. Heck, I didn't even see the headline: Jill did, and she thought it was an important video for her to watch. She asked me if I wanted to, and I declined - I figured I might find it upsetting. 

What I didn't realize is I was already upset. And my attack had already started the moment she read those words aloud.

The idea of the guy having a public attack while simply doing his job was my trigger. I only heard a few words from the video - the anchor (not the reporter) was simply introducing the story - when I realized I was in trouble. I told Jill I would put on headphones so I couldn't hear the story. But Jill put her own headphones on instead - for about three seconds, when she looked at me and realized I was on my way. And even though she did everything right, I was in for a remarkably extended attack, complete with an eye-of-the-hurricane break in the middle, which I foolishly interpreted as a welcome ending. It was intense and exhausting enough that we had to cancel our social plans that evening - plans that actually included hanging out with our friend who said the wise words above.

So what did I learn from this? Well, for one, this highlighted something I knew but couldn't really articulate: "triggers" are more than the various words, entities, locations, and situations that tend to get the fight-or-flight instinct churning. They can be ideas, concepts that suggest my issues go beyond my general phobias (which include being stuck in a big, chaotic crowd and getting trapped with a tight shirt halfway over my head) and into darker fears about public humiliation that I can maybe focus on a little harder. Because even though Jill tells me the reporter's panic attack wasn't graphic - he recognized he was in the very early stages when he smiled and simply ended his segment early - the thought of going through something similar, of being exposed while working in front of an audience, is nightmarish in a way I can't really express. (Even writing that sentence churned up the anxiety machine. I had to step away. It's now many hours later.)

So am I suggesting triggers are...good? In a way, yes. They hold secrets. Before that night, I thought my triggers were based in the locations where I had the worst attacks - grocery stores, the Verizon place (something about rows and rows of product), crowds in which I'm adrift. But now I know that there's a certain primal fear that can send my adrenal medulla into interstellar overdrive. And while knowing is decidedly less than half the battle, it's an important step. For me, anyway. 
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

This has been another eposide of Matt's Brain is an Asshole. Stay tuned for many, many more episodes. If you'd like to contribute to my Patreon, hold that thought until I create a Patreon. 

* We haven't actually stopped enslaving people, but that's One Post for another day.

So, panic attacks. I get 'em. They became a part of my life again a year ago, and I can expect one once every six weeks.

A Friday afternoon a few weeks ago, one arrived while I was in the Verizon store, staring at the wall of phone accessories while waiting to pick up my new phone. I was happy walking into the joint, for not only was I about to have a new toy, a glowing hand-held communication & porn machine, I was also about to spend the weekend looking after one of the best dogs in the world. I was in a happy place. But then - to make a long story short - I wasn't. 

We got outta there as soon as we could - i.e., once we got our damn phones - and I was able to mostly recover before our gig that night. (Yep, a gig. My timing sucks.) By Monday, my brain was back to normal (for me). Soon enough, it was time to return to the Verizon store.

And oh, shit.

Just thinking about the Verizon store, picturing that cursed wall of accessories while imagining facing the friendly but Sales-101 people, was giving me another fucking panic attack. And fuck. That. As I tried to calmly let Jill know the thought of returning to the store was getting to me, my voice cracked, everything went blurry, and once again, tension overrode reason.

I did two good things: I went to the store anyway for a successful purchase of phone cases, and soon as I could, I called my therapist. 

I can live with panic attacks. In fact, for a while, they're kind of neat. Sure, they eventually turn terrifying, and they sure are inconvenient. But every six weeks? That's not too bad. My life can accommodate that. 

But. An attack caused by considering returning to the location of the last attack? That there is some bullshit. And I'm not having it. So let's see what the good doctor can do.

Here, in the simplest, shortest way possible, is what said doctor told me:

• Remember when I said panic attacks are kind of neat? (No? Geez, it was only, like, 80 words ago.) Well, what if I was able to think of them as neat while I was having them?
• Panic is tension. By trying to calm down, you are pushing against your panic, and what do you create when you push against something? Tension. You feed the panic by fighting it, even by fighting with "peaceful" tools like meditation and grounding exercises.
• I told my therapist I experience good anxiety and bad anxiety. The good, I explained, is the kind I feed on when I'm about to perform for people; I can turn it into focused energy and let it drive my performance. The bad, of course, is the stuff of attacks - chaotic and unfocused, it makes me feel out of control, sending me into a mess of emotions while making my body shake, sweat, and twitch uncontrollably.
  Doctor: "Matt, good anxiety and bad anxiety are exactly the same. There's only one kind. It's your perception that makes it good or bad."
  Me:  =0

I used to meditate, I found it a great exercise in both relaxation and humility, because as it turns out it's really fucking difficult to just sit and focus on your breathing without thinking. I think it's ultimately about acceptance - accepting who you are, where you are in the moment, what you're feeling, what you're thinking. I was thinking I should really get back to meditating when this happened:

"How about you have a panic attack now?"

Wait, what?

"What if I were to induce a panic attack right now? Then I can show you what I mean about accepting it."

I...uh...

"Actually, no, we're not going to do it now. I can see how much tension the idea is causing you. How about next week?"

If you're thinking "how is this guy going to induce a panic attack? Is there, like a brain button I don't know about?" then you and I were ridin' the same bus (except for that stuff about a "brain button." Where the hell did you get that? That's just silly. Brain button. Come on). But I was game, and willing to bypass my skepticism and work with him as best I could. I made my appointment. And when the day came, I wanted my attack. I doubted it would happen, of course. How could this guy - a guy I trust with my soul, a small, gentle, wonderful man, give me a panic attack?

He didn't He gave me two. 

They weren't complete - they didn't bloom into full-on, out-of-control anxiety - but if he hadn't stepped in to help me stop them, they both would have sent me spiraling into chaos. I'm still reeling from what happened.

The session went like this: I stood behind his desk, staring at his wall of bookshelves, while he stood next to me, blocking my only exit (the desk was against the wall). And while we stood, he asked me to imagine a hundred people in that room, watching us. He used some specifics to ramp up the urgency, and within 10 minutes, maybe 15, I was in the first stages on a full-on anxiety attack - losing touch with visual reality, as though one of my contact lenses was replaced with a tie-dye plastic film. Or...something, the visuals are hard to describe. But my breathing was shallow, my throat was so clenched it was hard to answer his questions, and my neck was on fire.

At that point, when I was on the verge of really crossing over, he asked me to give my body permission to feel what it was feeling. This required saying it, out loud, until I meant it. It really was okay for my neck to be glowing. It was okay for my breathing to puddle-deep, for my legs to feel rubbery, for my brain to be in a cloud. My body was just doing what it had to do, and it's okay. I give it full permission to do these things.

And once I started believing what I was saying, My tension level dropped 15%. A little later, I was taking full breaths, and I could move my legs without effort. 

Neat, huh? But I'm not quite done, and this next part is really important. I'm trying to be concise, because I think this can be really helpful to anyone reading this, and I don't want to risk boring you any further. 

He stepped away, we sat down, we got ourselves together. (His tension had risen too - turns out, he doesn't like to be crowded with imaginary people either.) We talked about what just happened. We chatted, maybe joked, relaxed and reflected. And just when I was almost back to baseline:

"Okay. Let's do it again."

Dude, I - I really, really don't want to.

"I know. But please trust me, you have to do it again. You'll see."

We got in our same place, and he told me about the people, staring, judging. This time, it took only two minutes to get me to the tension level I was before, which is maybe 65%. The sweat started to roll again, and my neck was getting that freshly-slapped feeling I know so well. 

"Okay. Tell your body what you need to tell it."

I took the deepest breath I could. "It is perfectly okay for my neck to feel exposed, for my body to sweat, for my pulse to race. It's okay because once I accept it, my tension will fall."

The tension in my neck spilled onto my cheeks. My heart rate went up.

This wasn't right. 

"I give my heart permission - I give it -  dude, this isn't working. I don't like this please stop, please make it stop please."

"Matt. You just said 'if I accept it, my tension will fall.' That isn't how it works. You're giving it a condition, and panic doesn't accept conditions. You just gave energy to your tension. Don't do that - just accept it. Accept what you're feeling."

I did, to a degree, but I was struggling and really thrown. He let me off the hook, stepped away, and gave me another little grounding exercise to do.

But you see what happened? These attacks don't respond to reason, and they certainly don't respond to if/then logic. I told myself I could make it go away, when I should have just been telling myself to let it happen, to feel my heart race and think "that's okay. In fact, that's good." To feel my neck get red and angry and think "that's okay, neck. You're doing fine. In fact, how cool is it that the body reacts like this." To feel my legs turn to rubber and think "that's okay, legs. You go ahead and get rubbery. People take expensive drugs to feel like this - thank you for letting me feel it all on your own."

So yeah. I'm not remotely there yet. I have to practice, which I'm not looking forward to. But I really need it. My life is too good to have these odd little interruptions scuttle my momentum. That was an incredibly intense hour, and it had an emotional and physical effect on me I'm still feeling, some 32 hours later. But man, what a lesson. So if accepting the anxiety is what I gotta do, I'll be more accepting than an 80s German metal band with a chubby lead singer in K-mart clothes.

       I went a long, long way for that last reference. That's commitment, yo.

Calmly yours,
Matt