Just breathe

My chest hurts.  I've been having a hard time breathing.  I've used my inhaler and my humidifier is running.  But I still keep waking from nightmarish dreams with a tightness in my chest that not only aches but scares me when I can't get a deep breath.  I don't need to see a doctor, call an ambulance, turn up at the hospital.  If they hooked me up to one of those cool machines, it would show my blood oxygen saturation at normal levels.  What I'm experiencing are panic attacks.

Earlier I was lying in bed, attempting sleep, when it hit me, seemingly out of the blue.  I couldn't breathe.  My chest was so tight I thought for sure I was going to pass out before I could ever get enough oxygen.  I sat up, tried to drink water, wished my inhaler was a rescue inhaler instead of a preventative inhaler, and then, when nearly hyperventilating and sobbing, I started searching for a Klonipin. It wasn't asthma or bronchitis induced breathing blockages, etc.  It was anxiety and it was out of control.  And worse, I was completely out of Klonipin since I had decided I was already too drugged and didn't need anymore sedation and decided not to get a refill.  Needless to say I was kicking myself, hard.

I started petting my dog, who had come to sit by me with a look of concern and worry on her face.  I forced myself to breathe in and out deeply and slowly.  I repeated a mantra, "you are okay, you are okay."  It worked and I calmed down.  But like I said, I keep awaking from these terrible dreams, gasping in terror, with tears streaming down my cheeks.  In my dreams I have no voice.  I cannot say what I desperately want to say, cannot shout and yell when that's all I need to do.

I think it's because I've been processing so much lately.  There have been some pretty big changes in my life, especially my social life, and there are more on the horizon, like my surgery May 4.  And even though I tell myself these are good changes, they still scare me and I resent them.  I even obsess about my pump, touching it often, thinking of how I will miss it (even though I hate it) once it is gone.

The adult in me says to toughen up, refill the prescription, and get through it.  The scared little girl in me says to not refill the prescription because all of the fear and anxiety that crushes my chest might mean something and I'm really an escapist at heart, even when I know something is good for me, even if I know rationally that I want it.  I'd rather escape as the scared little girl and run away than face the fear and reap the reward.

I will of course go through with the surgery, despite the looming fear of another spinal headache.  But what if I just dropped every other thing in my life that scares me - my writing, my new and improved social life, the way I've found myself reaching out to others in a way that might defrock me of my misanthropic status…? What if I just crawl back into myself and burrow deep into the alone I love and go back to rarely leaving the house or interacting with others?  Wouldn't that be nice, more desirable?  What if  the price I must pay for personal growth is facing another demon: my own obstructionist conscious mind?

This whole experience has made me mindfully grateful of prana, or "life breath".  I must breath it deeply, and make my choice.