Panic in the Sam's Club

Both Adored Wife and Social Hurricane are subject to panic attacks and anxiety attacks.

I appreciate that there are probably more precise medical definitions, but AW explained the difference to me from a sufferer's perspective-----

Anxiety attack:  Somewhere out there, someone is probably hunting for me, and he might have a knife.
Panic attack:  He has a knife.  And he's in my house.

Social Hurricane and I were out on a father-daughter date, eating pizza in Sam's Club, when she tensed up and said "I know there's nothing you can do about this, but I'm having a panic attack."

There was nothing I could do about it.  Trying to reason someone out of it doesn't help, because they KNOW it's "not real."  But the body doesn't know that, and won't be told.  I've never had them, and hope that's always true, but it doesn't look like any fun at all.

Fortunately it didn't last long, but SH was jumpy, agitated, and paranoid for several minutes there.  Increased respiration, nervously looking all around, completely distracted.  We walked around and looked at stuff, because it's better to keep on the move.

It was very good that she can recognize when she's having an attack--that helps tremendously in dealing with them (although it doesn't make them go away.)  And, a few minutes later, she was fine.

That kind of thing happens in my family all the time.  Whee!

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

A Boy's Adolescence

Among Adored Wife's other challenges, she deals with anxiety and panic attacks.

She's going to have a very difficult time with Graphics Magician's adolescence.

There's a several-year gap between the daughters and the son, and we always joke that ten years of experience as the parents of girls wasn't the slightest preparation for having a son.

That's becoming more and more true as he's moving into his teenaged years.

It's not that we didn't have trying times with Basement Artist and Social Hurricane when they were younger.  But they tended more toward the drama and the angst and the interpersonal troubles and the romantic issues.  Emotionally difficult, but physically pretty safe.

But GM wants to go exploring with his friends, and blaze new trails, and flirt with girls and be left unsupervised to go and see what the world has to offer.  Actually pretty normal boy things.  He's already been shot with a BB gun, bitten by a dog, gotten lost a couple of times, picked up numerous lacerations and bruises, and nearly gotten caught when he accidentally set off some poor fellow's car alarm (it had a "for sale" on it and the guys were leaning on the windows trying to see what the interior looked like.)  Innocent, well-intentioned, dumb stuff.  You know, boys.  Although I'm pretty sure he and his friends have on occasion made themselves a little obnoxious to various strangers.

And it's not that I haven't had a few chats with him about expectations and behavior, taking care to point out that what he and his friends consider "cute" the rest of the world might consider "rude" or "trouble."  I don't intend to let him run wild.  But I do intend to let him be a boy.

But AW is probably going to be a nervous wreck the next couple of years if she can't get the anxiety under control.  If he's not right in her eyesight or under the supervision of some adult she knows and trusts, she's inclined to panic about what trouble he might be in.  And she knows that she can't keep him in bubble wrap in the living room, and she's working on it.

But it's going to be a tough time for an anxiety-prone woman, being the mother of an adolescent boy.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Panic vs. Anxiety

Adored Wife had a panic attack the other day.

"Quick," I asked her.  "Tell me what it was like!  I need blogging material!"

She just glared at me.

So, okay, no help there from AW.  But she has distinguished anxiety attacks from panic attacks for me before; she deals with both.  The main difference appears to be severity.  In her own words, in an anxiety attack, you think someone with a knife may be somewhere around and you're unable to focus on anything else.  In a panic attack you think someone with a knife is right behind you and you're absolutely shut down.

Medical science doesn't really differentiate the two.  Well, not as far as I know--I'm a layman and have to be careful claiming expertise that I don't have.  But I'm prepared to credit AW's personal experience that they're a little different.  The knife was just for illustrative purposes--anxiety is a feeling of general worry and fretting, panic is a sense of immediate, focused, impending doom.

There's more to it than just a difference in degree, but Adored Wife finds it hard to put into words.  The two have a difference in feel or flavor, or texture, or something.  It brings up one of the great difficulties in understanding any kind of neurological or psychological or emotional maladjustment--language is limited.  For instance, I can try to tell you that when I'm "depressed," it's not like ordinary sadness or grouchiness or pessimism but is more like a gray filter that seems to cloud all my experience, but that doesn't really convey the sensation.

This is why poetry is useful--properly used words can evoke the mood and feel of anxiety or depression or panic or hysteria without getting bogged down in limited and misleading attempts at description.  Unfortunately, AW also deals with anomic aphasia, the inability to come up with the right words, so telling me what panic attacks are actually LIKE for her is probably doomed to failure.

But we keep trying.  I have blog space to fill.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Sympathetic to Anxiety

Adored Wife deals with a lot of anxiety issues.

This means the REST of the family deals with a lot of anxiety issues because, you know, if Mama ain't happy ain't nobody happy.

I have to confess I haven't always been as sympathetic and understanding about this as I should have been, but I'm trying to get better about it.  I've asked AW to try to describe what happens with the anxiety, and she's working on it.  She does say it's completely different than panic attacks (she has those, too.)

From our perspective, it can be difficult to live with--it does sometimes feel as though you have to tiptoe around certain issues and refrain from doing certain things because they might trigger an anxiety attack.  It can seem like the anxiety is running the household.

But it's a legitimate medical issue, like any of a number of other things we face, and AW can't help it.  This is one we're learning to live with, as a family, because that's what family does.  I'm going to be doing some homework and research on it, and AW's going to be working on helping us understand what it's like inside her head.

This is not going to beat us.  Nothing else has, and this isn't going to, either.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Adored Wife Panics

Adored Wife is subject, unfortunately, to panic attacks.

She knows they're not rational.  Her brain will latch on to some small thing, imagine the worst possible set of circumstances and outcomes leading from it, and go into an absolute whirlwind of worry, contingency plans, and near-hysteria.  Thankfully it doesn't happen often, but the only thing to do is to ride it out.  It does typically settle down after a few minutes when she has a chance to regroup and do some self-calming stuff.

It's just a little awkward when it happens at four in the morning and her loving husband is wakened from a sound sleep by a full-bore panic happening right next to him.

Okay, soothing noises, pats on the shoulder, talking her down from it until she can get herself under control, I can do this.

The only part about it that really bugs me is that when it's done she can drop back off to sleep in twenty seconds and I'M still wide awake.

Gonna be a long day.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Adored Wife Researches

I've been a blogger for years but this particular blog is a bit of a new toy.  Interestingly enough, Adored Wife, who is NOT an experienced blogger, is getting in on the act with this one.

I've been writing about the anxiety and other issues she's been dealing with, and this has motivated her to do some research and checking around on exactly what it is she suffers from so she can keep me from feeding you misinformation.  For instance, she's been looking up the difference between anxiety disorders and panic attacks.  She knows she has this stuff, certainly, but if she's going to share in her struggles she wants to make sure she has the terminology correct so that we're all on the same page here.

I keep hoping I'm going to get her to write an actual guest blog.  I maintained a site called minimumwagewisdom.com for three and a half years (it's still up if you want to take a look at it) and I never got her to contribute anything to it.  Maybe this one will spark her interest.  It'd be great if it would--I can tell you about dealing with depression, but when it comes to coping with anxiety, epilepsy, chronic nerve pain, memory troubles, anomic aphasia, face blindness, or balance trouble, Adored Wife is your woman.

Plus she's facing hernia repair and carpal tunnel surgery coming up, whee.

But, yeah, she's doing some homework.  I'll keep you posted when she comes up with anything.

God bless, friends.

Anxiety Attacks

One of the many fun and entertaining things Adored Wife deals with is anxiety.  The line between "anxiety attack" and "panic attack" is a little fuzzy and the two probably shouldn't be rigidly separated, at least in AW's case.  A panic attack seems to be more intense, but they're probably generally synonymous.

The really weird thing as AW explains it is that she's not necessarily anxious about anything, although if there is something specific going on then her brain will usually latch on to that as a focus for the stress.  But she's perfectly capable of being edgy and nervous without anything circumstantially bothering her at all.

When the anxiety is kicking in it's generally a bad idea to startle her or make loud noises or even be in the same room breathing.  One of the accommodations the family has had to make is that when "Mama's feeling nervous," it's best to be quiet.  Graphics Magician, in particular, isn't good at being quiet and often gets fussed at when all he's doing is being his normal annoying high-energy twelve year old self.  AW would be the first to tell you that she feels guilty about this but when you're in the middle of a panic attack it's hard to think rationally.

Oh, and when someone is experiencing an anxiety attack you definitely shouldn't come up behind them and poke them in the shoulder, jump back until the twitching stops, then step forward and poke them in the shoulder again.  Or at least I would imagine this is a bad idea.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

It's Not Easy Being Adored Wife

I've been married to Adored Wife for twenty-five years, and have known her since January of 1987--we met in college and had a two and a half year engagement.  We've been through some ups and downs but overall get along very well and have many shared interests.  I describe her in all honesty as my best friend.  Obviously she'll figure very heavily in a blog about my quasi-normal family.

Here are some of the things AW deals with on a regular basis:

1. She's epileptic, and has taken anti-seizure medication for longer than I've known her.  She's had a few periods in her life when the seizures weren't controlled and those have been entertaining.  Why yes, I have done CPR on my own wife, thanks for asking.  Hasn't everybody?  She's been seizure-free for several years, thankfully.
2. The medicine she's on to control the epilepsy has its own set of side effects and that complicates most other medical things
3. A few years back she had disks rupture in her neck, and had surgery to try to correct that.  She's suffered some probably permanent nerve damage and pain management is a big concern.  Also occasional muscle spasms and unable to sit or stand for any great length of time (a half hour is about her max sitting or an hour standing.)  Most trips are built around finding someplace where she can lie down, or at least recline, for a while.  Amazingly enough she can drive (although not for great distances) and can even ride some roller coasters (at least the ones with full neck support.)  The doctor cleared her for roller coasters (cheaper than chiropractors) and moving is easier than staying still if she's up.
4. She's had several small strokes over the years and has limited peripheral vision, balance issues, and right side weakness.
5. She has face blindness (prosopagnosia), word finding difficulty (anomic aphasia), and memory issues.
5. She suffers from anxiety and panic attacks.

Despite all that:
1. She has a mischievous sense of humor.
2. She has superlative organizational abilities.  (Far better than mine.  Not that that's hard.)  She's particularly good at putting together trips and events.
3. She is an active correspondent over various forms of social media.
4. She's a wonderful cook.
5. She keeps up with the children and the household affairs.
6. She's active in the church.
7. She's active in the community theater.
8. She's been a librarian, editor, church secretary, choir director, Vacation Bible School director, disk jockey, caterer, waitress, special projects manager, jewelry maker, photographer, concessions coordinator, homeschooling mom and probably other things that slip my mind.

Also, she's cute as a button.

That's a little bit about my partner and the love of my life.  You'll be hearing more about her in the blog.  I hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.