Panic Attack.

I will not have you without the darkness that hides within you.

I will not let you have me without the madness that makes me.

If our demons cannot dance, neither can we.

- Nikita Gill

I am not sure that I am ready to share this. But I was listening to a podcast the other day and courage was king, not confidence. It was explained that confidence comes from tried and tested situations, where as courage is entering into the unknown, with fear, and doing it anyway, and who knows, it might be cathartic.

I woke up, and didn’t feel like I could get out of bed. Everything felt black, everything felt overwhelming. I was mentally and physically exhausted. I felt both hollow and numb, lifeless and listless.

I lay there, unwilling to open my eyes, and told myself “Get up." All you have to do right now is get up. If you just get out of bed and do some Pilates, you will feel better.”

I don’t know how, but I managed to drag myself out of bed, and numbly stumble through a 30 minute Pilates session.

“Now all you need to do is get in the shower.” I told myself

I continued this bite size process, only focusing on the immediate future, until I had somehow I found myself sitting at the kitchen table, holding on desperately to a mug of tea, trying to absorb the warmth through my shivering body.

My husband came into the kitchen, and simply ask “Are you OK?” And the flood gates opened. There were incontrollable tears, wrenched from my broken body. I couldn’t stop, I managed to get up, and stagger from the dining room table to the kitchen, where I heaved raggedly for breath, unable to inhale the air I desperately needed. My legs gave way beneath me, and I crashed to the floor, complete terror searing through me as I couldn’t breath. Violent tears streaming down my face. My husband franticly trying to calm me, grabbed a plastic bag, for lack of a paper one, rubbing my back, and whispering the words “breath, baby breath.” into my ringing ears. As we crouched there on the floor, after what seemed like hours, my body just shutdown, exhausted, as the panicked rasping breath slowly turned to swallow intakes, the unending tears fell. I was exhausted, my body felt limp.

I went to bed after this all consuming panic attack and between sobbing uncontrollably I slept. For hours. A day slipped by.

My husband talked through the options with me, as to how and why I was feeling this way. It all came down to my job and the pressure that I was under. He told me repeatedly to quit. I saw his point, and realised my health was suffering, and this was my bodies way of saying enough.

So the next day, I got up, and I went straight back to work. Burying everything that had happened, deep down inside, after all, we had to pay the bills. I was a little more quiet, and little sadder inside. But outwardly to the world functioning. So I carrying on.

The above happened towards the end of last year. I did seek professional help, but I also continued working. I was becoming constantly sick, with colds and flus.

When the body is trying to tell you something is wrong, it doesn’t stop, until you either pay attention and change something, or you break. I know there are a lot of people out there, breaking and broken, so I just wanted to share one of my most vulnerable moments, and say that throughout all of this, Reiki has helped me to breath, when I couldn’t find my breath, and it could help you too. Through discovering Reiki I found my purpose.