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It Really is the Little Things

Part two of, 'It Only Takes a Moment'

By emily greenPublished 6 years ago 5 min read
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Ah, I can see it now! An elementary school in an annoyingly close-knit town: Hopedale, Massachusetts. I often think about the playground, because it was the only place where I could get away from my classmates if I wanted to. It was also the place where we learned ways to cope with our everyday lives; the largest issue, of course, being anxiety.

Playground life is pretty mundane; you will see children running around like maniacs, screaming, playing games, and undoubtedly using the equipment. Since our playground was so surprisingly big, there were a lot of places free of classmates. These were the places that my friends and I would be found at; the monkey bars, that ONE slide that had a giant cobweb that nobody wanted to be around, and the brand-new glider, where there were two landings, and a gliding thingamabob in the middle, used to get to each side. One time in I believe the third grade my friends and I were standing around at the monkey bars. Logan was obsessed with these things and I always envied her ability to effortlessly perform handstands, cartwheels, hand springs, flips on the trampoline. It was insane to watch her on the monkey bars, because she could just fly across them without losing her grip on the darn things. Despite being very much aware of my fear of not having my feet on the ground (courtesy to my NLD/Asperger's), she had been trying for about a month to get me onto the monkey bars, because none of our other two friends would do them with her. Needless to say, to her delight, she finally got me to at least touch the ladder and take the first step up. I suddenly found that I couldn't bring myself to go up any farther, because all I could think about was my feet being off of the ground; my fear of losing control and falling, and how my friends were looking at me. Looking back, I believe that this was the first time that I realized how horrible my anxiety is; I learned that the pure fact of people simply looking at me nearly paralyzed me.

Over the years, my anxiety seriously intensified. Obviously, I still have every single one of these fears; but, I have learned how to cope with them in a way that allows me to function a little better the more practice that I get. For example, I hated to be around, say, a window with the blinds up or the curtains pulled back because I was convinced that someone, somewhere, was watching me. Nowadays, this fear makes me worry about a freaking sniper or some other crazy person with a gun that has their weapon drawn in my direction; simply because the curtains are open. Adding onto that, my car anxiety was completely ridiculous; I truly believed that someone was going to kill me in one of the cars behind us. So, in response to this, I always, ALWAYS, sunk down in the backseat in the hopes that the wack job, that I was convinced existed, wouldn't be able to shoot me through the back windshield.

Have you ever had a panic attack? At this point in my life, I had lost track of, what we at the time believed to be asthma attacks, after 10; and I don't even remember what happened in more than half of them. There was this one panic attack when I was 10-years-old that I remember because of how traumatic it was. Oddly enough, it all began at school on a Friday in October. Everyone was outside for recess, and it was a half day so you know people were making plans for sleepovers after school! There were two other girls that I was friends with that I was hanging out with by this giant ass oak tree behind the kindergarten classroom. One chick, who we weren't quite familiar with that we will call, uh, Jill. Sarah and I were planning on having a sleepover, so we asked Elizabeth if she could come over, too, but, she couldn't. Jill chimed in and was like,

"Buuuuut I can!"

"OKAY!" we said in unison, simply excited of the fact that someone actually wanted to hang out with us.

With that, we planned to get dropped off at Sarah's house by 6:15 PM, hopefully her mom would make her insane deep dish pizza, binge watch ghost shows, get creeped out and not sleep, like we always did on Fridays. However, Jill, happily suggested that we do a seance in Sarah's house, because almost everyone in town was aware of the "paranormal activity" that happened in the barn on her property, and the town library directly next door; not having the slightest idea what the hell that was, we agreed.

As a young child, I always experienced severe separation anxiety from my parents, which resulted in me literally never sleeping at anyone's home, so I was already really nervous before I got to Sarah's house. Regardless, we had dinner, then we went outside and Jill picked the farthest location in her backyard; it was about 8:00, and she said that we were more likely to experience something, which I was low-key not a fan of. Following everyone's lead, I started to sit down and quickly began to lose it. I started flailing my arms and hyperventilating, which, naturally, made everyone look at me, which made it worse. Sarah thought that I was having an asthma attack, so she brought me back up to the house and grabbed her mother, who gave me my inhaler and called my mom, who proceeded to hightail it to Sarah's house in a bathrobe and a face mask. I believe that my dad was on a business trip that week, so he wasn't there to help calm me down. I don't remember much about the car ride, but I do remember my mom holding me in the bathtub until my body just tired itself out and tucked me into my dad's side of the bed. That was a really intense night.

Lately, we have come to discover that these asthma attacks were actually panic attacks. I haven't had a panic attack in over 10 years now and firmly believe that all of the cognitive behavioral therapy made a massive difference in my psychiatric health, and I'm forever grateful to each of my therapists throughout the years for making my life a lot easier to cope with.

panic attacks
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About the Creator

emily green

I'm severely disabled by multiple chronic illnesses, and cannot work. All I want is to share my story with the world in the hopes to help others who may or may not be in my shoes.

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