My other marathon- a battle with panic disorder
My first battle 2002-2003
I had my first panic attack in the Franklins supermarket in November 2002. My thoughts were spiralling out of control, worry and fear and anger, mostly about work. I started to feel tightness through my abdomen and into my chest. There was also a dizziness, where I would take a step and feel that my feet would fall out from underneath me. When the panic attack hit me it was the most frightening thing imaginable. I convinced myself I was having a heart attack, not sure what was happening, but it was a feeling like death that was all in my mind.
I remember after it passed finishing my shopping. I made it out of the shopping centre. I sat down on the curb, too scared to take another step in case the feeling came back. It was only 50 metres to my car, but that seemed like light years. The safe, sane world pulled out from underneath me, and a simple thing like walking to my car became impossible.
The next panic attack I had was in December 2002 in Dymocks book shop on George Street. I'd driven to Sydney to see my father. I remember feeling stressed because the door handle on my Honda Civic wouldn't work and I couldn't close the door. I arrived in Sydney and went into town to do some shopping. I bought The Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce at the Galaxy book shop. Then I walked over to the botanical gardens to their bookshop to see if I could buy the latest Cunninghamia journal. I didn't feel well, the tightness in my whole abdomen working its way up into my chest.
The feeling frightened me, I couldn't shake it. I battled on along George Street, and I made it into Dymocks. I walked around aimlessly, not looking at books, my whole world focused on the horrible feeling building inside. I was sure I was going to have a heart attack and die. It was so frighteningly physically intense this feeling. When the panic attack happened my world stopped, my thoughts gone from me, replaced with a wordless fear. I'm not sure how long the attack lasted perhaps only seconds, but my whole world blanked out, I couldn't breathe.
I have come to see a panic attacks as a slow build up of worrying, angry, negative thoughts boiling over, and my mind saying enough, no more. Here is something else to worry about a fear of dying. A mind can only take so much stress and worry.
I walked out of the Dymocks, so scared, so alone. What had just happened to me? Would the feeling return? I made it as far as the steps in Martin Place, the world of well people moving past me, leaving me behind. I sat on the hard concrete steps too scared to move in case the feeling came back. I made it home on the train, I didn't tell my father. I sat on the couch in his unit at Miranda for the rest of the day. I remember it was such a miserable Christmas, I spent most of the time reading the tooth fairy novel, the feeling of panic growing again. Unable to shake it off, not able to feel relaxed sitting up or lying down.
I was going to have a heart attack I was sure of it. Later that night, I gave into the panic, I excused myself from my father, told him I wasn't feeling well. I jumped in my car and drove to Caringbah hospital convinced I was having a heart attack. They admitted me through casualty straight away. I was taken for an X ray, and then I was admitted to a bed. I think they took a blood test. Sometime the later the Doctors came around to my bed. They could find nothing wrong with the Xray. The blood tests were also clear. They kept me in for observation for a couple more hours, but then I was allowed to leave.
The next few days and weeks were very frightening. I fought off the feeling of chest tightness and dizziness almost all the time. I managed to see a Gp who performed an echo cardiogram, he said, there was nothing wrong with my heart. He told me it was just stress and prescribed Prozac. I didn't take the drug. I started on blood pressure medicine. The drug was called coversyl; I developed a cough taking it.
Challenging the feeling of panic
I managed to get an appointment with a cardiologist. This is when I began to win the first round of my battle with panic. I was given a stress test on a treadmill. The cardiologist said it was just stress with me, and that I could play sport if I wanted to. It was like the shadows had the lifted and the sun had come out.
The lie that the panic was feeding my mind was exposed, I wasn't going to die, there was nothing wrong with my heart. I still got surges of panic through my whole body, but I was able to challenge the panic. "What have you got?" It would surge through me, and when I was still standing I'd tell it "You can't kill me, you've got nothing." Slowly it lost its power.
I took some extended leave in 2003, bought my Subaru Forester and travelled across the Nullarbor. The tightness in my abdomen was often present, the panic was there. I was recovering from having a growth removed after an operation. The doctor’s surgery called when I wasn't home, and said he wanted to see me about the results of the biopsy. I spent a whole weekend worrying it might be bad news, it wasn't, but my panic fired up again, and it troubled me for much of my holiday. Although I didn't have another panic attack.
May 2005- the lowest point of my life
My next encounter with panic was in March 2005. Work was stressful, I was really unhappy with something I was asked to work on. It was rushed, and I did it under duress. I was also trying to run a little, but my knee started to sublux on me and get painful. My anxiety was bad too causing me a lot of stress, making me want to avoid shops, chemists. When I was walking around town I started to get a feeling of dizziness, like my feet would some out from under me, and I was going to collapse. Over the next few months I descended into a nightmare, the worst time of my life so far.
I saw a GP he prescribed blood pressure medicine. Everything was OK for a little while. My prescription ran out, and so I made an appointment to see the Doctor, but he was on leave. I saw another Doctor at the practice; he took my blood pressure and decided to double the dose. Then I started to feel really unwell, fatigue, dizziness, chest tightness. I kept taking the pills. I had a holiday to go to Perth to see my father. I remember at Sydney airport feeling so terrible. I got worse and worse during the trip. My knee was playing up, and this stressed me out even more. It was so horrible.
I had another panic attack and this time I made a visit to Charles Gardner hospital. My brother in law drove me. Of course they could find nothing wrong, and my blood pressure reading was spot on. I still felt like crap. In the mornings it would start, the chest tightness, the dizziness, the fatigue. Surely a doctor would have to find out what was wrong.
I remember the late night flight back from Perth, flying over the lights of Adelaide, feeling so unwell. I went to sleep that night, and the next morning began to walk down my steps in my unit. My heart fluttered in my chest and I almost collapsed. I saw the doctor, I wanted to know if it was the drugs where the problem. He reckoned they weren't, and my condition was a mystery and sometimes doctors don't have answers.
It was May 2005, I felt completely debilitated. Getting around my unit was hard. It was a battle getting up to go into the kitchen. I had ten days off work. I should've had more, what I was going through was a serious illness, I realise that now. There had to be something wrong with me it wasn't possible to feel so bad. I saw no future, I didn't think I was going to survive the year.
I had blood tests for Ross River virus, Diabetes. I had a CT scan of my brain. Echocardiograms. I wasn't going to go home and lie down I wanted answers.
The hardest yards.
In July 2007, I went on weekend trip to Brisbane to watch the Sharks play at ANZ stadium. I flew up late at night. It was a nightmare flight. My baggage was lost. I made it to my room, I remember looking at myself in the hotel mirror wondering what the hell was wrong with me. How I could I feel so terrible and no one had any answers. I had to move hotels that night, I moved to a place with a view of the Brisbane River and Storey Bridge. In the morning the tightness and dizziness was still there, and it got worse as the day went on. That morning I made the decision to stop taking the blood pressure pills, and smashed them into little pieces and flushed them down the toilet.
It was the day of the Rugby League match. I struggled to walk into town. I watched War of the World at the movies. I remember thinking of letting go, I was going home, giving up, I didn't want to face this illness anymore. Each step was a battle. I made it into the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, and sat at a park bench too scared to more, head in hands, giving up.
But then I heard a voice, it said "Don't give up it's going to be alright" I remember it clearly as if was looking down from outside of myself, this bundle of cells in pain, and trying to comfort myself. It gave me the courage to keep going. I got to my feet and took one step at a time. Sometimes I see those first few steps as the ones that led to beat panic and run a marathon.
I visited a GP in the city, of course he could find nothing wrong. He suggested that I go back to hotel and rest, and he didn't think it was a good idea to watch the football.
I went back to my motel and lay on the bed. I thought, stuff this I've come all this way, I want to see the football. So I walked out the door, and towards the bus stop. I described this later as walking a line between life and death. I fought with each step, if I was still standing I'd take another and another.
I made it to the bus stop, and onto a bus out to ANZ stadium. I watched the Sharks play and they lost 20-6. Then I continued the battle all the way back to the hotel. I lay down exhausted , but still alive. I was proud of facing my fear like that.
The nightmare starts to lift
On the flight home the next day the fog of dizziness started to lift. I started to feel human again. I didn't get better until September that year. I had to fight off panic all that time. I even went to the emergency ward at Coffs Harbour a couple of times after more panic attacks. I had seven panic attacks serious enough to send me to hospital throughout my battle with panic. I was often housebound, too nervous to feel anything, in case it would trigger anxiety and panic.
I'd curl up on my couch and not to anything. Sometimes I could not face another step feeling so unwell, and no doctor being able to do
anything. There were slight improvements on how I had felt during May. Once I stopped taking the drugs.
The things that helped me beat panic
1. ruling out other life threatening conditions
2. exposing the lie in my mind that the panic could kill me
3. Challenging and embracing the panic. Fighting panic only makes it worse.
4. Finding answers from doctors, by getting second and third opinions.
5. Seeking counselling.
I improved enough to be able to go for a drive one weekend. I went to Hat Head. It was a cold winters day and there was a howling southerly blowing. I walked into the big sand dunes that are like a mini Namibian desert. I was cold, the wind and sand was stinging my face, but it felt wonderful to be outside, alive and free of the illness that had been diminishing my life.
Ironman
I saw an out of hours doctor, in August of that year. He ran some blood tests. It turned out I had a condition called Haemachromatosis, an iron overload disease. The GP prescribed more blood pressure medicine off a reading in his practice, and also Zoloft. I didn't take the pills.
I asked to see the cardiologist again. This time I was given a stress test, a 24 blood pressure monitor and an echocardiogram. Once again I passed the stress test. The 24 hour blood pressure monitor was more revealing. At the doctor’s office, my blood pressure was measured as 160/100, which is high. However, when the results were gathered after the 24 hour test, my blood pressure averaged 130/80. I had white coat hypertension. Through May and June I was overmedicated. When I was not at the doctor’s surgery my blood pressure was probably dangerously low. No wonder I felt unwell.
Then I started the treatment for haemachromatosis. This involved giving a pint of blood every week for several months to get my iron levels back to normal. So there was something wrong with me, it wasn't just stress. There was also the fatigue of the iron overload. And for a while after that things really improved. I was back.
I did a lot of walking down through the Jetty. A 5. 5km circuit. I started to feel quite fit. Then one I started to run and I made it 2 kilometres all the way home. My knee was OK. So I tried a few more runs. I managed to run 6km on three occasions. My knee would feel tight sometimes, but so far so good. I think I ran a total of 60 kilometres over a period of a few weeks.
Knee pain and panic
Then one night the knee went off the rails, and subluxed painfully. I saw the physio straight away. The physio shook his head at me, your hamstrings are too tight, he said. So he convinced me to stretch them. I stretched all the time, I became obsessed by stretching. My hamstrings were probably the most flexible in the whole of Coffs Harbour. I went to Perth, I remember stretching and stretching at a Park at Claremont. I stretched on the back of every chair I could find. Stretch, stretch, stretch. What a waste of time! My knee got worse. The physio also showed me some exercises, they aggravated my knee. You'll be running in two weeks, he said. Something I've learnt to trust only the doctors and physios who can put their words into actions.
I managed to run a handful more times, culminating in my first ill-fated Sawtell Fun Run of January 2006. That was a wonderful day, I really enjoyed the race, and there was no pain. I ran well for two kilometres, then blew up due to lack of fitness. Maybe I could run some more, I thought, wouldn’t that be good? I even played a couple of games in the Woolgoolga Touch Football competition. Then my knee started to get really painful, and it would painfully jump the rails. I saw three different physios, but the pain got worse and worse, and I descended into a nightmare of knee pain.
The stress of the pain made my stress and anxiety go up, and the panic returned. I had more panic attacks, my last in July 2007. The pain was terrible then. I made another trip to Brisbane to watch the Sharks play. I'd get up early in the morning and go for a walk, the knee would tighten up. I walked around the city and my knee was on fire with pain.
My knee became so tight; I couldn't walk comfortably to my car. There'd be the horrible tightness, with the fear that the knee cap would sublux. I learnt to hate that feeling, it was wrong like someone rubbing their finger nails across a black board, but with pain involved. A knee cap is not meant to jump off the rails like that it is wrong. It was even painful to dip my knee into the Olympic Pool. Once afternoon the pain stopped for a moment, and I started to shake, like a screaming voice in my had stopped, and I dreaded it starting again.
There was the knee pain, and my anxiety and stress were off the charts. A few people at work started to call me lazy. I remember going shopping at Park Beach plaza, then I would walk the long route into the centre to test my knee. It would start OK, then it would get tighter and tighter, then by the time I returned to my car it was off track and painful. There were the lunch time walks around Forsyth Park. Screaming out loud at my knee stop hurting, so much so, the neighbours complained. Sitting down after lunch my leg on fire. There were walks down the Jetty, knowing that I would pay for it with pain the next day just walking down the mall.
The knee pain simply made my anxiety worse.
A local physio taped my knee and I got a little relief for a while, but I wasn't doing any effective strengthening exercises. Every time I took the tape off the pain would come back. One day the knee cap went further off the tracks and then my knee got even more painful. It was the day of the Coffs Ocean swims. It was a long walk home with my knee on fire.
I had to wait until November 2006, when I saw a physio at McConnells in Sydney for the knee pain to start to turn around. That was a great few days. I went to see that physio without much hope. But he taped my and there was no pain. I could walk without pain. What an amazing thing. I stayed at a motel in Wolli Creek, and I enjoyed a walk around the park, about 3km,without knee pain for the first time in months. I broke down and I cried with relief. Can you imagine how great that felt?
The physio said you can run up to 5km if you rebuild your knee, it may take 12 months. I didn't believe him having no pain in my knee for months was enough. It was more years of knee pain and several setbacks before things got better for me physically. Slowly I started to improve, no cause for celebration, a nightmare I woke into every day.
It was then that VMO contractions, glute and quad exercises became my obsession. I still twitch my VMO muscle sitting at my desk. I don't know how I kept fighting, I guess I had no choice. The pain wouldn't go away so I needed to keep fighting it. I told the physio that the pain had more than a physical impact.
Small signs
There were little signs of improvement.
December 2007. I played a round of golf with my nephew at Dunsborough, knee taped, and there was little pain. I went for a walk in Meelup Regional Park, I took some photos with my first digital camera.
May 2008, I did some vegetation survey in Royal National Park. I taped my knees. I was wearing trousers, and one day my knee felt really, really great. When I took off my trousers I noticed the tape had worked free. I'd been on my feet all day without knee tape and there was no pain. My body working again as it should. The joy I felt at that is indescribable. A joy you can only feel after experiencing such pain for such a long time. And when I feel joy like that the anxiety lifts.
The colours I'd always wanted to see
This is the best thing that has ever happened to me
These are the colours that I always wanted to see
The Best Thing Boom Crash Opera
And then June 2008, I ran again, but I didn't break down. There was a little pain, but it didn't get worse. What an amazing joy I felt over those next few months, as my return to running continued. It was a dream, a miracle. The best times of my life. Amazing, incredible, wonderful. Wow! This is what happiness is, I thought, I hadn't known it for so long. The colours of the ocean seemed brighter, the smell of mown grass so more evident. All my senses heightened, my soul rejoicing in exhilaration. I had only known years of pain and ill health.
I haven't had a panic attack for nearly 7 years now. The anxiety is still a big problem for me.
When I look at that photo of me finishing a marathon, there is more behind that than the race itself. There was a much longer marathon that I faced to get to the starting line.
Postscript: Why would I wrote a post like that? It is because it seems important to document my story, my truth somehow. Of what I lived through, because if don't who will ever know?
"My darling, who knew?" Pink. When I was going through all this, it was as if Pink could've been singing this song to me.