The Panic Room – How Was It For You???

Let’s start with the triggers because those fuckers are unpredictable……….sometimes I have to dig real deep to link a trigger with its route cause. My heart starts racing, palms get sweaty, head is racing………but why? I don’t mean the face value of why ‘he made me mad’, ‘she wound me up’, ‘their actions hurt me’ are usually just surface thoughts.

Dig deeper!

Often, when we dig deeper, the route cause of the surge is embedded way beneath the surface. Some place one can only go after years of self analysis, healing and inventory on the inner layers.

One action by another human can spiral us days, weeks, months, years backwards to times a lot more hurtful, times when our hearts were broken, when loved ones let us down or when life’s plan got taken out of our hands. We need to stay present.

Stay. Present.

So how is the panic room for me?

It feels like someone has stolen half of my breath, the intake of air is somewhat restricted and it takes a lot of effort to regain a normal pattern of breathing. The walls feel like they’re getting closer, not the external walls – I can see those and they’re not moving, I’m talking about the walls inside, my whole body feels like it is swallowing itself from the outside in. And the adrenaline, well, the adrenaline is something else. If I woke in the night and someone was standing above me, uninvited, that’s the feeling the anxiety gives me. Watery mouthed, weak at the knees and helpless to the unknown all whilst fuelled with enough adrenaline to fight (or flight) with life itself.

Staying present, dealing with the moment I am presented with, instead of linking the history of my lifetime to every second of life, is something I am going to be working on for a very long time. It’s a journey, not a destination.

The panic room – how was it for you?