Bye Toxic Mom: DON’T PANIC!

I used to think I didn’t have panic attacks. How should I say this… One of my friends committed suicide. She had them, for sure. She would stop in the middle of the street, not able to move anymore. In movies, people end up in the emergency room, convinced they are about to die, that their heart is giving out.

In a way, I was surprised to be spared, unlike so many other anxious people (who, now that I mention it, don’t all end up in the ER). I had done my homework and checked lists of symptoms, but no, I definitely wasn’t subjected to trembling, nausea, tightness in the chest, or a fear of dying.

I'm thinking it was a reverse impostor syndrome. Perhaps hearing a father repeat “Aren’t you cured yet?” in the same dismayed tone, for years, makes the blinders contagious.

So ungrateful! He took you to the dentist. He paid for your education.

Let’s get on with it. Honey Boy, a film by Alma Har’el. I have to stop watching because I respect my body’s signals a bit more now. My apprehension isn't caused by Shia LaBeouf’s dreamy eyes, although it could have been. It is rather due to his larger-than-life portrayal of a trio of parenting characteristics that I know all too well: absolute lack of introspection, a psychopathic absence of fear of being exposed, and a never-ending ability to engage a child in novel games of psychological torture, aka mental punching bags.

I finish watching the movie. Several days go by, and my reaction is still bugging me, as if it were whispering something in my ear.

Was that a panic attack?

This time, I look over various symptoms inventories and calmly take note of my own. Palpitations. Sweating. Upset stomach (okay, okay... diarrhea). A sense of oppression; of suffocation. Dizziness, lack of balance, and feeling as if I’m about to faint. Self-detachment. Fear of losing my mind.

Yep. I’ve been having them for years. A shitload of them.