I got onto the subway, but I feared I would die and I didn’t want to die down there. I called my husband, crying. He told me to get into a taxi, and he talked to me all the way home. When I got there, I couldn’t stand up, sit, lie down. My children’s babysitter put a cold compress on my head. After half an hour, the sensation subsided, and I dismissed the episode as heatstroke. But 2 days later, I was alone in my apartment with my 2-year-old son when I again thought I was dying. I didn’t want to die in front of him, so I grabbed him and fled to the street. Out there, a neighbor’s sitter took my son while I collapsed into the arms of a good friend. My doctor, a kind, older man with a delightful sense of humor and a nonalarmist approach to medicine, did a number of tests. Finally, he stood in front of me with his stethoscope and asked simply, “Martha, what has been going on with you?” I began to cry, and I cried for a long time. What had been going on with me? A year before, my sister’s husband had died tragically, leaving her and my 9-year-old niece alone. Two friends also died suddenly, leaving behind young children. And my beloved cousin was diagnosed with ALS. I hadn’t had time to grieve for them all. On top of that, my husband had left a job to go freelance, and things did not go as planned; we found ourselves strapped for money. I was writing my fourth novel while promoting my third, turning out articles, teaching, and trying hard to be a good mother. I went from one task to the next, making endless lists of all I had to do. “Mommy, you’re always in a rush. I don’t like that. Stop,” my 6-year-old daughter said. But I couldn’t stop, even for her.[pagebreak] Once the past year spilled out of me, I felt tremendously relieved. I was even more relieved—delighted, in fact—when my doctor said he thought I’d had a panic attack and suggested I see a psychiatrist. The episode had been explained. It was merely psychological. I made no plans to see a psychiatrist. I could take care of this myself. Alas, the panic attacks returned and before long all but incapacitated me. I was afraid to go outside for fear of a recurrence; I avoided social situations. I pretended to almost everyone I was fine, but in bed I cried. I felt like a freak, like I was getting old, living a life of narrowing options because of choices I’d made in my 20s. I was afraid they weren’t working out—my career, my husband’s career, my marriage. On these nights, I’d sneak into my children’s bedroom and look at them—beautiful, deeply asleep, safe. How could things not be working out? But I did not want anyone’s help. Seeking help for this, this, an ailment that once would have had a woman sniffing smelling salts, would admit a certain defeat. It would describe me as someone I did not want to be—a hysterical, incompetent woman. Two months into my ordeal, I was sitting at my desk. I was afraid that I was having a breakdown, that my children would grow up to remember a sad, troubled mother, that we’d sink deep into debt, that I wouldn’t make it as a writer. Afraid. That hand against my throat. Just then the phone rang. I had told my father what I was going through; he had researched the topic and was calling to share his findings. One fact struck me: Panic attacks are as common as migraines. Immediately, I felt less ashamed, more ordinary. I would seek help the same way I would if I had severe headaches. I called a psychiatrist. I arrived wanting a quick fix, but that wasn’t to be. Ultimately, the panic attacks were not about the deaths of my friends or our money troubles. All of us have difficult years, but not everyone suffers in the way I did. Rather, the attacks were a way for me to speak to the side of myself that didn’t want to slow down and grieve. I had cluttered up my life with lists so that there was no time to feel the pain, but I had to. I had to accept that rotten things happen, that life is unfair, that people I love suffer. Slowly, I began to find my way back to myself. I began to see that by rushing in order to outsmart pain, I’d been missing the present. Fear is selfish: My husband had been having a terrible time and I had abandoned him. I had barely noticed my daughter’s kindergarten year and had taken little joy in my son. I was hurting my family; this, more than anything else, kept me doing the difficult work of therapy. Around then, my daughter began to learn to read, sounding out the words until they took shape on her tongue and came from her like a prize. I was learning, too: I was able to be with her, listen, and take pleasure in her growing mastery. I would not have missed it for anything. I had feared the pain, so I lived inside the fear, but what a colossal waste that is. Only if I can feel the pain can I feel everything. More from Prevention: How To Live Fearlessly
