Panic Attacks & The Art of Blocking Out the World

Who doesn’t like a good meme?

Jordan Reid recently penned an honest, soulful piece called “When The Cracks Start To Show: Ever feel like you’re just faking it? Like, all of it? Yeah, me too.”

In it, she addresses something that I think we’ve all experienced at one time or another: panic attacks. Not the kind of panic attacks you get before you’re about to play in game 7 of the Stanley Cup; it’s more the kind you get when life looks peachy on the outside – and technically it is full of peaches and cream – and yet you just can’t shake the feeling that your head is about to implode, collapse on itself, and then explode in a fiery mess of fire-like substances.

As Ms. Reid so matter-of-factly stated:

“Except anxiety does not give a shit whether there’s *actually* anything to be upset about.”

While she claims that medication and therapy have helped mollify some of this angst/stress/anxiety over the years, the truth is that it never fully goes away.

For me, the part I most viscerally connected to was the whole I’ve-got-a-jukebox-playing-in-my-head thing. The brain is a mysterious muscle and seems, at times, to march to its own beat. I think that’s why I put my earbuds in and listen to relaxing music when I write. If I didn’t, and just took in the noise of my surroundings, I fear my content would come out as a garbled mess of nonsensical sound transmission.

Fortunately, I’ve got my earbuds in right now, so I’m hoping this didn’t come across as literary poo poo ca ca.

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