When panic attacks strike

Once upon a few years back, a hurricane barreled through Atlanta. Hey, this is the South. Barreling hurricanes are something I’m used to. Most of the time, by the time they hit whereever I am living inland, they’re pretty much just one hell of a pissy storm. I’ve grown up with them, look outside, shrug, and go about my business. Hell I’ve driven in them plenty of times. Which is why, when the power went out that morning at 5am, and I was due to get up at 6am and be on the road to head south to Florida to visit friends after not having had a vacation in 18 months, I shrugged, got dressed, threw my bags in the car and hit the road. Just a hurricane! No biggie! and the friends in Florida had said they were fine, the city was fine, and to come on down! Yey vacation!

Around 15 minutes later, I’d wondered if I was insane. By then I was sitting in my car on the left shoulder of the interstate, trying to not freak out, as cars went whipping by me in the driving rain. 30 seconds before that, I’d been facing them as I’d come to a stop, after hydroplaning and spinning the car 540 degrees. (The concrete retaining wall? Yeah it didn’t look any better the second time I saw it go by.) I’d managed to get the car reversed and into the shoulder next to me before the oncoming cars reached me. Thankfully, due to the early hour and there were so few people insane enough to get out in weather that was that bad, there were hardly any vehicles on a road that was usually starting to see traffic increase about that time of day. It took me almost 2 hours to get out of Atlanta that day, when it should have been around an hour. The fact I was only going 35 miles an hour for the most part, and trying to not freak out the whole time was a large chunk of my delay.

When I got south of Atlanta, the skies cleared up, and by the time I reached the Florida state line, it was promising to be a stunning day: full of sunshine and light breezes. When I reached my friends’ place, I allowed myself the luxury of completely freaking out, and was informed I would not drive my car anywhere while I was down there. I had a lovely time, and drove home fine at the end of the week. But after that experience on the way down, I found I had a new problem: if it rained, I started to have a panic attack.

Most of the reasonings for the panic attacks, I put down to me not trusting my car anymore. It was getting older, wasn’t in bad condition, but was starting to do the odd thing or two that cars do when they get to a certain age. Nothing that screamed “OMG! GET RID OF THIS DEATH TRAP!”, but it had “betrayed” me, fishtailing when I least expected it, and continuing to do so in the smallest storms. When I finally got a new car, a rainstorm happened a week later. It was when I was muttering about having to turn the radio up cos the rain was coming down so hard, I couldn’t hear the music at the level I’d had it at, that I realized that I wasn’t having a panic attack. I’m cured! YEY!

And then yesterday happened and I realized I’m not. We had a bad rainstorm here, one that had water rushing around trying to find any open grate to drop into the sewers, except they were all full with water that had gotten there before it. Wind? Eh, not really. It was pretty much all about the rain. By the time I left the store, it had slowed down where I was and was about typical for a “shower” instead of a “storm”. No biggie, so get in the car to head to the boyfriend’s job and pick him up to go home.

Somewhere between my store and his office, the panic attack started. By the time he got in the car, my vision had tunneled so all I could see was what was directly in front of me. I was trying my damnedest to not completely freak out in the car, because until he gets his license renewed in the next week, I’m the only legal driver. By the time we got to the apartment, the sun was trying to come out and the rain was gone. But I still ended up on the bed, curled as tight as I could, finally shaking and crying, with him hugging me and trying to deal with a freaked out girlfriend.

I’ve driven in rain lots since I got my newest car about 3 years ago now. I’ve had hints or “eep!” moments with maybe-possibly-an-attack-nah-it’s-gone, but not anything like this. I have no idea what set it off. The only things I can come up with was I was tired (having shortchanged myself in sleep the night before), and there were a few people that still don’t understand the concept of stoplights and one-way streets in the downtown area as I was trying to leave. Maybe between those two, not knowing if someone was about to do something that might hit me, and starting to really feel the effects of staying up too late, it might have triggered the attack. All I know for sure right now is that I have a really great understanding boyfriend and two adorable cats that insisted on trying to amuse me. That and I need to take out frustrations later tonight with some quality Katamari Damacy time. Or Prince of Persia. Either’s good. Mmmm….