Panic Induced Detour

Once I got to the Grandview Triangle (if you’re from KC, you know) it hit me. There I was, with two of my three kids in the backseat of the car, while one of my biggest fears was unfolding. I was in a full on panic attack. We were only forty minutes into our three hour drive from Kansas City to the Lake of the Ozarks.

I had been doing everything I could to avoid this moment for at least the last year, since I had begun to realize that my momentary heart palpitations and dizziness were most likely caused by “mini” panic attacks. I had tried to prevent having a full blown panic attack. I called my husband to distract my brain. I practiced breathing, inhaling to the count of four, holding to four, then exhaling to four – something I had once Googled and occasionally practiced when I’d begin to lose my breath at the gym or walking through a store. I obsessively sipped ice cold water from my water bottle I had begun taking with me everywhere I went for the last six months. I told myself it will pass.

It didn’t. And the more I realized that this one wasn’t passing, like so many had before this, the panic grew. As did the light-headedness and tingly numbness on the surface of my skin on my left arm.

How did I get here?

My four year old son, Zander, had just minutes before leaving the house, received his second negative COVID-19 test result. Holy crap…RELIEF!!! Major relief because my ten year old daughter, Emma, came down with the same respiratory virus the day before. The whole family was supposed to be driving to the lake for Emma’s last softball tournament of the season. There was a potential exposure at his preschool and an outbreak of the Delta variant is the last thing we needed. The four day trip was something we had all been looking forward to for months – no work, lake time, hotel on beautiful grounds with tons of kids’ activities and watching our girl play her sport.

There was no hope on making it to the lake day one of the planned trip. Emma’s low grade fever was stagnant and her upper respiratory was a mess. If the virus works through her like it did with Zander though, she might be good to travel day two, for play time on day three, the last day of tournament.  – This was the wheeling and dealing we were discussing with her and our eleven year old daughter, Jillian, both of whom whined back and forth about not leaving today and having to miss their “only vacation” in two years. All while Zander frown-face pleaded to go swim at the hotel now that he was better.

So, I did what I always try to do – make everyone happy. Find the win-win.

The 72-hour cancellation policy at the hotel put us in a situation where we were locked in and paid for day one, whether we made it down or not. So, since the hopeful plan was that Emma was going to be better the next day, I decided that Zander, Jillian and I would make the three hour drive by ourselves. The kids could swim and play around while my husband would stay home with Emma another night and drive down to meet us for day two.

A perfect plan. Until it fell apart.

As I found myself pulling off the highway and into a public parking lot to ensure that if sh** went down (correction: if I went down – I was certain I was going to pass out), my oldest could ask for help, I couldn’t help but see the irony in the fact that my concern with making everyone happy and not letting my kids down bit me in the ass. Now here I am, probably scarring two of my kids for life. Something for them to take to a counselor one day I suppose.

There were a couple instances when driving to or from Iowa to visit family, that “mini” panic attacks would hit me. That dizziness would kick in, then out, then in and out again. I wondered if it was boredom or exhaustion. Then my thoughts would race to these worst case scenarios that my dizziness would cause me to run off the road or slide into the tractor trailer next to me, then I’d run off the road and flip the car. Then the fight or flight would kick in, just momentarily, and leave as soon as it came.

These small episodes have also come to hit me while driving closer to home. Oddly enough, some would arrive of my drives to Emma’s softball tournaments. I always joked with other fellow softball moms that I hoped I harbored all of my kid’s nerves. I think these little episodes were factual evidence that I didn’t have room for anyone else’s nerves – my brain was struggling with my own.

While we sat in the car, me trying to pull it together and calm my breathing, dissipate the dizziness, Zander and Jillian begged me to drive again. As they asked over and over again, “Are you ok now mommy? Can we go?” I began to panic even more.

I called my husband again. We had literally just talked no more than three minutes ago. I choked down my tears to say, “I need you to come get us.”

My husband knew I had been having these “mini” panic attacks for a while, but often didn’t know when I was having them because I didn’t talk about them often. I loathed talking about them. I was embarrassed and scared. If I have panic attacks, then I have a mental health issue and opens up a load of other stigmas. My God my brain can allow me to think ridiculous things sometimes!

I’m grateful for his professional police training in mental health and specifically around anxiety and panic attacks. He stayed on the phone with me for a few minutes to talk me through a similar breathing technique I was attempting on my own and suggested to step out of the car and walk a bit to get some air since I was also feeling claustrophobic. He assured me that I was going to be ok – to focus on breathing and moving. I picked a good one y’all!

It was going to be forty minutes before he and my father-in-law would be there to pick us up. What the hell was I going to do for forty frickin’ minutes? Aside from tell myself 2,400 times that I wasn’t going to pass out. The kids were fairly calm…until I asked Jillian if she knew how to get into my phone. When she asked “Why?” followed by “No.” I could see the fear and concern in her eyes and hear it in her voice.

I replied, “If I pass out, I need you to be able to call daddy.” As I wrote down my lock screen code on a piece of paper, she freaked out – “No, no. No. I don’t want that. Stop it! You’re scaring me.” Then Zander cried.

After sitting in this parking lot for twenty going on a thousand minutes with crying kids and still a numb arm, I had to get the hell out of there. Not only for a change of scenery in an attempt to distract myself and my now emotionally scarred kids, but because the ridiculous running dialog in the back of my head started telling me that people were probably wondering what I was doing in the car with these kids and someone would call the police. Crazy, I know. Or rather, mental health.

We considered McDonalds. I offered the kids ice cream. But we decided I might get worse waiting in the drive thru plus it wouldn’t get me out of the car. Too small. Next, I drove two blocks to a Hy-Vee grocery store – I promised the kids a treat or a little toy as a “sorry for creating new emotional baggage for you”. We sat in the parking space for five or so minutes while I tried talking myself into getting out until we decided against it for fear that I might pass out in there due to too many people. Too big. Last resort was Walgreens. A smaller version of the grocery store but bigger than the car that seemed to be closing in on me. Just right. I had turned into the lamest version of Goldilocks.  

Despite our hopes, the new scenery didn’t help. But the kids got their toys anyway. And we got the f*** out of the store. Back in the car. Back to being the creepy lady randomly hanging out in a parking lot with her kids in the car.

When my husband and father-in-law pulled up into the Walgreens parking lot. I hadn’t felt such relief since pushing a ten pound kid out of my uterus. I held it in until I got out of the car and could hug him. Then I cried. I cried like I hadn’t cried in a while. Because I don’t cry. It’s probably been one year to be exact.

More on that, next time.