I just talked myself down from a panic attack. Somebody ask me what triggered it. Go ahead ASK ME!… no, I’ll just tell you… It is midnight, I am working, coloring bunnies on the computer and listening to Weeds on Netflix, it is a pretty normal night for me, when I suddenly can’t stop thinking about painting a plant on my face. A face plant. A FACE PLANT. It is hilarious…I am going to make a meme that will blow Imgur up!, make me instagram queen, bring joy to everyone who sees it. It will somehow be so clever and simple and bright that fame and fortune will bang on my door, and I will saunter over in my bathrobe and seductively say ” Oh hello there, I have been expecting you”……or at least it would be a cool profile picture.
So I am painting leaves on my face and I lick the tip of my brush to make it pointy, this is a TERRIBLE habit that I learned from one of the puppeteers who used to take care of me when I was little. I get a trace amount of paint in my mouth. And then I paint my lips. And THEN my mind and body team up to play their horrific ninja death pranks.
My lips start burning, my tongue grows too large for my mouth, I feel like I can’t breath, I am getting tunnel vision, I think of my babies sleeping sound in their bed. They have no idea their mother painted her face to death in the next room.
I realize I am freaking out, my heart is racing, It is really racing as I douse myself under the bathroom faucet and scrub the paint off. I briefly entertain the thought that I could be allergic to the soap I am using to wash the poisoned paint off my face…but I push the thought away. I breath deeply. Once all the paint is off and I have rinsed my mouth with water and coke which kills everything…..I think I am ok. I do, I think I am ok.
Then I realize. I AM NOT OK. It is not ok that I can’t just paint my face whenever I want, Or drive wherever I want, or play with ants and bugs. A wave of depression rolls over. I am in a riptide of loathing. This feeling of panic….is intense, exhausting, embarrassing, crippling. I don’t know how to swim out of it. I don’t know what to do?
I used to think my body was like a prison, that I was trapped inside this fat person that I created with my cheesy and chocolate choices, and I was so mad at myself for that. I thought being trapped in my own fat cell ( haha fat cell…haha it’s not funny ED stop laughing) anyway I thought being trapped in my own body prison that I made myself was the worst possible thing.
But now I find myself trapped in an entirely different prison. Of my mind, where the boundaries are controlled by irrational and bizarre fears. A prison where I can’t walk barefoot in the grass because of phantom ants , or drive to the store I really want to go to because I might have a panic attack and then what?
I have drawn the conclusion that you can’t sum up a story that you are smack in the middle of, I consider myself lucky, I try to spin positive, keeping chins up, looking on bright sides. But I am deep in this conundrum, not far enough away to see the big picture. So right now, I just tread water, scream for help, maybe someone will come to the rescue? I just really hope the hero is me.
Also, dear people on the short list who regularly field my freaked out phone calls. I am so glad I didn’t have to ugly cry into the phone heaving explanatory sobs of paint poisoning and begging you to come check my vitals….That’s kind of an improvement. Right?
