Panic Attack!

Oh the joys of being a perfectionist! My mother dearest has blessed me with the curse of being a perfectionist and therefore resulting in multiple panic attacks at the most outrageous times. Now, I'm not saying I blame this trait all on my mother, but when I do find a flaw about myself (which is rare) I like to blame it on my parents and they like to blame their grey hairs on me! So we are even, well I think they probably have some payback coming my way for my childhood behavior. I hope my parents never leak to my kids the walkie talkie story!

Anyways, anxiety runs in my family, along with high cholesterol, vertically challenged, heart decease and learning disabilities. My offspring are really going to get off on the right foot! Got to love those genetics! My X chromosome brought me the ability to have anxiety and my Y chromosome brought me high cholesterol. At least having high cholesterol is something you can hide but it's pretty hard to hide a freak out attack.

I remember distinctly the first time I had a full blown anxiety attack. I was in 7th grade and had been entered into solo fest playing my clarinet. Clearly I had practiced day and night and practically memorized my sheet music because I practiced so much. I was over prepared and ready to blow the judges away. But you can imagine what happened when I showed up to perform. I practically forgot how to play and the judges were less than disappointed.... This was only the beginning!

It is weird to think how we all handle stress differently. My father handles it with anger, my mother with tears, my brother with quietness and I'm the crazed anxiety ridden daughter. These panic attacks followed me throughout much of my life. They traveled with me on long road trips where I had no where to go and others in the car had to witness my erratic behavior, they kept me company on long airplane flights when flight attendants had to rearrange seats so I could be next to my mother, they even tagged along at college parties where I had to lock myself in a room for an hour until it passed. The only solution seemed to be medication which made me feel like mush. I have learned how to handle them better now and haven't had one in a while, well except a year ago around this time when I was traveling home in the snow I had one that caused me to black out and I had to pull over until it passed. The gallon of coffee I drank before I left surely didn't help and it would have been helpful if there had been a bathroom where I pulled over.

Note to self: Probably not a good idea having a history of anxiety attacks to inject my body with Dunkin Donuts crack before headed on a long road trip by myself at night in the snow!