Slowly Slowly Back to Work

I am still feeling extremely apprehensive about getting back to work and have told the boss that I am going to do this gradually this week and so half days.  I start tomorrow.  I will be taking early or later trains and just see how I get on.

The sheer feelings of panic and stress are clear in my mind and it is interesting to note that some of this may be hormonal and adrenal which kind of makes sense in a way as I reckon that my whole body has been whipped to bits these past three years or so and it just needs to try and regain its equilibrium.   Your hormone balance takes a hell of a whack and adrenaline gets used up and not fully replaced.

I wasn't surprised to read some of the stuff about Claustrophobia especially the suffocating feeling you get with it.  The Panic attacks and the feeling that you are going to die provokes a run away from it need and the trouble is you are normally trapped and cannot do that - hence that feeling of being trapped just gets worse.  Unless you've had a panic attack you really cannot understand the terrifying nature of it nor of the havoc it wreaks on you.  Chest constrictions, heat and hot flushes and sweating, nausea, double vision - yuk it is pretty awful.

I know my mother has this and it seems to be a bit of a family trait.  Anyone who hasn't had it probably cannot understand it but I imagine it is how drowning or suffocating or being caught in a fire or trapped in wreckage - like in a building after an earthquake must feel.   

I need to consider what to do about these attacks though as whilst I had some of these before I cannot remember them being as intensely upsetting as they have been this past year.  This time last year because I was trapped in my own head with both ears infected and me being deaf for about a month I was in a bit of a mess.   I was able to control it as I was at home and could look out of a window or go outside.  On a train and an more so underground trains I just have nowhere to go.  I thought I might get like this in St. Petersburg at the Hermitage where they did suggest the crowds were bad but I was more aware of watching out for pickpockets than being in a crowded place and I was with a guide and as I normally am, I was prepared and could actually move around and determine courses of action to mitigate any unforeseen circumstance.

I'm actually quite worried about this now as I worry about if I ever have a cold like I did last year will I just end up dying of suffocation or just stress myself out completely.

People that know me realise that I'm just not like this normally.  I exude confidence and self belief and here I am quaking in my boots worried about getting on a train and going to work and worried about how I'll get home.  In fact, it is the loss of control or normality that has added to the uncertainty and doubt that feeds the phobia.  I must ask my friend if he can undo any of this for me.   

I'm actually frightened and I can only think of a few times in my life when I have actually been this scared of anything.  Cancer itself and all the early stuff was frightening.  Seeing a guy running amok with an Axe years ago was pretty frightening.  Being deaf and ill.  Having a policeman pull a gun on me was sobering.  Seeing a guy get glassed on a train and subsequently going to court was scary.  Being on the edge of the riots in London and missing at least 5 or 6 major bombings were also scary.  realising that only a few weeks after I stopped commuting that I may have been on a train that was involved in a major accident and when I thought I was in the middle of an earthquake in Italy too could be deemed scary.  Those sorts of frightening experiences shook me up for a long time.   This current anxiety isn't as extreme in terms of the immediacy of it.  This is more a pent up fear and I have no idea how I will get on tomorrow with travelling in.  I fully intend to get up early and just see how I do.  If I can't hack it - I can get off the train and come home.  

I'm not looking forward to this one bit but I have to do it I guess.  It seems a strange notion that some of the things I fear are pretty much not possible (running out of air on the train for example) but that is what it feels like and in a panic attack that really starts your breathing problems!