Novel
This evening we flew home. I don't think I'm any more flight-averse than the average person; I hate being stuck in a cylinder full of recycled air and idiots, and I hate the process to get on the damn things, but I understand the physics and the probability of failure. What I'm trying to say is: who's got two thumbs and is not freaked out by airplanes? This guy.
So I'm listening to this This American Life. Act 1 is pretty terrible (I hate the "skit" stuff they pad the shows with sometimes), but I'm tired of my book so I get through it to Act 2, concerning a little girl who needs a heart transplant. Heart transplants, heart surgery, heart problems, these are things that do freak me out. Apparently a lot more than I thought it did:
I start to feel a little lightheaded. Then a lot lightheaded. Then my heart starts racing, I have a little trouble focusing, I start to sweat, my hands lose all of their color and get tingly, I need to put my head between my knees ...
So I take the headphones off, on some level kind of amused at how similar this reaction is to some sort of heart problem. The reaction kind of levels off. So I start to think about how to explain what just happened to K ... and it comes right back, with a vengeance. So I stop thinking about heart stuff, and it levels off again.
So I apparently just had my first panic attack. What a supremely unpleasant experience.
So I'm listening to this This American Life. Act 1 is pretty terrible (I hate the "skit" stuff they pad the shows with sometimes), but I'm tired of my book so I get through it to Act 2, concerning a little girl who needs a heart transplant. Heart transplants, heart surgery, heart problems, these are things that do freak me out. Apparently a lot more than I thought it did:
I start to feel a little lightheaded. Then a lot lightheaded. Then my heart starts racing, I have a little trouble focusing, I start to sweat, my hands lose all of their color and get tingly, I need to put my head between my knees ...
So I take the headphones off, on some level kind of amused at how similar this reaction is to some sort of heart problem. The reaction kind of levels off. So I start to think about how to explain what just happened to K ... and it comes right back, with a vengeance. So I stop thinking about heart stuff, and it levels off again.
So I apparently just had my first panic attack. What a supremely unpleasant experience.