thank you notes (julia weston)(2)

I am thankful for my panic attacks. I am thankful for my panic attacks. I am thankful for my panic attacks. I am trying to be thankful.

I am thankful for the way they start, either utterly unexpectedly or as the culmination of hours of dread. I'm thankful for the sweaty palms, the sudden prickling at the back of my neck, the room suddenly seeming unbearably cold or unbearably hot. I'm thankful for my hands shaking, just a little at first, just enough to interrupt my typing or writing, to make me put my pen down.

I'm thankful for the last coherent sentence I think before my legs began to shake uncontrollably, the only time I ever pray: "God, I would believe in you if you ended this."

I am thankful for not being able to talk because my teeth are chattering. I am thankful for leaning over the toilet, chin pressed to the too-cold porcelain, the temperature both steadying and nauseating, forever on the verge of throwing up. I am thankful for the cycle of thoughts that keeps me in the thick of it, the desperation of "What if this keeps happening forever? How will I survive this?" I'm thankful for my heart beating so fast I get lightheaded, for my biting down on my fist, wrapping myself in blankets and then peeling them off, trying to find the perfect temperature to keep me sane. It's like the peak of awareness, of being alive. It's like being dead.

I'm thankful for the things that cause my panic: being liked, being trapped, being alone; the kind of broad things that crop up at any moment, like after work on my first day of a full-time non-summer job, or when I made a mistake one night and thought about the prospect of going to sleep alone forever, how it stretched out into the distance like a wavering line.

I am thankful for this moment, sitting in a golden-brown room with sunlight streaming in, warmed by a flannel shirt and a blanket, thankful that at this moment panic is the furthest thing from my mind, only an academic exercise.

"There's nothing to be scared of," the psychiatrist said meaningfully, multiple times, leaning toward me as if to press it into my bones. Yes, I said. I know that now.

There is nothing to fear but fear itself.

I am thankful there is nothing to be scared of. I am thankful there is nothing to be scared of. There is nothing to be scared of.

- julia weston (4/9/16). @julieofthewest. juliabweston@gmail.com.