Panic attacks

Book: From the Ashes I Will Rise

“[..]Panic attacks…

When it comes to panic attacks I can only talk from my point of view. Everybody can google it but for someone who has never experienced it him-/herself it is very hard to understand how it really feels like.

The feeling of losing control over yourself is the worst part of it, I think. When it started with mine I did not really know what was going on although I always had these pictures on my mind. Pictures that haunt me till now.  Pictures of what happened back then.

Not only the pictures from those nights keep coming back to my mind but also ones that concern other incidents I’m struggling with.                                             Therefore I am sure that it feels different if it concerns something else or even someone else.

Some people even panic for apparently no reason where it is way harder to find out the roots of the problem itself. It can be something from your childhood or even something you cannot really remember. But it can also be an anxiety disorder. It is extremely important to know where it comes from in order to defeat it.

Well.. concerning me, it normally starts with a feeling of discomfort. It is something I cannot control, it happens with people I know for a long time but also with people I barely know. My mind tells me “No, you can trust this person” while my feelings tell me “Do not trust anyone.” Like I previously explained if someone you are close to does you wrong like this, you are afraid of everyone.

You can never compare one’s panic attack to another one’s even though the “symptoms” are often similar.

But how can I explain a feeling of something so inexplicable and unbearable?
It can hit me everywhere. It is something I still cannot control one-hundred percent. It is my weakness, my vulnerability.

I do not see myself as damaged or broken but one part of me is definitely not as healthy as others.

It only needs one brief moment that does not feel comfortable and I am losing it. Shaking, being jumpy and not being able to talk is the part that the other person notices. While I feel a fight. A battle over happiness, a battle over control, a battle over emotions that overcome my whole being. Pictures I thought I’ve processed and have made peace with a long time ago suddenly start coming back to my mind. Feeling hopeless. Being angry at myself for losing control over myself. Being angry at myself for letting a person’s act from years ago still control my life. It feels like a vicious circle.

I feel paralyzed.

I want to talk but I can’t. I want to explain how I feel but I just can’t. I want to continue doing what I did but I can’t. I want to have a good time but I can’t because my body just strikes. It is like a writer’s block: You want to write something but you are at a loss for words.

It’s comparable to a blockade just for your body. It feels like every little cell of my body, every little feeling is contracting in my chest, going up to my throat and building a lump in it. A big lump  filled with all the sadness and agony I’ve been through, crushing my soul, overwhelming me. Not being able to breath, feeling out of breath. Feeling a chest tightness. A sadness I cannot handle. Basically losing control over everything; feeling vulnerable, scared, weak, angry, helpless and hopeless; feeling highly uncomfortable and exposed.

Even now just thinking about it while writing this I am struggling for words to explain a reaction experienced so many times in my life that I cannot fully understand myself. I know where it comes from and I know how I’m feeling then but some feelings are indescribable.

How do you explain a feeling when it contains so many different emotions at once?

Most of the time it just strikes out of the blue without any warning. Everything is fine and the next minute I feel like being buried by an avalanche of negative emotions. A racing heart, a a choking feeling, feeling unreal and detached from my surroundings.

It normally feels like it lasts for hours but in reality I think it only lasts about ten minutes. Then I feel better, getting my control back slowly. I slowly can start talking again, the lumps in my breast are loosening. I feel a kind of shame that I exposed myself as so weak but then I tell myself  “At least I am real. A person with feelings in an ice-cold world where feelings are secondary”.

I like to compare it to a feeling of dying inside, burning and then rising again, rising from the ashes like a phoenix.

Often I hate myself for losing control over my own reactions but it is like a vice. Some people’s vices are addictions while mine is this weakness, a weakness that is treatable. Never forget that. It just takes time, healing takes time.

By and by I learned to feel when I am about to have a panic attack again. I still start shaking and feeling paralyzed in a way but I managed over the time to control it so far that I do not start crying uncontrollably and I learned to stop shaking as soon as I notice it. It is still as a war inside of my head when it happens but it is one that I feel like winning every time a bit more and a bit easier even when it’s almost overwhelming me. The panic attacks got shorter and I can put an end to it when I really focus on it. Concentrating on stopping it, telling myself over and over again that I do not have to be scared, telling myself over and over again that I am safe, telling myself over and over again that this person next to me is not the person that raped me or a stranger that molested me. Concentrating on positive things in my life. With all I’ve got I am pulling myself out of these negative emotions, out of this feeling of losing it.[…]”

Breaking my silence

My first book From the Ashes I Will Rise  is now available on amazon, my memoir written down in poetry and thoughts and that means

that today I’m forcing myself to speak openly and publicly about something that haunted me for almost 6 years now. Today I’m choosing to let the world in, into my fears, into my pain. Today I stop protecting the one who raped me and caused me this agony.

It took me almost 6 years to recover, to heal from wounds on my soul that can start bleeding again every single minute.

I myself chose to pick up my broken uncountable pieces to put them back together to a beautiful mosaic to show it to this actual beautiful place called earth.

I myself chose to turn something that ruined my soul and heart for almost 6 years into strength and hope, not only for myself but everybody else.

It took me all I’ve got to heal and I tell you one thing: I will not let anybody victim-blame me or anything. I will not let anybody put any kind of negativity into my life ever again.

I am good on my own and every single person from my surroundings that chooses to blame me for something that wasn’t in my control will be cut out of my life.

And if I can be hope for others and help people to find the strength to leave a toxic environment behind then I’ll feel highly honored and will have reached my goal and if I cannot do this then I’ll still be proud of myself for exactly doing that.

Today I’m speaking up not only for myself but for every single soul out there that suffers.

From the Ashes I’m rising today and so will you.

Get a copy of my book and let me inspire and strengthen you: From the Ashes I Will Rise

Love,

Soyadeba

What people don’t tell you about the consequences of rape and sexual assault

1. Panic attacks
   The survivors of sexual assault and rape often have to deal with panic attacks even years afterwards. But what is a panic attack?
   A panic attack is an overwhelming feeling that takes over and can hit you in every situation that does not feel 100% comfortable. You have a feeling of losing control over yourself and your reactions. You feel paralysed and being crashed by an avalanche of negative emotions. Shaking, being jumpy and maybe crying is the part that the other people see but what you feel is a fight. A battle over happiness, a battle over control, a battle over emotions that overcome your whole being. Pictures you thought you’ve processed come back to your mind and ruin a situation that was meant to be beautiful. Often it just strikes out of the blue without any warning. A racing heart, a choking feeling, feeling unreal and detached from your surroundings. Every feeling is contracting in your chest, going up your throat and building a big lump in it. Feeling out of breath, not being able to talk.
   But how do you get out of them?
   You need to ask yourself what exactly the triggers are that cause a panic attack that sets you back to the incidents. Then try to avoid situations where it’s possible to be triggered. When you have some time for yourself ask yourself what is it that makes you feel content, calm and happy? Is it a looking at beautiful flowers? Hiking? The forest? Stargazing? It can be whatever, it just needs to be something that symbolises peace, calmness and safety for you. Practice imagining this symbol, just like meditating. Then when a panic attack hits you try to sit down, close your eyes, pet your arms slowly and softly with your hands and concentrate on this symbol until the lump in your throat is loosening and you’re feeling calm again. Tell yourself that you are safe. Tell yourself that you are okay. Tell yourself that you are normal because that is what you are. You are not what happened to you.
2. The Talk
   No one tells you that you probably have to talk to your partner or soon-to-be partner about what happened to you. Even if you don’t do it there will probably come a moment where you do not react like other people would do behind closed doors. You have experienced a terrible and awful thing and it’s absolutely normal that you do not enjoy everything like you used to before or like other people enjoy it. If you are still afraid of having Sex with somebody then you do not need to do it. There is no rush. It is your body and your mental health. But you’ll probably come to the point where your partner should know, at least kind of, what happened to you in order to react the right way or in case you have a panic attack. If your partner knows these things your partner can even help you to cope with it.
   No one tells you that if you hook up with someone that it’s possible that you suddenly feel uncomfortable out of nowhere and that you feel like leaving or that you might just run away. So every time before it gets to a point like that the survivors have to ask themselves if they should tell their partner about it or not since we do not want to put a person in a situation like that if it was not their fault at all.
   Do not feel ashamed to talk about it, do not feel abnormal. It can happen to everyone and I’m sorry to say that but if your partner cannot deal with this and cannot be there for you or is even victim-blaming then you should not see that person again. You went through horrible things and you do not need such negativity in your life.
3. Rape in relationships
   Most survivors experienced rape in a relationship or with someone from the inner circle.
   Rape happens in relationships. If you tell your partner to stop or that you do not want to sleep with him/her then your partner has to respect that. If your partner does not respect it then it is rape. When someone from your inner circle does you wrong like this the survivor mostly does not start a physical fight. First of all, you would have never thought that this person would do this to you since you trusted him/her and that is your right. It is your right to trust people from your surroundings. It is okay that you did not start a physical fight or that you only said “stop” or “no” because with what right does someone touches your body or even puts something inside of it if you don’t want it? It’s still rape. It’s not non-consensual sex because there is sex and there is rape and if you don’t want somebody to touch you or sleep with you then it’s rape. You do not have PTSD for no reason. It doesn’t matter if you started a fight with your perpetrator or not because your PTSD is not lying, your feelings are not lying to you. This person did destroy a part of your soul and it wouldn’t have been different if you had screamed or hit or kicked that person because the rapist would not care anyway. A rapist only cares about power, his needs and satisfaction. A rapist does not care about you and would not care if you started a fight, most of the time. And it could have ended even messier or even more dangerous if you had fought physically.
4. Feeling paralysed
   As I started to explain the reaction of yours is normal even if you did not fight. You did not want to have Sex or be touched and someone forced it on you anyway.
   Lots of survivors talk about the feeling of being paralysed.
   People need to understand that in a situation that harms you your inner instincts are to flee, freeze or fight. But normally your body’s sympathetic system chooses the instinct of freeze, being paralysed. You just block your surroundings out, you’re not able to speak or think anymore till the situation is over because that is how you can survive. It’s a protective mechanism of your brain and therefore it’s absolutely normal!
5. People will make you feel like a victim
   When you finally decide to talk about everything then there will be lots of people that make you feel like a victim even though all you want to do is feeling normal, being like everyone else.
   People don’t do this to make you feel bad! There are good people out there and they just cannot believe that someone would hurt a rose like you, that someone could ever harm a beautiful soul as yours. Don’t let them make you feel like a victim because you are a survivor. You survived something that was meant to destroy you and yet here you are reading this, breathing, being alive. Tell these people that you are not what happened to you and that you might be more sensitive about some things now but you are not a completely different person, you just went through hell yet you came out alive and that is what makes a survivor out of you, not a victim.
6. Feeling hopeless
   There will be times when you feel hopeless and blue. Times when you want to give up on everything, times when you think you cannot cope with all these things.
   But guess what? That is normal, that just means that you do have feelings in an ice-cold and fast moving world and that my dear, that is a beautiful thing.
   There are always little things in life that can make you smile and can dry your tears, even if it’s only reading a book, going for a walk or listening to your favourite artist. Hold onto those little things that are actually the biggest things when it comes to happiness. You will feel hopeless but always remind yourself of the good things in life.
   After darkness comes always light and without darkness light would not even exist.
   That’s life and your life goes on and you will handle this sadness and you will get through it. You are stronger than you think. Just take all the time you need to lick your wounds.