X

During my walk last night, I realized that my anxiety and panic attacks are a lot like the two ecstasy trips I've had. I tried ecstasy when I was in Florida and the whole experience was awful. Since it was my first time I figured a half tab would do the trick but it turned out to be too much. I was high for four days and felt like I was possessed. At one point I even looked in the mirror and saw someone else. It scared the shit out of me.
And yet, I chose to try it again. The second time was at an outdoor concert with Logic, some friends and my sister. I hoped that surrounding myself with people I loved would change the high for me but it didn't. It wasn't as bad as the first, but let's just say there was nothing ecstatic about it. I had a major panic attack in the middle of the concert and my sister had to walk me around for an hour. When I finally did come down, I swore never to do it again. Or any drug for that matter. Because strangely enough, I'd had similar reactions to smoking marijuana. Full on panic attacks, jitters, and extreme paranoia.
Kind of ironic that a few years later I would start having panic attacks and anxiety without the help of any drug. Granted, with anxiety I don't hallucinate but I do feel possessed sometimes. It's like an out of body experience. I feel like I float outside of myself and leave the cavity of my body open for an invasion. Invasions of thoughts that I can't control, feelings I can't suppress and and unlimited cyclone of fear.
The first panic attack was so scary that I had to go to the emergency room. I thought I was going crazy. Everything felt like it was caving in and I was suffocating. The room was spinning and I felt helpless. I spent the next four hours seeing a general practitioner, a social worker and a psychiatrist. At two in the morning, I was released with a prescription for celexa and a list of referred psychologists.
When it hit me last night that my panic attacks were reminiscent of those X trips, my first thought was that I did damage to my brain. Irreversible damage that instigated the anxiety. But as I was explaining that to Logic, he had a different take on it which made more sense; he said that maybe the X opened my mind up to something that it wasn't aware of before.
I guess I'll never know, but I feel like I've reached a new level of understanding. When someone is high it's all in their mind and I need to remember that it's also the case with anxiety. Never is anything as desperate and scary as it seems at the time.