Drepression/Panic Attack

Saturday something unsettling happened.

I went in early because the regular slicer had been sick and it wasn't clear if he would be there Saturday. Well he didn't show up so I ended up slicing for the day. I was worried about getting back in the swing of slicing but after a couple of hours it felt a little like I had never left. It felt good to be back in the saddle as they say.

After work I went over to Hasting's to use their free wifi. I found an empty chair in their cafe and pulled out my netbook. I had planned on going through my feed reader and getting caught up on everything. It's been a little more than a week and I had over a thousand items to wade through. It took me longer than I thought it would but luckily I had packed my charger in my bag that morning and Hasting's has plugs for you to plug your laptop into. I finished up, unplugged my netbook, put it to sleep, stowed everything and walked out of the cafe.

I considered the time and decided to walk down the street to a different bus stop than the one closest to Hasting's so I could get home sooner at the expense of walking a few blocks. As I was about to cross the street things started to go bad. Watching for traffic to clear I suddenly had the thought, "That suv is going fast enough and all I have to do is step off the curb RIGHT NOW."

I stepped away from the curb, took a deep breath and cleared my mind. I made it across the street and kept walking to the bus stop. I felt puzzled as to why that thought had entered my mind. I hadn't been feeling depressed and nothing upsetting had happened, so why was I feeling the urge to kill myself. As I walked my thoughts shifted to negative feelings. I began to feel like everthing was spiraling out of my control and everything was going wrong with my life. Normal depression thoughts for me. I counter with repeating, "Everything is fine. My life is good." over and over to keep any other thoughts out of my head.

As I walked the feels seemed to strengthen and I had to stop walking a couple of times to calm myself down. I discovered that running my hands through my hair like I was petting a dog helps me to calm down some. When it came time for me to cross the street again I felt overwhelmed by the number of cars that seemed to be barreling out on me. I couldn't force myself to cross when any cars were even in sight. After crossing I once more had to stop to calm myself before crossing one final street to the bus stop. As I stood there waiting for the light to change so I could cross I felt surges of panic every time a car passed by. Finally the light changed and I was able to walk to the safety of the bus shelter.

I had one more monment of panic when I looked for the shelter and didn't see it right away in the dim twilight but it was there and I felt a little relief at seeing my destination. Once in the shelter, which is little more than a bench, three plexiglass walls and a roof, I turned my back on the street and concentrated on relaxing. By the time the bus came I was much more in control but still didn't trust myself to look at traffic. Thanks to years of riding the local buses, I felt safer once in the bus and didn't have anymore spikes of panic the rest of the way home, though I also did not look out the windows at traffic either.

The walk home from the bus stop nearest my home was also fairly uneventful thanks to the low traffic volume on that street though I did still feel depressed and was scared silly by a dog barking in a fenced yard(I am usually not scared of dogs barking). Getting home and into my room helped to drive away some of the fears I was feeling but I still curled up on my bed and hugged my stuffed lemur for about an hour.

I wrote the above Sunday night before I packed up my dirty clothes and took off to my laundry mate. On the way I had a disturbing thought. I was still thinking about Saturday and how upset I felt about feeling the urge to kill myself. Then I realized that the reason it upset me was because I really don't want to kill myself. But what about the day that it doesn't upset me? That will be the day I give in to those urges. That will be the day I kill or try to kill myself. I won't even care that I'm doing it I'll just do it. That really scares me. As one of my characters said, "No one want to kill themselves until they do it."