The Bat: My First Anxiety Attack

For a long time I thought my anxiety issues were something that was new... like something happened to me and now I have anxiety. One of the things I tried to do was think about when I had my first anxiety attack. I was in grade school and it was a field trip to Kings Island. (Yes to an amusement park) To date myself Kings Island still had "The Bat" and animals at the time. (I remember the bat being near where we ate lunch that day) I think we were there to see the animals. I remember I had an awesome packed field trip lunch. I think I had a hostess snack and a Big K grape pop wrapped in aluminum foil. You know you were big stuff when you were rocking the aluminum foil pop. The field trip lunch was always a big production.. a special event so to speak.... the culinary version of show and tell back then.

I remember that I went into the bathroom and there was some kid in there screaming in the stall and I had no clue why. The stall was open and it was the handicap one. I dunno if he was backed up or something and he was giving birth, but I was just a little kid so I didn't know. I don't think anything suspect was going down in there but I remember having the feeling like I had to get out. Basically that feeling you would have if you were in the garbage compactor from Star Wars. Even when I think about it I remember some of the weird feelings I had about it. That Big K was good though. :)

My first memory of anticipatory anxiety was when I was in 4th grade. I remember I was in Mrs. Beason's class and I remember she made us have our parents sign our homework when your grade sucked. Well I hated doing homework so I would just forge my mom's signature. I would get an F on my homework and since my mom would never see it I was cool and the gang. One day my master plan came to a screeching halt when my forgery work was questioned. During recess while everyone was getting jiggy on the monkey bars I was in the library standing outside the little office in there while Mrs. Beason called my mom. I remember feeling like I was light headed and that I was going to throw up something fierce. I remember  I couldn't sit still and couldn't catch my breath, all feelings I get now when I have anxiety issues.

So what does all this mean? What lessons can be gleamed from my criminal elementary past? At first when I remembered these events I thought to myself "Hey I have always been a nutjob!". But the thing that took me a while to realize is yes those were early anxiety attacks when I was little but I had survived! I made it. Things were able to go back to normal after I had issues. My life went on and it wasn't until later in life that I had issues like that again.

If you are in the throws of anxiety sometimes it feels like you will never be "normal" again. You want to do whatever you can to "fix" the problem. By thinking back to these past experiences it can help you realize that you can get through it and things will be ok. I know it isn't that simple to say hey I did it before I can do it again but it does help.