Anxiety

I have nothing that can accurately describe the cold terror that accompanies a full blown anxiety attack. It started with chest pains, then difficulty breathing and then then a no-holds barred full-on-full-fat-serious-motherfucking panic attack.

I have no idea what triggered it this morning. There was that idiot in the traffic. The realisation that I didn't have keys to open the office with. The receptionist/admin assistant who is off sick yet again (she fears she has finger cancer) and I have to do both my work and hers.

It was very dramatic. A lady from an adjoining office popped in to say hello and found me red faced, bent double and gasping while clutching my chest.

I hate this thing. I though I was handling things okay. Just the other day I congratulated myself on how well I appeared to be doing and that perhaps the last anxiety attack I had was, in fact, THE last.

Sitting here with the cold wet cloth pressed to my face, I feel like a complete fool. I popped the little magic pill I got from the doctor at the hospital from my last histrionic attack, and I feel like an utter fool. I have calmed down. The chest pains are gone and I have absolutely no idea whatsoever to make of what has just happened.

What I have done is disrupted several people's days. My wife raced back from Johannesburg city, my friend Joe in the opposite office block was summoned to sit with me.  And now, here I am, alone, and reasonably okay, but I have no real answer as to why this has happened. Again.

And mostly, I feel like a fool.