Heart Slams
"Wave"ing goodbye to my window
It was bound to happen. I was hoping it wouldn’t but it did.
My almost three-month-long “window” — the good period when you withdraw from a benzodiazepine, taken as prescribed — slammed shut a few days ago.
I’m riding the “wave” now, and hoping it won’t last very long.
The cortisol/adrenaline surges (what I refer to as '“hot kidney juice”) have returned for the last three nights, right on schedule at 3 a.m. It feels like my heart is being slammed around my ribcage, right out of deep sleep, with dark, chilly, spidery fingers reaching into my chest.
It’s not a heart attack. It’s a panic attack.
What could I have possibly done differently to waylay this situation? Well, let me think.
The day after I returned from good living/good eating/good thinking at Kripalu, I started my day by eating an entire box of Good & Plenty. An. Entire. Box.
That was my breakfast. And my week went downhill from there.
When you learn about Ayurveda, there’s definitely a middle-of-the-road approach, once you have reached a state of optimal health. There’s a sensible 80-20 suggestion — living and eating cleanly and healthfully 80 percent of the time, and cutting yourself a break and letting go of the reins a bit 20 percent of the time.
Let’s just call those days last week my 20 percent, ‘kay?
So yes, I do think my massive intake of sugar and caffeine and other nonsense exacerbated the problem. Along with a bunch of sitting around on my keester and spending hours staring at my phone.
There’s only one way to find out.
I have to get back on the healthy horse to see if everything evens out.
And of course the good news is, I know what the problem is here. This is not a surprise (although it sure feels like one when I wake up gasping for air!). It’s just my body. It’s not my mind. My body is trying to seek its own level, like water. This too shall pass.
And next time I’ll pass on the delicious licorice candy treats.
I’ve been struggling with this and I’m 15+ years off this stuff. I recently did a sleep test and found out I have severe obstructive sleep apnea!! I was waking up gasping for air and having awful panic attacks and now I know it was real. I actually was needing air. It’s crazy to me as a “person with anxiety” to be told oh hey. Maybe not!!
After reading your description I had to chime in with that. I wake with those exact feelings. It’s worse when I eat crappy food or drink alcohol so I stopped drinking much at all a few years ago. Wasn’t worth the night panics or as I know it now, sleep apnea! So crazy. My whole world is apparently gonna change when I can get a cpap machine.
The breakfast of champions! Yegads! I think you've expended that 20%. When I first started working, I found myself in an ER with what I thought was a heart attack, but was just an anxiety attack. May you get through this passage soon!