Hallelujah. I’ve made it! I spent twenty four hours at James’s flat and avoided a single panic attack.
It started pretty catastrophically. I realised I was sincerely in love with James, that he made my world go all woosey with light and with glee, and that I didn’t want to live without him. But wanting someone in your head, (where you have the luxury of Calvin Klein-montages and Frette sheet sets, a cottage on the water and candles in the bathroom), and making it work in real life is completely different.
After texting James telling him that I loved him and that I wanted to make the relationship work, we arranged to meet on High Street Kensington for a conciliatory coffee. As I dried my hair after my swim and threw on some cheery-and mildly-sexy clothing, my initial feelings of relief and joy began to wane. I started to feel the fear swell. It began low in my stomach and burned its way, like a hot poker, up through my chest and into my throat. My heart began beating quickly: but I knew all the signs.
I told myself I could get through it. “I’m a great person and this is not going to stop me from having a wonderful, amazing and winning life,” I told myself firmly, and locked the door to my apartment.
But as I only tend to know only in hindsight, that moment when I was still in control of my thoughts, should have been when I pulled myself aside, practised a bit of meditation and calmed myself before leaving the house.
It’s terribly difficult being in love and being afraid all the time, because the fear itself can make you believe that you’re not in love, that you’re not right for this person, that there is a persistent threat linked to that person. In truth: it’s fear itself telling you all those things. It’s the nature of the beast to be confusing and disorienting. And if you listen to it, you’ll never have a chance prove it wrong. By the time I saw James (after wandering around Marks and Spencers looking at ghastly capri pants – such was the level of my procrastination), I was in mild-anxiety mode. Thoughts uncomfortably whizzed around my head as we made our way to a local pub. All I could think about was a feeling of being drawn into a terrifying whirlpool of despair as my resolve crumbled beneath feelings of panic.
It kind of went downhll from there into a full panic attack. Not too fun or pleasant to recall. I did my typical thing: extricate myself from any committment, despite the fact that committment was the one thing I wanted to achieve.
He was wonderful about it. “It’s ok, I’ll be your friend, we don’t have to call it a relationship and you can just see me whenever you like until you go home to Australia,” he said. I felt a gush of relief, mixed with horror and pain at the strength of terror I had just been feeling.
As I blubbered my way to the movies with James, I felt disappointed that I hadn’t kicked the panic. I sensed a pattern developing; of my moving closer, having an attack and then moving further away again, until my love for him made me unable to stay away. As soon as the calm returned, I knew something was missing. I’d escaped my fear by “getting out”; but I had also cut off the one thing that gave me pure joy.
I numbed my pain with chocolate-covered liquorice logs and wasabi peas. I also cried a bucketful of tears watching a robot declare his love for another robot (Wall-E – highly recommended film). “Even robots can do it,” I thought, slipping into sheer despair. “There’s something so wrong with me…I’ll die alone,” I thought, hurtling another chocolate log down my throat.
But something told me not to. I remembered the Dalai Lama’s words: we all suffer as humans and suffering is the one thing that binds us together. Suddenly, my perspective widened. I remembered that I among a wealth of other people, all of whom are facing their own challenges. I felt grateful that every human has the ability to achieve perfect happiness. As I reassured myself with these thoughts, I felt a glimmer of hope. Surely, I could get through this and make a relationship work.
Anyone suffering anxiety attacks knows what a relief it is when optimism finally returns.
I went back to James’s place and we had a fantastic, funny and heart-warming evening watching films and chatting. It was heaven. I stayed the night and spent the whole following day with him, without a single panic attack. Success.
