"I don't know what's going on, but I feel very distressed and I just want to cry... It's also really hard to breathe, and I can feel my room getting smaller. I'm very scared". I pressed send and the nightmare began"
I never really called by its name. I guess I wasn't even aware of the concept itself nor the symptoms. When the first panic attack hit me, I was walking home by myself in Melbourne, where I lived as part of my year abroad in Australia.
I remember how weird I've been that day and how I couldn't understand what was going on. I was just pretty... off; so off that I even pushed myself to go out for dinner after work, as food usually cheers me up, but even that didn't work.
As soon as I left the restaurant, I felt my heart rate rising. "Is this how a heart attack feels?", I wonder concerned, while trying to speed up to get home faster. It was dark and I was walking by myself on a very lonely street and I didn’t understand what was happening to my brain and my heart.
The journey felt longer than usual. When I got home, I ran upstairs to my room to lay down and try to breathe normally again. I was finally in my safe place, but I didn't feel safe at all, and the anxiety was growing bigger inside of me.
I messaged a friend who was in Sydney and said: "I don't know what's going on, but I feel very distressed and I just want to cry... It's also really hard to breathe, and I can feel my room getting smaller. I'm very scared". I pressed send and the nightmare began.
Travelling and living inside of my head
Right now, four years after that day, I can't remember the situation pretty well, but I do recall that tears didn't stop until an hour later and I felt like my heart was about to leave my body. I felt trapped and hopeless all of a sudden, and I was shaking and disoriented. It was my room, but I didn’t feel myself. Why couldn't I control this sensation of panic, as I usually could control myself?
After that episode, I felt exhausted and restless, which lasted for a good couple of days. I didn't tell many people about it; I didn't want to sound like too much of a drama-queen or something. But the truth is that these kinds of experiences happen more often than we would want them to. They can be so silent that it makes it quite hard to spot them out on time.
Later on, I'd found out that what happened to me was a panic attack, which is clinically described as a sudden episode of intense fear that triggers severe physical reactions when there's no real danger or apparent cause. They can be very frightening and you may think you're losing control, having a heart attack or even dying. For me it was a little bit of all of those, plus the fear of not knowing what it was or if it was going to end at some point.
Over the years, I've discovered that at least a quarter of my friends –back home and travellers too– have experienced a situation like the one I had. Others now understand even that their constant sense of fear (mostly about things that haven't even happened yet) is actually called "anxiety". To be fair, it’s something quite new for me too.
"In the middle of a pandemic, these feelings increase as uncertainty has become the new reality"
When I was in Chile, I constantly struggled with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Every time I stressed about uni assessments, big meetings at work or even about any sort of family issues, I could feel my belly growing faster and could be totally bloated in a matter of seconds. When I moved overseas, my body started to relax, but my head began to spin in a way that I've never experienced before.
Personally, I think my panic attacks are way more scary than my anxiety itself, even when the panic attacks don’t happen as often as my anxious episodes of overthinking and worrying about anything.
The way I see it, panic attacks take everything away from you, leaving you absolutely empty and naked, while anxiety tells you that everything is against you, increasing the personal pressure you put on yourself on a daily basis. That’s the way I see it and try to differentiate them from each other.
"How could it be when you look so happy on that last post on your Instagram?"
Not all that glitters is gold
It's difficult to think about your mental health getting worse when you're travelling because from the outside it looks like you're having the time of your life. How can it be when you're visiting gorgeous beaches, hiking through breath-taking mountains or partying with the most diverse and cool kinds of people you've ever met before?
I mean, how can you ever feel miserable when you're "living the dream"? How could it be when you look so happy on that last post on your Instagram? It doesn't make any sense… but it does, and it happens more often and to more people than we might think, unfortunately.
In my experience, anxiety can grow bigger when you struggle to find a job out of your career field –one of those "backpacker jobs" you know– and when you don't have enough money to pay rent that week but still have to pretend to be alright while Facetiming your parents.
The truth is, anxiety, panic attacks and other mental health issues don’t show up in the middle of your face like a massive red pimple does. This is quieter and more silent. It doesn't want everyone to see it; it's just for you to feel it.
It also shows up when you want to stay where you are but only have two months left on your visa, or when you get kicked out of the place you were renting just three weeks before Christmas (true story). And it also shows up when the time to face past events arrives, even when you're thousands of kilometres away and trying to feel safe again.
At this exact moment, in the middle of a pandemic, these feelings increase as uncertainty has become the new reality. Not knowing when it's going to stop or when will we be able to live as we used to, freaks us out whether we want it to or not.
Personally, when my anxiety goes up and it feels like the weight of the world is getting too heavy to carry it all by myself, has helped me a lot to be around my friends and family (even if it's over the phone) and keeping myself busy with meditation and hobbies that I enjoy, like painting and reading. But that doesn't dissolve the issue, not to me at least.
My next step will be therapy because I feel like I need it to get through this. It might be a long way to go, but I'm willing to take the chance to try to give myself a little bit of peace. If you're dealing with anxiety and/or panic attacks, remember you're not alone and that there's help out there; connect with those who might be able to give you a hand. In the meanwhile, be kind to yourself; you're a worthy and strong human being.
