I watch the dot on the screen go back and forth.
2011
“I’m not feeling well,” I told Luanne in the back of the cab in Times Square.
Traffic had stopped, I was trapped, helpless.
“I’m really not feeling well.”
Luanne fussed at the cab driver, “Why would you take us through Times Square? What were you thinking? We need to get to the hospital!”
“Please help me,” I said as I opened the cab door and fell onto the sidewalk.
My body was covered in sweat, my vision had blurred. Someone was moving me out of the crowd and into the shade of a building. A small crowd had gathered.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Is she ok?”
“I have paddles if her heart stops.”
I was surrounded by concerned faces in the middle of New York City. No one had ever told me what a panic attack was, so I assumed I was dying. I was taught that anxiety and panic attacks were self-created experiences for the mentally weak or unwell, conditions that could be fixed with a more positive outlook.
An ambulance had been called on my behalf, but when they arrived a few minutes later, I was sweaty and afraid, but the feeling had passed. I could see the look on their faces…
Why the hell are we here? They must’ve known what I didn’t.
I told them I would take a cab to the hospital to avoid the cost of an ambulance ride. Their frustration and rolled eyes were as shaming as they were intended to be.
Whatever this was, it wasn’t an emergency.
You are so stupid for asking for help, I thought to myself.
You should’ve known better.
When I got to that dark, dreary emergency room in Manhattan, the doctors ran all of the tests that they could before recommending I see a cardiologist. A hereditary heart condition on my mother’s side of the family had us all assuming I had a cardiac episode. Months later, I’d get test results that said my heart was just fine, but I didn’t know that then.
Three days after Times Square, I was on an airplane about to depart from LaGuardia when I wondered, if I had another episode on this plane, who would help me?
I couldn’t embarrass myself again, so I had to make sure something was really wrong if I was going to ask the flight attendant to help me.
I started to panic.
I felt like I was spiraling, but this time, I knew it was anxiety about whether I was sick enough to ask for help or not. I couldn’t talk to the flight attendant if nothing was wrong.
And so, I was alone.
Terror.
I got hot and sweaty, and I felt like I was trapped again with no one to help me. I sat helpless in that seat on the tarmac.
After a few minutes, I calmed down, and then it hit me…
That might’ve been a panic attack.
I watch the dot on the screen go back and forth.
1997
We went to Disney World that day, and I ate enough to make myself sick when I laid down in bed that night.
I got up and told my Mom I couldn’t sleep, I told her I felt horrible. I asked her to sit with me in the bathroom until I felt better.
The first five or ten minutes, she was comforting.
But as time went on, she seemed to be getting frustrated that my sickness wasn’t passing.
Everyone else in the house was asleep, it had been a very long day, but we were sitting on the bathroom floor late into the night because I felt nauseous and didn’t want to be alone.
I tried to make her laugh as I watched her face fall, as I saw the fatigue creep in. I tried to be sweet so she wouldn’t be annoyed with me. I needed her there, but I could tell she didn’t want to be anymore.
I needed comfort, but I also didn’t want to be annoying.
This is my first memory of feeling ashamed of my needs.
After that night, I decided that, when I felt sick, I wouldn’t bother anyone with it.
Years later, I felt that same shame when I admitted to Luanne in the back of the cab in Times Square, “I’m really not feeling well.”
Self-reliance had become a core value of mine by then. Asking others for help was not something that I did. I didn’t burden others with my needs.
I watch the dot on the screen go back and forth.
2025
I’m laying on my bathroom floor.
My clothes have been soaked through with sweat, and I’m fully aware that I’m having a panic attack, aware that it should pass soon.
I felt trapped in pain and discomfort. What if it never ends?
“Please help me,” I say out loud to no one.
I am alone.
“Please help me,” I plead, aware that help isn’t coming.
Terror.
As a child with a sensitive stomach, I got sick a lot, but I learned how to suffer silently.
As an adult, I have two or three go-to medications when I’m experiencing gastrointestinal distress. I start with Pepcid, move to Tums, and if things get desperate, I take Pepto.
And when they don’t work, I stand on the edge of panic and peace, trying to remember that I’m safe, and this will end.
I couldn’t medicate myself as a child, so rather than experiencing relief in a matter of minutes, I would sit for hours near a toilet feeling nauseous with no one around.
My fear that my sickness will never end stems from those hours of suffering alone.
I watch the dot on the screen go back and forth.
1997
I wasn’t always alone.
Sometimes, there was one person there.
When my second oldest brother, Bobby, found me lying there, he wouldn’t make a big deal out of it, but he would sit with me.
He’d talk to me and distract me, he would try to make me laugh. I could hear him advocating for me in the kitchen, asking my mom what he could give me. “She’s really sick,” he’d say.
I remember the first time he gave me a dose of a “disgusting pink medicine that should help.”
“Don’t breathe through your nose!” he’d joke, coaching me as I took the medicine.
He was the first to give me a dose of Pepto.
He helped me.
I watch the dot on the screen go back and forth.
2025
We’re at a picnic with our church group. After eating two slices of pizza, my stomach turns. The sensation triggers a sense of danger in my brain, and the anxiety rushes in.
I’m surrounded by five or six people who are essentially strangers, my husband is playing with our kids on the playground 20 yards away.
He can’t help me, he’s responsible for our boys.
I am alone.
My vision is getting blurry.
“Are you ok, Alycia?” someone asks me.
I’m beginning to sweat.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m ok,” I say, “I’m just not feeling well.”
The admission hangs in the air like a confirmation that everything is about to spiral in this park in front of all of these nice people that I will never be able to see again if I lose control.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” someone says.
“Do you need anything?” someone else asks.
“No, I should be ok, I’m just really nauseous,” I take some deep breaths, watching my husband and feeling the eternity between us.
I know that, if I get his attention, I am damned to panic. I would be vulnerable in my admission like I had been that day in Times Square when I said, “I’m really not feeling well.”
I keep breathing, telling myself that panic attacks are experienced in the body. If I could breathe, I could come back down.
And so, I keep breathing for a few minutes, focusing on the breeze and the colors of the playground, and I come back down.
“Do you want a ginger chew?” the older woman at the other table asks.
“Yes, please. That should help,” I said, knowing good and well that it wouldn’t help. Ginger chews aren’t great for things like fear and shame.
I watch the dot on the screen go back and forth.
“Really, Alycia?”
I hear her say outside of a specific memory, the words carrying immense shame.
It’s shame for needing comfort, for needing anything at all.
I can only rely on myself.
“Really, Alycia?”
I should always be ok. I should be able to take care of myself.
I should be ashamed if I ever need something from someone else, even if it’s only comfort and presence
“Really, Alycia?”
I watch the dot on the screen go back and forth.
When I am suffering, I’m afraid of being alone.
What if I get trapped in the pain? The thought is pure terror.
Is it really better to be alone than to bother someone with my needs?
I begin to question these beliefs that were formed decades before.
I watch the dot on the screen go back and forth.
Any feeling of sickness triggers panic because…
What if this never ends?
What if I am trapped in my suffering?
What if there is no one to comfort me?
Will anyone hear me if I ask for help?
Will they care?
Please, help me…
I watch the dot on the screen go back and forth.
“Good, Alycia,” my therapist says.
“That was good.”