I remember the first anxiety attack I had. I was eleven and starting junior high in a new school with kids other kids that had been fifth graders the year before from four other elementary schools. I walked into a classroom filled with people I had never seen before and I looked around and no one else was scared. My heart started to race. So much so, that I could feel my blood coursing through the veins in my hands and head. I took a deep breath and when I tried to exhale, the tears poured uncontrollably from my eyes. It was the hardest I think I had ever cried in my eleven years. My teacher walked me to the school social worker and for two months I saw her every morning because every morning I told myself I would go into class with the other kids and sit down and I would be okay. And every morning, I walked through those doors and felt like a stranger in my own body.

I don't know what changed, but eventually I was able to go to class without feeling so scared. I didn't know that those things I had felt were a real issue. I just assumed there was something wrong with me and for my whole life I battled these attacks from time to time. They kept me from attending social gatherings in my teen years. They kept me from wedding showers and baby showers and when I became pregnant with my first child, they were so uncontrollable they began to affect my work. My obstetrician limited my work availability to fewer hours. That helped.

When my kids were born and had their heart problems, I experienced them again, with full force, every time we had to see a doctor. They usually occurred the night before the visit, when I was alone in bed with my thoughts.

I had a severe panic attack the day I got married, walking down the aisle. That should have been a clue.

I started having them more frequently, when my dad died. Over the years I tried several medications for them, but none of them ever really seemed to help. My husband, when I was married, told me I didn't need them. That the attacks were in my head and that I just needed to "stop" them myself. I never claimed he was the world's smartest man.

The last few months have been a living Hell for me with not only panic attacks, but also with depression. I finally found a place to get help and get healthy with these things. As I type tonight, I am mourning the loss of when this illness has cost me over my life. Over the nearly twenty years I've been having them. And the fifteen or so I've dealt with the depression. I've lost fun with friends because the comfort and safety of my bed was more appealing. Or because I couldn't find the strength to get myself out of bed. I've lost the ability to communicate openly and freely even with those who I love and trust because of my fear of displeasing and being rejected. I think, looking back, had I been open and honest immediately instead of waiting until it bubbled over, those people I held back from would have accepted and appreciated my honesty and open heartedness and we would have worked through whatever the issue was together.

The last couple of days have been the hardest I think I have ever had. The months of self doubt and internal pain hit their peak and came bursting to the surface. It was when TSMA said, "You need to get your shit together, KK. I can't be your savior" that I removed myself from the situation and saw it from a point of view I never had. I was drowning. I know that I am now on the path to understanding. I am excited to learn and to change different patterns of behaviors and I am happy I found a way to do it healthily.

I started today off a little rough, but I was optimistic because I felt like I had the man who was my biggest supporter, who sees me for me and gets me, who knows my strength and I thought understood my weaknesses, by my side. Here to watch me as I figured this all out. To give me a boost when I needed it. I could see myself growing, learning and doing that with him. In the ways I think I've fallen short at times. But now I'm not so sure he wants to grow with me. And it's tearing me apart. This is the only man I have ever felt truly connected to. All through my marriage I felt I was with someone that never saw me. Never saw what was beautiful about who I am. Never saw that I had strength behind my pain and kindness overpowering to any angry word I spoke and good to any negative thought I had and felt. Never saw the way I wanted to experience life and love and happiness and joy. I married a man that put all the things about me into a tiny bubble and let them build for years and years until I wasn't just drowning anymore, I was dead on the ocean floor.

Finding my way to the surface over the years following our divorce was rough. When I met TSMA, I in no way intended he'd be the one to breathe life back into me. I thought, over the last few days, how lucky I am to have someone that not only gave me that breath, but continues to give me the tools I need to breathe on my own and to be HAPPY I was doing it alone.

A favorite lyric from a favorite band came to me just now...

"So I'll meet you at the bottom
If there really is one, they always told me
When you hit it you'll know it
But I've been falling so long
It's like gravity's gone and I'm just floating"

I hit bottom. While I broke out of the bubble my marriage created for me, I never learned how to really live outside it. That's what I'm doing now. My heart is just breaking because I really believed the man that made me see I needed to live would be here to live with me. I guess I still don't know that he won't. But I'm hurt and I'm scared and this is all new to me.