busybee fluffy rambles

Wellp, I had another big panic attack while driving today. Worst one I’ve had in around a year, and my usual grounding and mindfulness things didn’t help. I had a vertigo attack while entering the tunnel to the I-90 bridge, and this very quickly cascaded to a full-on panic shutdown.

I managed to make my way to Mercer Island and stopped at a Starbucks to collect myself, and then was able to get back across the bridge to make my way to Rainier Ave to drive home via surface streets, and had a good cry when I got home.

Back in 2015, I was a complete mess, and I did everything I could to hide it. I was still having panic attacks regularly, and they would be brought on by the slightest provocation. But I felt, working in tech, that I had to be quiet about it, and just let things pass and things would get better if I ignored them.

One day a coworker did a thing that triggered a pretty big panic attack. It wasn’t anything malicious on his part, just a cavalier, morbid joke in gestural form that happened to tread upon one of my biggest triggers.

I felt awful, and I wanted to keep from feeling that way again.

So I messaged him on our work chat, and told him that the gesture he made happens to be a huge trigger for me and I was having a pretty major panic attack as a result. And his response was incredibly helpful: he didn’t realize, he understood, and he wouldn’t do it again. And he stuck to that.