It's the End of the World as We Know it

In watching a CNBC documentary on Hulu (yes, I do watch CNBC documentaries on Hulu) I have learned that at one point Wal-Greens carried a Chia-Obama. As in the Chia pet equivalent of President Obama. Even I think this is extremely sad, and a sad indication of the current economy.

Today was a whole new day of craziness. So I had planned to leave Waco around 1 pm to drive to Houston. This involved me picking up dry cleaning first. And in true fashion of this week, my dress had somehow not been cleaned and wouldn't be ready until 5 pm. To add to that the check engine light had just lit up. So I had to find a Hyundai leadership to run a diagnostic. Luckily it wasn't anything major, but still I had a bit of a panic attack sitting in the dealership.

This concerns me. I haven't had a panic attack since last January. I also didn't have my anti-anxiety medicine with me, which meant I had to just sit there and deal with it in a very public place. Let me explain a panic attack in Claire-terms. It starts off innocent enough with a general feeling of being overwhelmed. Now, being overwhelmed does not always imply that something is about to happen (thank goodness!), but it's like an early tremor. This is then followed by an overwhelming sense of dread in your stomach and chest. Your heart starts racing and you start to feel physically ill. Now sometimes I can catch myself here and back down. I was told once that I should focus on trying to make my heart beat faster because that should be out of one's control. Unfortunately that really just makes me more panicky. The next symptom is a clenching/tightening of extremities. Normally my fists will ball up. Thankfully I had my cell phone so I could play a game on it. Moving my hands and feet won't stop it, but I know that if I can control that part I'm still in some control. Finally, the complete dread moves into hysterics- not actual hysterics, but I teeter on the edge of completely sobbing for no real reason. A good attack will last less than 5 minutes. A bad one will last for about 30 minutes or more. Even now I'm still shaky from it, that's how big a toll it takes on me.

The attack in itself doesn't worry me, but I'm always conscious that it may be indicative of a systematic problem. I'm praying that I'll calm down after this week of chaos.

I'm also thinking that instead of trying to choose a road, I'm just going to set up camp at the fork.