The crazy panic episodes are returning and I am NOT enjoying it one bit.

Friday I had a panic attack at a stop light on the way home from work. What triggered it? Realizing I was at the front of the line of traffic and thinking if I passed out everyone would be stuck behind me. My car felt suffocating. My heart was pounding in my chest like I had just sprinted a 100 yds. I wanted to jump out of my car and stand beside it until the light changed. As soon as the light changed and I was driving, the panic vanished. If I am moving, I am fine. If I am stopped, I could freak out for no reason. 😦

On top of that, I must have caught a stomach virus because my tummy doesn’t feel good at all. It is making my lower back ache and I have what my students use to call “bubble gut”. Ugh!

Yet I persevere. I have to keep doing what needs to get done. There are no breaks for me.

I decided to do the shopping since I had to put food in the fridge. My youngest accompanied me. We made a stop at Ross before grocery shopping. My stomach, which had been better, decided to grumble and hurt. I definitely didn’t feel alright but I pushed through it. A trip to the bathroom helped and we moved on but not before I ate a little something just in case my blood sugar got low (which it tends to do).

Wal-Mart was where we ended up next. I normally don’t go there but I figured why not? Turns out I was all spaced out through the shopping trip and by the time I was waiting in line I began to have that pre-panic feeling. Right there in line I felt like I was going to pass out and then I began to silently freak out because I did not want my poor little guy to have to go through something like that. So, I sorted my thoughts and got my panic under control and got the hell out of there as fast as I could.

I sat in the car a bit before driving away, just to get my wits about me. I had at least five traffic lights between the parking lot and home. Traffic lights tend to increase the likelihood of panic for some reason. Grrr!

I got home without incident and sat in the driveway as my daughter got the groceries. I warned her not to leave the door open or else Monty would run out. Sure enough, within minutes he darted past and across the road to harass a poor woman taking a walk. I had to jump out of the car and get him which was, thankfully, quite easy. He was growling at the woman because she was wearing bright red, over sized headphones. I explained it to her, she let him sniff her and everyone was happy.

When I got inside my stomach was really aching. It feels very much like what I felt when I had that gut imbalance plus a little bit like an intestinal flu. Imagine someone twisting your intestines and your uterus at the same time and you might get an idea of how uncomfortable it is.

With the strange panic episode, the faint feeling and stomach cramping I actually thought to myself, “I must be dying. I’m gonna end up in the ER.” I don’t think things like that often and I’m not really sure why I thought that except that something really feels “off”. I don’t like the feeling at all.

There is no logical explanation for the panic-like episode in line at Wal-Mart. To be honest, I am terrified that these episodes are going to generalize to more and more locations rather than just being isolated to one specific traffic light and section of road like they use to. It is already starting to happen but to shift from the road to inside a store? Gawd!

On the drive home I was thinking that I might be one of “those” people who can’t function anymore in society because being outside among people and in society causes them instant panic to the point of hysteria. The panic makes me want to sprint away from wherever I am. If I am in a car, I want to get out of it. When in line at Wal-Mart I wanted to grab my son and just walk as fast as I could out and away from the store.

It feels like the entire space I occupy is going to collapse on top of me.

WTF is wrong with me!?

It is likely this stomach illness and the energy I have been feeling in my lower chakras are linked. Fear is an emotion related to imbalance in the root chakra (security, survival). With everything going on in my life right now, my seemingly “secure” world being threatened, it might just be exacerbating things and panic is the unfortunate emotional side-effect.

This panic is extreme, though, even for me. Please pray whatever the *uck this is, goes away.